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N-able N-central vs Spiceworks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

N-able N-central
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (3rd)
Spiceworks
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (15th), IT Asset Management (10th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (44th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. N-able N-central is designed for Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) and holds a mindshare of 8.9%, down 12.5% compared to last year.
Spiceworks, on the other hand, focuses on IT Infrastructure Monitoring, holds 0.4% mindshare, down 0.5% since last year.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
N-able N-central8.9%
Kaseya VSA18.2%
NinjaOne13.5%
Other59.4%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Spiceworks0.4%
Zabbix12.0%
Datadog5.0%
Other82.6%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Q&A Highlights

SK
Nov 01, 2017
 

Featured Reviews

Dimitri V G - PeerSpot reviewer
Maximizing operational efficiency with comprehensive monitoring and automation capabilities
There are areas in N-able N-central that could be improved. We always started it from the basic purpose of monitoring hardware, where vendors such as HP and Dell try to sell their own services which monitor and provide a dashboard, which is their logic. They want to make their own recurring revenue on that. We notice that SNMP has had a good run and still sometimes is used, but it's becoming an issue to maintain the same capabilities because HP makes it unreliable or even removes certain features that we used to be able to validate redundant array of independent disks. Our service that has been running for 15-20 years suddenly is not working anymore because HP decided in generation 10 plus and above, or generation 10 hardware in servers, storage controllers particularly, they just didn't put the SNMP OIDs anymore. We are now following that market change or business change in hardware monitoring and the future is Redfish, REST API, IPMI type of monitoring with the REST API and Redfish being most common. We have to do the effort ourselves because Enable is not really strategically going there because I assume there's not much money to make to improve that or to convince customers to start with their product. That issue could be better if they would be more prepared for that change and give us customers more tools, preconfigured, pre-available custom services for Redfish, REST API, where we just have to put a few items username, password and address and some dots and commas, but that we don't have to reinvent the wheel, which we are doing at the moment. We are using HP iLO commandlets and REST APIs for Aruba. Dell is making it very hard to monitor their hardware. If it has an iDRAC, I can manage it and monitor it, but if it's something that's less common or due to the portfolio, they have done a good job at not exposing information about health. We would just want to have a red or a green dot that indicates if this device is healthy or not healthy. Since nobody's investing in SNMP because it's a liability in security, they should invest in making a REST API and preferably also do the work on making it easy to pull or push information. That's something that the industry in general and Enable in particular could do a significant job to help us monitor.
Rohit Samel - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud storage with no hardware needed and great comprehensive reports
The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally. It is a fully software-based solution, eliminating the need for investment in hardware. We have the capability to create reports as needed. It is good software to use, as there were no incidents where I needed to contact technical support. Additionally, it is free software.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature of N-able N-central is the many options it has."
"The support is at a good level. So normally, we can always get to a solution when we are stuck with some monitoring problems that we encounter."
"It's a very robust product. They're continuing to invest and put new enhancements into the product. They're very open about what their roadmap is, which is very good for us because then as a business, we can plan."
"The transition to N-able N-central was very smooth; we were confident that our migration would not affect any operations, and it was easy to migrate our clients into the new solutions."
"The most valuable features of N-central are its ease of deployment and ease of use."
"I like the remote connectivity, reporting suite, and patch management module."
"The most helpful features of N-able N-central include providing a single pane of glass for many insights in an environment regarding their patching, their assets, their devices in general, and the active issues that they show."
"N-able N-central is very scalable."
"The solution is easy to use and easy to manage."
"Helpdesk and inventory are both equally valuable, and they form the true core of the product."
"The nice thing about Spiceworks is always it's free. Monitoring of printers for low toner. Finding machines that have low memory or low hard disk space."
"The software is cloud-based, so I do not need to store any data locally."
"The most valuable features are the inventory and personalization."
"It shows the users that are currently logged in, which is not something that Active Directory by default will ever let you know up front."
"Tickets by e-mail, with actions by hastag."
"If you're in the market for a low-cost service desk system, Spiceworks is a good software solution to start out with, especially when it comes to startups and those organizations that don't currently have any existing service desk software in place."
 

Cons

"We have to do the effort ourselves because Enable is not really strategically going there because I assume there's not much money to make to improve that or to convince customers to start with their product."
"The industry has moved towards Redfish for out-of-band and in-band monitoring, yet N-able N-central still relies on older protocols like SNMP."
"N-central has limited mobile device management (MDM) support, specifically for Android devices. This limitation affected a deal with a client who had numerous Android devices to manage. It would be beneficial if N-central could expand its MDM support to include Android devices."
"The support from our direct team is very good, but the support from their day-to-day ongoing help desk isn't that good. They have still got some work to do on that, but they have been focusing on that a lot over the last number of years. So, it has gotten a lot better than it was."
"The solution's overall integration should be improved."
"At this moment, we encounter stability issues with N-able N-central from time to time."
"Involving AI in the platform could improve it further."
"There is room for improvement in the development of custom monitoring services."
"I would like the solution to allow for more direct interaction with computers. I can open tickets and I can see their status, but I can't interact directly with the computers themselves."
"One of the biggest ways in which Spiceworks could improve is by developing better and more automated workflows. For example, in another solution called ServiceDesk by ManageEngine, you can have levels of approval in the event that there is a request for new software, or when someone requests a VPN or WiFi connection. This kind of multi-stage approval feature provided by ServiceDesk does not appear to exist in Spiceworks, and it is one of their main shortcomings for me."
"I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment."
"Having an integrated asset management tool, where I can plug in things that are offline, would be good."
"I would like to see more information when drilling down into access permissions, assignments management, or tagging. When I click a note or a device, I should be able to see more details about the router and modem. For example, I want to see the version, downtime, availability, latency, etc. I should have easy access to everything about our assets at a glance."
"Since Spiceworks is a free tool, it's not very scriptable or customizable."
"Sometimes, it can be difficult to integrate what you need."
"There are a lot of disadvantages to Spiceworks because it's not an agent-based solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"N-able N-central is not an expensive solution."
"The pricing and licensing are average, almost six out of ten."
"It might be about $300 annually for a bigger company. If you pay annually, it's better and cheaper."
"It's free."
"The tool is cheap."
"Seeing that it is a low-cost solution, I would advise you to go ahead with Spiceworks and experiment with it to see if you can get things working properly, especially if you currently don't have any existing service desk software in place."
"The product is free! Get it now."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Answers from the Community

SK
Nov 1, 2017
Nov 1, 2017
Unfortunately pricing is never that simple with each product having a multi-tiered offering. Also with vastly different feature sets between vendor products it can be impossible to make side-by-side comparisons. Before even looking at pricing or referring to the good book of Gartner you should put together a list of: 1. Everyday tasks at a functional level 2. How your team perform them today ...
2 out of 9 answers
it_user719895 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 30, 2017
You are comparing 3 different products. Solarwinds play in the major league of NMS. Spiceworks is adware and plays in the minor league. Airwatch is an MDM/MAM product. What is your goal?
it_user357969 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 30, 2017
Agree with Antonio. Plus, if you’re talking about client desktop management, I think you might be missing better players.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Performing Arts
6%
Outsourcing Company
6%
University
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with N-able N-central?
The MSP part of N-able N-central has evolved over the years. They have been trying to move from professional or network server and desktop licensing to make it more comprehensive. With professional...
What is your primary use case for N-able N-central?
We have been dealing with Enable EDR and N-able N-central, which is a management center. It's the NOC solution that we are currently running our asset management on. We are managing tasks in that e...
What do you like most about Spiceworks?
The solution is easy to use and easy to manage.
What needs improvement with Spiceworks?
I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment, however, I can provide feedback later. Currently, there do not seem to be any issues.
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds N-central, SolarWinds MSP N-central
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Premier Technology Solutions
Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Symantec, Webroot, EMC, Pertino
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