Apple Remote Desktop vs. NinjaOne

ARD for me is based on a LAN, but can be used over WAN via VPN, but the latency makes ARD a less ideal tool. There are other cross platform tools that can do what ARD does which to me add value when managing a mixed environment

Incentivized

NinjaOne is great for a comprehensive inventory management as well as a supurb RMM; it's far and away a much greater platform than ones that I"ve used in the past (I've been working for years in MSP organizations). Patch management is the second of the "one, two punch" that NinjaOne provides for our organization. It is outstanding at tracking and enforcing patch mangement, which is great for our security footprint as well as for our compliance goals.

Incentivized

• Automator Actions: This is a very cool feature and cost saving as it reduces human effort by automating the workflow of tasks.
• Curtain Mode: This lets you block your local user's view of the desktop while performing administrative tasks.
• Spotlight Search: It can perform lightning fast searches on machines using the spotlight search feature of OS X and thus saves a lot of time.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• It's onsite only without setting up a VPN or some other form of remote network access.
• It can be a little slow sometimes when compared to local access.
• It seems to be a neglected product by Apple and not continually developed.

Incentivized

• NinjaOne does support Mac, however I would like to have more options for automation and scheduled task on Mac devices.
• I would like it if NinjaOne also provided an MDM solution.
• It would be nice is NinjaOne could integrate a PAM solution as well.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I have not had any real issues with NinjaOne and as long as it keeps doing what it is meant to do, I do not plan on looking elsewhere. I need software to be stable and NinjaOne is stable.

Incentivized

It can be more usable, and if you are not in the Apple ecosystem, most likely you haven't even heard of it. Does it need improvements? Absolutely. Will it get improved? Most likely not. I believe this app is just part of the system app, which is nice to have, but any user will most likely choose some other option from the available apps.

Incentivized

Ninja's interface is clean and simple. Overall usability from an interface perspective is good. Some items, policies and scripting for instance, are a bit cumbersome and it's really not clear how to implement with a best practice mind-site. Ninja RMM got the job done for us but as we pushed our needs more into automation and efficiency we felt it wasn't keeping up with our speed of growth. There is definitely usability in the product, and it will get the job done, but there are other RMM's out there that fit better in our business.

Incentivized

Availability is very good

Incentivized

The software loads quickly for the most part

Incentivized

I've never had to get support for ARD, so I can't give a real opinion.

Incentivized

Support has been very responsive and my account rep Brian K. has communicated with me continuously making sure we had everything we need. Not like other MDMs where they sign you up and that's the last you hear from them. NinjaOne makes sure you use the product to its best application and you are successful and continue as the product features grow.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

None, very easy to setup and install.

Incentivized

Use of Organizations and locations

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We found NinjaOne far more user friendly and less resource heavy than VSA. Our overall experience was greatly improved from VSA as we experienced many recurring issues with the agents. Additionally, NinjaOne was far more cost effective per endpoint and provided similar, or greater features than VSA. Atera was briefly considered, but it seemed to be more of a 'jack of all trades' app that didn't suit our specific use cases.

Incentivized

Overall the software is very reliable

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Allowed us to use our full IT staff in remote offices to troubleshoot
• The quick site response times helps reduce the time spent trying to find, connect, and fix systems
• The ease of use creates confidence from our users that we can quickly fix their problems from anywhere in the world.

Incentivized