Apple Remote Desktop (ARD), from Apple, is a remote administration tool for managing Apple computers running OS X across a network.
$79.99
one-time fee
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
NinjaOne automates the hardest parts of IT, delivering visibility, security, and control over endpoints. The NinjaOne endpoint management platform increases productivity for IT teams and managed service providers, and comes with unlimited onboarding, training, and support.
N/A
Pricing
Apple Remote Desktop
NinjaOne
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apple Remote Desktop
NinjaOne
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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NinjaOne is a subscription service with a charge rate per month. For more detailed pricing information, contact NinjaOne directly to request a demo or to start 14-days free trial.
I would rate this higher if I was confident that Apple is continuing to develop this utility. It has only received minor updates for quite a long time, and is not featured much in any of Apple's online material. It really is a useful utility, but it is starting to show its age and is fraying a bit around the edges in some respects. It could be very useful when integrated with the various MDM solutions (in our case, Jamf Pro) especially when an engineer needs to force something immediately and can't wait for a check-in, and also can't depend on the end user being able to (for instance) do a sudo jamf policy or sudo jamf recon.
Well suited for support and management of a large fleet of endpoints, particularly across multiple regions and locations. Its well suited for MSPs for this reason. Its also effective for managing patching and updates for server infrastructure, where some other products are unable to manage. Its useful being able to access these features across multiple networks and domains. There is an option to monitor network equipment such as switches, but it didn't provide any information that wasn't already provided in the switches cloud portal.
Remote connections: the NinjaRemote client is spectacular and very easy to use and navigate. It quickly connects to customer systems so my engineers are able to work. As a bonus, they also offer a really good mobile app to connect to client systems.
Antivirus: Bitdefender Endpoint Protection is built directly into the NinjaOne portal. This makes deploying and maintaining AV very easy.
OS Patching: NinjaOne makes it very easy to handle patching across multiple clients and locations. It is very easy to use and doesn't take long to set up.
Support: NinjaOne support is always very prompt and helpful.
Documentation: the NinjaOne Dojo is a one-stop shop for all of your FAQs, guides, and forum needs. You can find almost anything here to help you deploy and maintain NinjaOne.
Automation Library: NinjaOne comes preloaded with a large number of ready-to-go automations. They also provide you with a scripting module to create your own.
I would like to see more included Unix scrips that can be pushed to clients.
Inclusion of a way to remote control or screen share with Windows machines would be useful, as I manage a handful of Windows machines. While this would be possible using VNC on the Windows machines, including the ability to connect using Windows terminal connections would be awesome, for me.
It is a fairly unique tool in the level of integration it has with Apple Desktop products. It definitely needs some engineering attention, and it should be expanded to the iOS arena. It is not perfect, but it is very useful and fills an otherwise fairly empty niche in the support toolkit realm. The built-in screen sharing app in macOS handles the direct screen control or viewing function fairly well, but it does not have all of the other mass control features that Apple Remote Desktop supplies.
We already did. After evaluating many platforms, we found the cybersecurity of the company, its development direction, and the performance of the platform to be far superior at its price point.
Once it is set up, it is quite straightforward to use. However, currently, it requires both a script to run to set up permissions and controls, AND a command from the MDM to authorize it to be active. The MDM management command is manual. This is not conducive to an automated workflow, and sometimes gets forgotten. Then, the endpoint is not contactable until someone realizes that the MDM command was not sent or was not successful.
NinjaOne is easy to use, intuitive, and provides great value for our organization specifically with inventory tracking and patch management. There is also a wealth of control from an RMM perspective that we have over our fleet of hardware as well as customer websites. The communications with our account representative is outstanding as well. I'd highly recommend for organizations to engage with NinjaOne, and this is from a user who's used other RMM's and related software offerings at different MSP's. Go NinjaOne!
Ninja support has always been top notch. They have always been responsive and efficient both in troubleshooting issues or talking to me at a high-level about on-going improvements or needed changes. Both sales and Technical support has been good and I've been very pleased with the Customer service we have received from Ninja
Easy to learn and all of the functions and features were easy to learn. Once I started learning all of the features and functions, it made my everyday tasks much easier and more productive. The user interface is very easy to use. If I did have any questions, the Ninja Dojo was a big help.
It was nice and self paced learning. The sections were easy to understand and the functionality was very worthwhile. The online training was very easy to learn and intuitive. I did not feel the need to ask for any clarification or assistance with any of the sections. I am still learning a lot of the functions but fined it very easy to use.
I would feel much more comfortable having one of these alternative solutions as our Remote Desktop management tools. Each has their drawbacks and expenses associated with them, but we simply have too large of a deployment to not be considering alternatives. If it is the only solution you can afford, it is OK to start here. I could see where this would have a return on investment, but it is really only suitable for a very small and localized scale. If employees are at all mobile, the duct taping of products necessary (VPN, distribution points, script repositories) would be very cumbersome.
NinjaOne has the most rounded set of features however I believe all of the programs have there own plus and minus points. We use a mixture of programs however NinjaOne is the most heavily used.
Apple Remote Desktop has a positive return on investment because for the expense to the school, the value it brings to teachers is important. The return on improved student performance is very difficult to measure financially, but there is a definite return.
The overall objective of education is to increase student learning, ARD does that phenomenally. Parents see the tool used and are impressed at what the capabilities of the tool can do and how it impacts how active their students are as well as how well they can learn.
One negative impact is that teachers rely too much on this tool rather than on actually teaching sometimes.
