Atera is presented as an Agentic AI platform for IT management, that offers a digital workforce of AI agents that proactively and autonomously support entire IT operations. Atera’s all-in-one IT management platform consolidates RMM, helpdesk, ticketing, and automation, so IT teams and MSPs can manage and protect infrastructure, automate tasks, and boost service quality by reducing downtime and improving SLAs. Atera has shifted focus from automation to AI-powered autonomy in IT. With…
$139
per month per user
FortiManager
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
FortiManager delivers unified management for consistent security across complex hybrid environments, providing protection against security threats. Key benefits include accelerated zero-touch provisioning with best-practice templates for deployment at scale of SD-WAN and streamlined workflows between the Fortinet Security Fabric and integrations with 500+ ecosystem partners.
Atera is doing well in the monitoring part as it is informing the real time ping of running devices and if any device goes down, it is informing us on the real time. It is helping us to monitor the last reboot status, current logged in users, time zone, IP addresses and other things so that we can track our end devices status. In the patching part Atera is pathing our all devices with the notification stating user to restart device at their convenient time. It is also patching our third party applications. It is good in installing and uninstalling of the third party application but limited to availability in the Atera inventory. Atera is not good in some parts such as in the patching part of applications, sometime it fails to update all 3rd party applications that were not installed via Atera. It is not good if you have to transfer a file to multiple systems at the same time.
FortiManager is well suited for larger organizations which require unified configurations and IT departments that need quick turn around on firewall related tickets. I believe MSPs can also benefit with the use of the VDOM feature, if strict separation between clients is needed. FortiManager wouldn't be ideal for 1-3 site operations, unless their configurations are extremely complex or have a high number of active users.
Atera is very helpful in monitoring the servers and end-user devices for high CPU, memory, hard disk uses, and temperature monitoring.
Atera is good at installing third-party applications and also helps to remove it from the end systems.
Atera is perfect for patching as you can select the patches as per your need and reject those that are not required for you or going to disturb any of your internal applications.
Atera is good for managing software inventory as it provides you with the complete software list that is used in your infrastructure.
Atera does not yet have a MDM system, but I have been told that it is in the works!
Sometimes getting around the admin section of the IT side of Atera can be tricky, but the webinars and chat support help.
Many of the demo and onboarding agents are based in Israel, so it can be a challenge to find available times during the day while living in the United States.
Various bugs: The software is buggy, and if you don't have a good understanding of it's underlaying operation, you can get confused or stuck when pushing a configuration. There are lots of little quirks you will have to learn, which are not described in any documentation.
Conflict resolution: Occasionally, during larger changes, bringing new devices in, pushing a config will fail due to dependencies, conflicts, or other software bugs. This is somewhat time consuming because the error messages provided aren't descriptive
CLI Options: Some configuration changes require creating scripts that execute on each device, and can't be done via the GUI
As of right now, we have found nothing that can offer as many features as Atera does along with the affordability. They are doing monthly releases each month and not just making small changes (shared scripting library, chocolatey support, Install packages, Splashtop SOS support, Scheduled tickets to name a few). The uptimes are great and accessibility to the dashboard has yet to be limited. We are a happy customer and bordering on fanboy status now
Atera's remote monitoring feature is one of it's best features. The laptops and servers we used it on responded quickly to our administrative task requests and made our work light. We were able to increase the resources, manage patches, windows updates and quite a few other tasks remotely and that too 24×7.
Atera support provides answers to my questions lightning fast. They have never left me feeling like I'm out there on my own. I can ask questions by email, or by chat, or by opening a ticket with them and they are always on it quickly. They also have a forum where other Atera users can help you if you need it, and you can also add feature requests via the forum.
Because Atera is a much more effective and efficient solution to manage all our IT operations, it automates each of our business processes. It offers us the best support to respond to any problem that may arise. I think Atera is much more cost-effective and reliable; its value is justified with each function and satisfies all our business needs and requirements.
FortiManager is the best choice for managing numerous FortiGate firewalls. It allows for easy integration into ServiceNow and automates simple repetitive tasks that are very straightforward. Role-based access control is easy to enable and you can get quite granular with user permissions. Administrative Domains help segregate firewall management and compliance within the FortiManager console, by almost any classification method that makes sense to your organization.
The intuitive user interface has enabled both users and support technicians to familiarize themselves quickly with the functionality, and the learning curve is less.
Some features need to be accessed through documentation; they're not available directly on the dashboard.
Sometimes, internet access plays a significant role, whereas low connectivity is a hindrance.
