Amazon CloudWatch vs N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central) | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8.5 out of 10

Based on 108 reviews and ratings

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Score 8 out of 10

Based on 47 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Amazon CloudWatch

N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central)

Patch Management

Pros

Managing log retention periods is very simple with CloudWatch, and can be configured on a per-group basis.
Monitoring host performance is very easy when coupled with the CloudWatch Agent on an EC2 instance. A simple installation and configuration replaces an entire 3rd-party host monitoring stack.
CloudWatch is flexible enough for not just host monitoring, but application monitoring as well. It's easy to pipe local logs up to CloudWatch and extract structured data in order to monitor and set alerts on custom app metrics.

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Founder

finbox.ioInternet, 1-10 employees

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Remote tasks - entry-level techs can run basic tasks without physically touching a piece of equipment.
Remote support - remote controlling user devices is easy and saves a lot of time with having to initiate a remote session.
Management of devices, particularly patch management and anti-virus management - you can automatically approve and deploy patches and schedule automatic AV scans.

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NOC Supervisor

One2One IncInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

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Cons

CloudWatch doesn't monitor things outside of the cloud, it's not what it is intended for.
Billing is confusing as it bills on Dashboard, metrics called, custom metrics, etc. Hard to forecast the charge.
Paradigm is confusing sometimes and difficult to learn.

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Verified User

C-Level Executive in Information Technology

Retail Company, 1001-5000 employees

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It is a large piece of software and does take some time to get set-up and configured.
Limitations with some basic monitoring like site down/internet down and server state make it difficult to have accurate monitoring information.
Reports and reporting are minimal, not very customizable and not pretty.

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Managed Services Adminsitrator

Diversified Computer Resources, IncComputer Networking, 11-50 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central) 8.9

Based on 2 answers

Overall we have liked our solar winds experience, however, as our company has grown to support larger enterprises, this product does not have the functionality that our teams need in order to fully support them. The lack of granularity with backups and lack of ability to support nutanix environments is slowly drawing us into the use of other tools.

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Verified User

Executive in Engineering

Computer & Network Security Company, 11-50 employees

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Usability

Amazon CloudWatch 7.0

Based on 2 answers

The tool collects a great deal of data, and data that's not available many other places. But the data is hidden in obscure places, and the logs are hard to read and follow. The user interface could use a heavy rework, and several companies have made a business out of scraping the data and presenting it better.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Human Resources Company, 51-200 employees

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N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central) 8.7

Based on 3 answers

The user interface is fairly straight forward, with logic groupings for objects. I did not deploy this software, but am one of the daily administrators. Once you get the correct agent package (Which can be a challenge) the integration into AD is not bad. The UI could be more customized, but that may have been a design choice.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 51-200 employees

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Support Rating

Amazon CloudWatch 7.6

Based on 16 answers

Support is effective, and we were able to get any problems that we couldn't get solved through community discussion forums solved for us by the AWS support team. For example, we were assisted in one instance where we were not sure about the best metrics to use in order to optimize an auto-scaling group on EC2. The support team was able to look at our metrics and give a useful recommendation on which metrics to use.

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Ramindu Deshapriya

Lead Consultant - Technology

VirtusaComputer Software, 10,001+ employees

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N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central) 8.4

Based on 14 answers

Every time we have reached out to SolarWinds they are quick to respond, even offering support chat 24/7. Their support team is great and works with you to find solutions to issues. They have taken items we had issues with before and used those to create updates so that the issue is handled better in the future.

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Senior Consultant

Moser ConsultingInformation Technology and Services, 201-500 employees

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Implementation Rating

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central) 8.2

Based on 4 answers

Make sure if you your using a vm you follow the instructions for provisioning to the letter or it will be starting from square one

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I.T. Manager

ET&TInformation Services, 11-50 employees

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Alternatives Considered

I can only speak to how it's positively benefited my organization. The problem was that hosting in-house servers is no longer a cost-effective solution vs. containerization in the cloud. But once you rely on hosting servers in the cloud you need a tool to manage every aspect of that including log monitoring, resource utilization, and application performance. Amazon CloudWatch is exactly the tool you need.

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Verified User

Employee in Engineering

Information Services Company, 1001-5000 employees

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SolarWinds N-central is on the more unique side of tools because it can do so many things, and do most of them quite well. For patching, it is much easier to use than SCCM. In terms of monitoring, it is not great out of the box and requires tweaking to take full advantage. Since it is agent-based, any time an agent fails to check in, it means that that device is effectively no longer being managed. It can take a great deal of effort to maintain and remediate agent issues.

It is a great tool to manage small to medium-sized environments, but would struggle to cover all the angles required in a larger enterprise setting.

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Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Return on Investment

Scalability. Saving us cost when we can downgrade underperforming instances.
Great monitoring and peace of mine without always having to check logs to any services failure.
Support cost is high. It would be nicer if documentation would be easier to follow.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Computer Software Company, 51-200 employees

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Allows the service desk to quickly connect to computers and troubleshoot issues in less time
Minimizes user downtime by allowing installs to run in the background
Allows for management of updates and the ability to let the user postpone the update if needed

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Service Delivery Leader

ContegixInformation Technology and Services, 201-500 employees

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Screenshots

See All (5) Amazon CloudWatch Screenshots

See Both N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central) Screenshots

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Amazon CloudWatch Editions & Modules

Edition

First 10,000 Metrics	$0.30¹
Next 240,000 Metrics	$0.10¹
Next 750,000 Metrics	$0.05¹
Over 1,000,000 Metrics	$0.02¹

Per Metric

Additional Pricing Details

With Amazon CloudWatch, there is no up-front commitment or minimum fee; you simply pay for what you use. You will be charged at the end of the month for your usage.

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central) Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

Rating Summary

Amazon CloudWatch

N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central)

Amazon CloudWatch

N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central)

Amazon CloudWatch

N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central)

Amazon CloudWatch

N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central)

Amazon CloudWatch

N-able N-central (formerly Solarwinds N-Central)

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