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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    ConnectWise Automate

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AConnectWise 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

    Portainer

    Score9.8 out of 10
    N/APortainer is a centralized container management platform for containerized apps and IoT device management. It helps accelerate container adoption and reduce time-to-value on Kubernetes, Docker, and Swarm with a management portal, allowing users to deliver and manage containerized applications from the data center to the edge. Portainer helps - Reduce the operational complexity associated with multi-cluster management Bridge the skills gap and facilitate feature…

    $0

    Pricing
    ConnectWise AutomatePortainer
    Editions & Modules
    Agents
    $1.00-$6.00
    per month/per agent
    Implementation Fee
    $700
    Portainer Business - 3 Nodes Free
    $0
    Home & Student
    $149
    per year
    Starter
    $995
    per year
    Professional
    $2995
    per year
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales for Pricing
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ConnectWise AutomatePortainer
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ConnectWise AutomatePortainer
    Considered Both Products
    ConnectWise
    No answer on this topic
    Portainer
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    86%
    Would buy again
    18 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    94 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    19 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    87 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    20 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    94 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    85%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    75 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    73%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    92 Answers
    Features
    ConnectWise AutomatePortainer
    Application Performance Management
    Comparison of Application Performance Management features of ConnectWise Automate and Portainer
    Feature
    ConnectWise Automate
    8.5
    1 Ratings
    18% above category average
    Portainer
    -
    Ratings
    Virtualization monitoring8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    IT Asset Discovery9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Monitoring Tasks
    Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of ConnectWise Automate and Portainer
    Feature
    ConnectWise Automate
    7.4
    22 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Portainer
    -
    Ratings
    Remote monitoring10.022 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network device monitoring8.021 Ratings00 Ratings
    Activity Monitoring8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Management Tasks
    Comparison of Management Tasks features of ConnectWise Automate and Portainer
    Feature
    ConnectWise Automate
    7.8
    22 Ratings
    15% above category average
    Portainer
    -
    Ratings
    Patch Management10.021 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy-based automation9.022 Ratings00 Ratings
    Remote Access
    Comparison of Remote Access features of ConnectWise Automate and Portainer
    Feature
    ConnectWise Automate
    8.0
    1 Ratings
    13% above category average
    Portainer
    -
    Ratings
    Attended device access10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Unattended device access8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile device access5.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Virtual device access8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple-display support9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple concurrent sessions8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Container Management
    Comparison of Container Management features of ConnectWise Automate and Portainer
    Feature
    ConnectWise Automate
    -
    Ratings
    Portainer
    8.6
    94 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Security and Isolation00 Ratings8.790 Ratings
    Cluster Management00 Ratings8.575 Ratings
    Storage Management00 Ratings8.680 Ratings
    Resource Allocation and Optimization00 Ratings8.183 Ratings
    Discovery Tools00 Ratings8.970 Ratings
    Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging00 Ratings8.690 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    ConnectWise AutomatePortainer
    Small Businesses
    Panda Systems Management
    Score7.2 out of 10
    Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
    Score8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    N-able N-sight RMM
    Score7.4 out of 10
    Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS)
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    SUSE Rancher
    Score9.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    ConnectWise AutomatePortainer
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (59 ratings)
    8.6
    (94 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    8.5
    (15 ratings)
    Performance
    3.0
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.0
    (14 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Online Training
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    5.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ConnectWise AutomatePortainer
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    Many developers, especially lesser experienced developers, don't have a really good background in setting up containers from the command line. Portainer is invaluable to them. Giving a UI to them gives them much more confidence and allows them to learn properties and capabilities of containers under far less stress. On the flip side of this, giving then a UI on a production system can lead to chaos...never give junior developers access to production servers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    • Separating server maintenance with application development, providing a clear user interface for developers who don't want to worry about the underlying server.
    • RBAC for container deployment linked to a SAML IDP, not something particularly easy in a native Docker instance but point and shoot in Portainer, allowing the use of Azure / Okta etc to provide user access.
    • Image management with multiple repositories is super clear and reduces incidents
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    • When setting up static IPs for a new container, having the used ones for a specific network at hand would be cool or something like a mini IPAM of some sort...
    • Using the developertools to see "oh, it's a 40x or 500" when something doesn't seem to load because the ui just states "Didn't work" is kinda annoying. expandable toasts or something would be nice.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    It is an excellent tool.
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    Accessibility for Non-Experts: even with some people having a bit longer on-boarding it is still very simple Quick setup is insanely useful, we can get it running in 10 seconds after installing docker Portainer has once again super clean UI and is very user friendly. Deployment/monitoring and management are super easy. I can tell just from a glance if something is out of date (watching at you Watchtower not doing your job for some reason)
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    One of their staff members jumped on a video call immediately with me and led me through the problem and solution during a quick session of screen sharing. In this day and age that is above and beyond, especially when it comes to software. It took approximately 5-10 minutes to diagnose and fix, including pleasantries!
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    It is really easy. Just follow the documentation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    Portainer takes the cup in terms of usability and features. It is also more useful for smaller deployments, whereas Kubernetes in our opinion and experience, could probably be more suited to certain other use cases. Portainer is also a fresh feel among all the preexisting container management solutions and brings positivity and a new breeze in the industry.
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Portainer
    • Increased productivity: Portainer's user-friendly interface and streamlined container management can help increase the productivity of IT teams.
    • Cost savings: By simplifying container management, Portainer can help reduce the time and resources required to manage container environments, potentially leading to cost savings.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    ConnectWise Automate Screenshots

    Screenshot of Monitor: Find problemsProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot

    Portainer Screenshots

    Screenshot of Portainer is a universal container management platform to help adopt and manage Docker, Kubernetes, Nomad and Edge environments.