Action1 is an autonomous endpoint management platform that is cloud-native, scalable, and configurable in 5 minutes. It is free for the first 200 endpoints, with no functional limits. By pioneering autonomous OS and third-party patching - AEM’s foundational use case - through peer-to-peer patch distribution and real-time vulnerability assessment without needing a VPN, it eliminates costly, time-consuming routine labor, preempts ransomware and security risks, and protects the digital…
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GFI LanGuard
Score 5.6 out of 10
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GFI LanGuard is software used to manage and maintain end-point protection across a network. It provides visibility into all the elements in the network, helping to assess where there may be potential vulnerabilities, and enables the administrator to patch them. It is a patch management and network auditing solution.
GFI LanGuard was pretty nice, but that was ages ago. I do pay for PDQ deploy and inventory though and am happy with that software...however, while its feature set does overlap with Action1, it is not just another flavor of the same thing, so I find that I use both of them.
If your organization is like mine (nonprofit and tight budget) this product is for you. The first 200 endpoints are free and being we are a small organization, this product is perfect for us. I was able to use Action1 to upgrade all my endpoints from Windows 10 to 11 pretty much effortlessly. If you are not a nonprofit and have more endpoints over 200, this is still a great product to use as I don't find it very expensive to incorporate into your infrastructure.
-To track the vulnerability level of a windows network. -To push windows and other application updates from a central location. -Produce reports to highlight work being done to protect a network. In some organizations, you may have to prove for audit reasons you are enforcing policies put into place around cyber-security. This software can help you track work done on an ongoing basis for such purposes.
Easy remote access to devices. That simple. We have some very unskilled users in the field where asking them to access their PC via conventional remote tools like TeamViewer, Anydesk, etc. was always a pain. Now, all they have to do is ensure their PC is online, and we can connect to them.
Remote software deploy. Before Action1, we did have some GPOs and scripts, but again - being able to deploy to PCs outside of our office/LAN, is just beautiful. On top of the standard repository, being able to create new packages is very useful for our scenario.
Inventory Reporting. Recently we had to identify PCs running old versions of Windows. Can't highlight enough how easy it is.
The deployment screens for update deferrals can be hard to understand at first and easy to skip since it carries some default info when you create a new automation rather than a more conspicuous prompt to update.
It could be a bit of information overload which some things are shown can become noise. Maybe different levels of "security" for lack of a better term may be better where you have a summary vs detailed level when it comes to rating the vulnerability of the entire network.
I find I sometimes have issues with PCs on a different network accessed across a VPN where timeouts often occur with very large updates. This aspect can be improved.
Action1 has taken many of the tasks that are time consuming and made them simple automated tasks that can be run on a schedule. I can schedule tasks to run off-hours and know that they will be done and I no longer have worry about it. As someone who does IT support for a living, it just makes my job so much simpler with less stress.
I only tried to access there support once and it was a relatively pain-free process. They also have a lot of documentation available online which can be used to learn and tailor the software to suit your needs. It just takes time and effort to plan, execute and monitor going forward.
After looking at different solutions, Action1 [Cloud Remote Monitoring and Management Solution] was the perfect fit for us that delivered all of the features we wanted without being as costly as some of the others alternatives we've looked at. There was no minimum endpoint count and they even offer up to 50 endpoints for free, which is really great for a small organization like us to help us lower our starting costs and still allows us to grow at our pace without having to commit to a defined amount of endpoints to start.
WSUS was the other alternative I considered but I believe GFI takes updates, reporting, and functionality to a different level for an enterprise/medium-size business environment.
Saved hours per week on patching and able to ensure a 100% patching success rate.
Able to create custom alerting on potential problems as well as able to create some automation to automatically address problems.
Improved support to our remote locations and users.
Custom deployments allow us to have a mechanism to deploy custom applications we build as well as other third party applications we need to distribute.
Certainty. It allows you to know where on your network needs attention.
Peace of mind. As security professionals, we can only put the necessary things in place to prevent malicious persons from exploiting a network. The software allows you to know whether or not your risk of exploitation is high or low. and if high what to do with it.
