ConnectWise Automate vs. Datto Autotask PSA

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ConnectWise Automate
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
ConnectWise Automate, formerly LabTech, is a remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform. It provides powerful automation to discover and manage devices, monitor for problems, and scripts repetitive action.
$700
Autotask PSA
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Autotask PSA is designed as a complete IT Business Management Platform for MSPs, now from Datto (resulting from the Autotask merger with Datto in 2017).N/A
Pricing
ConnectWise AutomateDatto Autotask PSA
Editions & Modules
Agents
$1.00-$6.00
per month/per agent
Implementation Fee
$700
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ConnectWise AutomateAutotask PSA
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ConnectWise AutomateDatto Autotask PSA
Considered Both Products
ConnectWise Automate
Chose ConnectWise Automate
Automate is by far the best of all RMM solutions we have tried. The overall ease of use and support is much better than we have experienced with other RMM vendors.
Chose ConnectWise Automate
Automate is the most well-established platform among its peers. Because it is part of a native ecosystem, you know that everything from remote management to ticketing to quoting an invoicing will work together. I have used other platforms, and many of them share core …
Chose ConnectWise Automate
We have only previously deployed HoundDog/GFI and Autotask but evaluated all that we found. In the long run, none of the others compare with the features of ConnectWise Automate. Many others are less expensive but simply do not do all that ConnectWise Automate can do. We …
Chose ConnectWise Automate
Automate's features and pricing are much better than the other products we tested.
Chose ConnectWise Automate
We selected LabTech because we already had a very good ongoing customer support experience with ConnectWise. We had LabTech before ConnectWise acquired it, and had Kaseya, but gave LabTech another try and we are very glad that we did. We did not have a good experience with …
Autotask PSA
Chose Datto Autotask PSA
The portion of Autotask that we've used other companies for prior to using Autotask is the Endpoint Management. The Autotask Endpoint Management (AEM) portal integrates perfectly with their PSA/CRM tools. It's alerting features are much better than the above software as there …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
ConnectWise AutomateDatto Autotask PSA
Monitoring Tasks
Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of Product A and Product B
ConnectWise Automate
6.1
21 Ratings
18% below category average
Datto Autotask PSA
-
Ratings
Remote monitoring7.221 Ratings00 Ratings
Network device monitoring5.120 Ratings00 Ratings
Management Tasks
Comparison of Management Tasks features of Product A and Product B
ConnectWise Automate
6.3
21 Ratings
13% below category average
Datto Autotask PSA
-
Ratings
Patch Management5.920 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy-based automation6.921 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ConnectWise AutomateDatto Autotask PSA
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
Atera
Atera
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 6.8 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 6.8 out of 10
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User Ratings
ConnectWise AutomateDatto Autotask PSA
Likelihood to Recommend
7.5
(58 ratings)
7.6
(29 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(4 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(4 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
3.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(14 ratings)
8.4
(4 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ConnectWise AutomateDatto Autotask PSA
Likelihood to Recommend
ConnectWise
I recommend it to all IT colleagues; regardless of the size of the PCs with which you work most of the time, the application allows connection stability between computers that make it possible to continue working or taking care of the infrastructure from afar.
Read full review
Kaseya
In my opinion, Datto Autotask is exceptionally complicated to set up, manage, and use on a daily basis. I would think the target market for this product would be someone managing a team of 20 - 50 people, possibly more. In my experience, for it to run properly you will need to dedicate at least half an FTE to running this product in an organization of that size per month. I would not recommend it for companies with less than 10 people or for companies that value quick communication with their clients. I would not recommend it for companies using Datto's RMM product. The integration exists, but it is clearly a bolt-on. They were not developed together and they are slow to talk to each other. Frequently you cannot add details from RMM sessions into the PSA without manually copying the ticket number, and if the ticket is more than a week old, then you can't even find it with the ticket number.
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Pros
ConnectWise
  • Desktop sharing / view with chat to the operator, file sharing and pass-through for keyboard strokes
  • Computer/server monitoring with thresholds and warning
  • Search - tracking down computers when you have many by name, logged in user, IP
  • End user ticket raising is built into the tray icon which make access really easy
Read full review
Kaseya
  • The graphical calculations on time spent on requests, how long they were open for, who worked on a ticket last.
  • Grouping by priority so you can determine easier what needs to be addressed sooner rather then later. This also helps if Account Management has conversations a technician is not aware of so they can prioritize efficiently.
  • The email updates that are sent out to the technicians so they are aware of upcoming or stale tickets.
Read full review
Cons
ConnectWise
  • They have conflicting scheduling paradigms. When scheduling patching for clients, the 1st Friday is interpreted as the very first Friday of the month, even if this is the 1st of the month. For scripting, the 1st Friday of the month is interpreted as the 1st Friday of the 1st FULL WEEK of the month. This makes no sense to have two different interpretations, and makes it unreliable to schedule recurring scripts to fall when recurring maintenance does. The scripts need to be done manually because of this.
  • There is no way to dictate reboot orders for patch policies. This tied directly in with my first point. We have some clients that require reboot orders. This is not possible without having different patch policies for each server and specifying a time this way. But, there aren't small enough increments of time to make this reliable, plus patching duration might vary. Excluding reboots with patching and scheduling reboot scripts fixes this. However, this can't be done once on a recurring schedule due to the different scheduling paradigms already discussed. We have to schedule these manually each month.
Read full review
Kaseya
  • The GUI is a little dated.
  • Some integrations are limited for not being a Datto product.
  • While not as complex to set up as Connectwise, it definitely requires some serious thought during the initial setup.
  • Email processing could offer more options for parsing keywords and allow for more automation.
  • The mobile app is just not worth using in my experience.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
ConnectWise
The primary reason for this rating is that ConnectWise Automate is currently so integral to our operations that moving away would involve more man hours than we would realistically have to invest. However, ConnectWise Automate is also completely capable of meeting all of our business needs and customizable to the point where if something is not meeting those needs out of the box, it can be modified to do what we want. From only installing software on machines if a different software package exists, to push a new version of that software is available, to check if credentials for user/machine have been updated to our new standards and then updating them if they have not, ConnectWise Automate is capable of doing everything we ask of it.
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Kaseya
After using multiple products on the market, Autotask was intuitive and easy to manage.
Read full review
Usability
ConnectWise
Basic use of the product is fairly easy. Information about the machines you manage can be found in customizable dashboards, which can be unique for each user, and, therefore, properly suited to the users' needs/job function. This is not a 10 because some of the interfaces are very clunky (Patch Management), and some features are not intuitive and not well documented (reporting). Scripting and Patch Management have a fairly steep learning curve (For structure in patch management and syntax in scripting), but once learned, they work well.
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Kaseya
The work flow is much better then other competitors
Read full review
Performance
ConnectWise
It used to be great, but then they broke reporting, speed and responsiveness with version 11 and the new Patch Manager. It's really bad and their support people are way behind on fixing so many bugs. They have really gone downhill. If they don't get it together soon, we'll start looking around.
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Kaseya
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
ConnectWise
ConnectWise Automate lets you manage more endpoints, with enhanced productivity and improved service, all without increasing expenses. It can manage patches and updates across thousands of computers. We also use it for customized monitoring and alerting on workstations and servers. Monitoring is really robust and granular. It does a great job of gathering a TON of data about the network, and that data is searchable. There are a bunch of different reports built in. Integrates with Manage, Control, and other applications. It does a ton of stuff out of the box, and has endless customization options.
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Kaseya
They are fairly quick at returning a response to a problem and have been able to fix all issues for the most part.
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Online Training
ConnectWise
The Online training has been re-done and needs a lot more work. When you look at training in different roles, it shows a lot of the same topics but no explanation to what is different about them. Several times that topics are the exact same, but they make you re-take the same information for a different topic, instead of marking that you have already completed that portion of training.
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Kaseya
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
ConnectWise
Start small and learn the in's and out's before making policies and rolling things out company wide. Ask the questions of why if you don't agree with something or your company does things a different way. Usually they are done a certain way for a reason. Start simple with roll out and slowly enable or add on the functionality that is needed.
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Kaseya
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
ConnectWise
I believe the monitoring and alerts in Continuum command is better, but [ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech)] does have stronger scripting, and perhaps a better interface. N-Central is inferior on all fronts to both. I did not make the purchasing decision. I would myself likely pick Continuum if I had to make a on the spot choice.
Read full review
Kaseya
The portion of Autotask that we've used other companies for prior to using Autotask is the Endpoint Management. The Autotask Endpoint Management (AEM) portal integrates perfectly with their PSA/CRM tools. It's alerting features are much better than the above software as there aren't a bunch of superfluous and unneeded alerts. Instead, it only alerts for things that you specify that you want. Alerts aside, for the PSA/CRM, I don't have much to compare it to as Autotask was the first PSA we tried. It's hard to imagine a PSA having more features or doing a better job than Autotask.
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Return on Investment
ConnectWise
  • We found we were able to provide good monitoring of our customers sites which was an objective. However, that came at a significant time investment that never seemed to be finished.
  • We were able to negotiate a price that worked for us for an up-front purchase which was nice.
  • We found the pricing to be very competitive.
  • Bottom line for us was despite the pros of the product, we found other RMM solutions to be a better overall "value" due to not having to dedicate technicians to maintaining the product.
Read full review
Kaseya
  • We were able to identify the profitability of our entire client base.
  • We identified a loss of over 1 million dollars for time unbilled consultancy fees using metrics derived from Autotask.
  • Autotask helped us serve our client base in a professional manner, it's like having an entire department at your finger tips.
  • Autotask is the heartbeat of our operation.
Read full review
ScreenShots

ConnectWise Automate Screenshots

Screenshot of Monitor: Find problemsScreenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of