Atera vs. Microsoft System Center Service Manager

As a one-person IT department, Atera is almost like having another person to help, especially as we integrate the AIT functionalities. We have several locations spread over nearly 200 miles, and Atera has enabled me to remote in and fix something that before would have had to wait until we could justify an all-day or overnight 300 mile round trip.

I think any organization that runs windows on their computers that is size over 50 workstations and looking for a complete package to manage their windows machines must have Microsoft System Center Service Manager, especially if they have Windows servers and VMs. The capability of managing multiple devices at ones can save a lot of time for the IT jobs.

Incentivized

• Support, if you need them they are there and they always have the answers you need.
• The AI scripting features allow you to really hit the ground running. You can give it a prompt and it will give you a script that will be very close to what you need. All you have to do is polish it up and test it out.
• I love having the ability to use multiple remote access tools, in the event a machine has an issue with one of them, or if a cloud service goes down, you have a fallback.
• The shared script library is an amazing resource for troubleshooting and streamlining.
• The development teams are open to adding features and have done so frequently based on user requests.

Incentivized

• This tool is used to track support requests among our IT staff.
• We use this tool to automate some more routine tasks.

Incentivized

• Some basic functions need some extra work
• Some basic things are behind paywalls
• Feature board is not credible. Ideas taking very, very long to implement
• Atera has no clear road map
• SNMP monitoring needs a make over and needs more options

Incentivized

• Kind of clunky.
• Takes a lot a lot a lot of configuration.
• There is a lot of jargon to learn to be able to use it to its full ability.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

This has been a great platform to handle both service requests and device maintenance. Without it, we would have to do manual ticket creation through another platform that does not link with a RMM making the help desk inefficient and frustrating both Employees and the Executives of the company. The addition of AI makes all of this even easier!

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The customer support service is excellent. They help from start/deployment through to any time later on. They responded quickly and resolved our issues professionally and in no time.

Incentivized

Atera was the clear winner for us. The interface and tools were very easy to learn and setup. Atera's licensing incorporates good feature sets and value levels. Some of the other products were difficult to setup and lacked good flow between tools. The value proposition was also not as good.

Incentivized

We selected MCSM because it is a solid product that we could use very quickly, compared to other tools there is a lot more effort for integration into the infrastructure, costing time and money. We implemented the tool very quickly and since it integrates with other Microsoft products, it was very easy to get up and running.

Incentivized

• We have been able to add new employees/devices without increasing my staff to support them.
• The value of charging per technician verses per device cannot be stated enough. Without that pricing, I wouldn't be able to budget enough to pay for all of the things I get with Atera.
• They have a customer portal which allows the end user to check on submitted tickets, open new tickets and recommend any new features.

• Save a world of time when imaging
• Save a world of time with patch management
• Provides decent reports to get a snapshot quickly

Incentivized