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
Ivanti Neurons for MDM
Score 7.5 out of 10
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Ivanti Neurons for MDM is a cloud‑Based Mobile Device Management. Ivanti Neurons for MDM enables secure access to data and apps on any device across the Everywhere Workplace.
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Kaseya VSA
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
Kaseya Virtual System Administrator (VSA) is a cloud-based Remote Monitoring and Management software. VSA unifies the monitoring of system infrastructure and endpoints and is designed for use by IT teams and MSP’s. It offers a robust crowd-source automation scripts library, as well as antivirus and malware capabilities with real-time threat alerts.
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Pricing
ConnectWise Automate
Ivanti Neurons for MDM
Kaseya VSA
Editions & Modules
Agents
$1.00-$6.00
per month/per agent
Implementation Fee
$700
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No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ConnectWise Automate
Ivanti Neurons for MDM
Kaseya VSA
Free Trial
Yes
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Required
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ConnectWise Automate
Ivanti Neurons for MDM
Kaseya VSA
Considered Multiple Products
ConnectWise Automate
Verified User
Engineer
Chose ConnectWise Automate
We selected ConnectWise Automate over Kaseya as it provided many of the same features but less of the headache. Often times, scripts would not work in Kaseya or updates would not push. We have not had this experience with Automate, scripts and such just run when scheduled. …
If we have to do it again, we would not choose to Automate due to the number of efforts and monetary investment (3rd party consultants) to implement it as well on going managing it. But, in comparison to the other RMM products we used in the past, Automate offers more …
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.
I touched on this in the previous section some. Kaseya's choice of managed antivirus was very poor (KAV, a tweaked version of Kaspersky) when it first started. It took them a long time to fix anything, and the fixes usually produced new and different issues. Kaseya kept …
We switched from Kaseya to Automate 7-8 years ago - it was no contest at the time and Kaseya wasn't cutting it in a number of areas at that time that was really hurting us. I'm sure it's improved since then.
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 …
Prior to using LabTech, we used Kaseya. While Kaseya and LabTech have much of the same functionality, LabTech does things better and more consistently. Also, we rely on ConnectWise as our ticketing system and PSA. LabTech has two way ticket synchronization with ConnectWise that …
We used to use Kaseya VSA and liked it a lot. The primary reason we switched was the oppressive licensing costs. They've since changed their licensing but it was too late for us as we'd already made the switch. LabTech compares well with Kaseya VSA and neither are bad products …
We were previously using Kaseya and were frustrated by the difficulties we had in a number of areas. We were unable to use Kaseya's remote control reliably and experienced other problems. When we asked for help, the answer was usually one of two things:
Labtech has been around for a while and they actually listen to their community. The product is robust and is built for IT service providers. I have used a previous product for a long time and can tell you that Labtech is slightly more difficult to implement, but far more …
The way LabTech integrates with ScreenConnect and TeamViewer is just SO much better than Kaseya. I feel like Kaseya is a bit more intuitive though as opposed to LabTech that you should probably get some real training for. Scripting in LabTech is more reliable. I've never had a …
VSA is easily on par with SolarWinds N-central but ConnectWise Automate is the best tool out there for RMM. Automate shares some of the clunky interface that VSA has, but it is extremely fast and reliable. N-Central has the best organization of the three, it is very easy to …
What's Up Gold is more of a monitoring application and very good at that, but doesn't have the management tools that VSA provides. It requires additional applications and you lose the "single pane of glass" concept.
ConnectWise, at the time we looked at the product, did not have …
Automate is by far more customizable and affordable, a lot of our pain points in Kaseya are addressed with Automate. In our case, we have used Kaseya since 2012-2013 and have started migrating our customers to Automate in the past year.
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.
For devices that require single-app mode (iOS) deployments are easy to manage. We are also able to control which OS features are available at a very granular level. What is often lacking are good guides illustrating how to implement certain features - for example, setting up single-app mode for the first time is not intuitive and should not require opening service requests with the helpdesk.
The tools for remote support require a lot of effort and have made implementation of this capability a financial decision instead of a technical one. By this I mean that it's better to request budget for professional services than to invest mine or my team's time, which makes it far less likely to get implemented. Things that cost money and require justifications to the finance team are disadvantaged from the word go.
If the software functioned as it was intended, it would be probably a 7 out of 10. It lacks the majority of customization that SolarWinds N-central supplies, but also supports some customization that other solutions we have tried do not. Again, if the software didn't consistently break, the ability to implement automated scripting via PowerShell and the capacity to manage 10+ endpoints at once in different windows is great.
MobileIron has a very easy to deploy architecture. We reviewed other products before making our business decision to deploy MobileIron, and one of the reasons we selected MobileIron was due to the ease of deployment, the low footprint, and the ease of configuration.
MobileIron has a broad range of customizations and add-on products that make it an ideal product for a number of additional use cases. None of these use cases got business backing at BH Media, but Docs@Work and Apps@Work are two features that would make MobileIron an ideal tool for a customer who needs to allow BYOD or company devices the ability to access documents or applications without VPN.
MobileIron is supported by a large number of devices and their operating systems. In a company which allows BYOD devices, you can't always control what device a user is going to bring in. MobileIron has support for older devices and OS versions and is also quick to adopt newer devices, so a new device isn't shut out in the cold waiting for a vendor to update their software.
Being able to see systems that are not within the local network allows us to be able to troubleshoot and work with the end users no matter where they are or where we are as it is cloud based.
Several functions can be "automated" so staff do not have to keep going back and scanning for updates, push Windows updates and or push sensor updates.
VSA offers a variety of system information about all of the assets that have the endpoints installed on them so we can easily see the system specs without having to actually connect to them and pull up the SysInfo on each unit.
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.
Documentation is hard to find. Most of MobileIron's (MI) documentation can only be accessed through an MI account. This, in itself, is not a problem. The problem is locating specific information. Typically with other MDMs, a quick google search will point you to the location of the documentation within the official website. The way MI has their documentation locked down, I cannot find anything I'm looking for through a google search. Also, there were times documentation is locked by permissions and links provided by support are inaccessible to me due to these restrictions.
Sales - The sales team can sometimes come off as not genuine. I understand the purpose of sales is to sell and make money for the company, but the approach sometimes feels artificial; they say they have to company's best interest in mind, but the push for a sell like a car salesman.
Many of the automation options are not explicitly available into MobileIron Core. I have to use a special scripting language to make MI do the things I need it to do, such as automatically retire devices that have been inactive for 60 days.
Support - Like all other competitors support is OK but the product is robust enough to reduce support requirements.
Customer Service - another team that is a bit poor especially when the issue involves multiple departments. Otherwise, the direct rep is very friendly and professional.
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.
So far we have been very pleased with MobileIron and it has accomplished many of our goals. We are looking forward to continued improvements on Windows 8 platforms and Android PIM solutions. The only way that we would leave is if a solution came out that was better suited to work with Lotus Notes
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.
I think this is a solid tool for enterprise IT, however it would be higher if Kaseya VSA addresses the areas raised around recent stability, their support team, multiple session & screen support etc. It does do it's main job and allows an easy way for IT to operate and is mostly fine.
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.
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.
I have been using MobileIron for years. As with any company, they suffered the constraints of growth. I don't normally deal with call-in support, but in the few instances that I have the level of support has gotten inherently better. My usual support experience is from a dedicated individual(s) from professional services. This is mainly because of the size of the deployment. This offers a resource that is thoroughly familiar with your environment. Another benefit is that you can contact them directly, which eliminates the handing off and starting over with multiple individuals. As a company they are extremely committed in their support structure and making it better. They send out audits and welcome any interaction and if there is a complaint they follow up with efficacy
It was lots of back and forth email communication whenever I tried to solve my connection issues. I would send them detailed logs of the date, time, computer, and more of when I was experiencing connection issues. All I would get is an email back a few days later saying that they didn't find an issue in the service
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.
It is online based, after learning content you can take a test and if you don't pass you get two other chances to pass. Once you pass the test you can print out your certification or save it
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.
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.
We've evaluated a number of other MDM solutions before finally deciding on MobileIron as our choice. These included AirWatch, Good, Citrix and IBM. None came close to the cost price point offered by MobileIron providing the same solutions. The initial setup/configuration was provided for free and training classes were exceptional. Other vendors did not offer the same level of support provided by MobileIron.
There are other products that do some of what Kaseya does, but I've not personally worked with another product that does everything Kaseya does. Sure there are plenty of remote control products, but products that do as much as Kaseya are few and far between. Hard to go wrong with the sheer scope of functionality!
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.
MobileIron initially was a positive part of our mobile stack. However after two years, we are exploring in-house solutions as Mobile Iron has not been stable enough for our needs. We had a MobileIron-related outage last year that took a week to resolve and cost our business substantially.
I believe MobileIron is more effective with Android devices than iOS.
MobileIron seems better suited to devices that need to be updated/managed infrequently (~ 1/week or less often). For tablets that need daily MDM interactions, MobileIron was not sufficiently reliable.
