ConnectWise RMM vs. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor

ConnectWise RMM is well suited for my small IT business to keep track of my many clients that a company like mine with less than 5 employees to monitor in one interface. It is very easy to implement, monitor and setup alerts. The monitor of patching is one of the main reasons we went with ConnectWise RMM. We use their ScreenConnect software as wells.

Incentivized

For monitoring applications that run on Windows hosts on VMware or HyperV virtualization, SolarWindows offers a nice, vertical view of both the loads and the resources. In such an environment, this makes life really good! But if you have something else -- for example, Linux hosts -- you're on your own to some extent. That is, the things it does well, it does very well -- but everything else is much less polished.

Incentivized

• Provides lightweight, easy to install software agent to deploy to client devices
• Robust reporting, including hardware & installed software reports
• Provides generally stable service for remote access to client devices

Incentivized

• Monitor Azure Cloud Severs- We use SolarWinds SAM to monitor Active Directory and DNS on Several DCs published on Azure Cloud.
• Monitor Hyper V and VMware - SolarWinds SAM monitors applications on both Hyper V and VMware, while also monitoring the physical host machines.
• It also helps us monitor Warranty expiration for physical servers.

Incentivized

• We lost some functionality with LogMeIn after moving to Command - starting services, adding users in the background on PCs
• Setting up MAC users is not easy
• resolving existing tickets in the portal - understanding the ConnectWise notes
• Account Management - Since ConnectWise took over, we have no idea who our account management team is.
• Patch Management needs more improvement

Incentivized

• Provides basic monitoring/visibility. Visibility into detailed/fine-grained issues best suited for more specialized/expensive solutions.
• Licensing per monitored application rapidly uses up purchased license count.
• More out-of-the-box templates or easier setup of monitoring less-common applications would make the solution more appealing given the target audience of the product.

Incentivized

We are heavily invested in Solarwinds products for a reason. They are generally easy to setup and run with, requiring only some interfacing with support or help articles on rare occasions. They do what we bought them to do and we can't ask for more.

Incentivized

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is quite easy to use and super versatile. It allows you to do just about anything you can through premade templates or through scripting. You can use an agent on the servers if you want to, or you can monitor through WMI or SNMP credentials. You can customize thresholds for alerting quickly, and you can configure alerts to be as complex or as simple as you want.

Incentivized

The tool works and monitors items 24x7, it only requires maintenance a little more frequently due to security fixes in the Windows operating system.

Incentivized

The graphical interface and the performance of the database leave a little to be desired, they could be better explored.Some functionality and screens do not work well depending on the browser used. The integrations never had any problems or caused crashes in other systems.

Incentivized

I think there was only a couple times I had to open a support case for SAM and one time they got multiple engineers on the phone to get a better idea what I was trying to monitor and was able to point me in the best direction to monitor that system.

Incentivized

It was sufficient to read their documentation and watch videos.

Incentivized

Make sure SNMP and WMI are configured ahead of time

Incentivized

Automate (LabTech) would be the aforementioned "heavy-duty" kind of RMM tool. It's big, it's complex, and very capable compared to Continuum Command. That said, the impetus is very much on the service provider to configure and maintain nearly 100% of the product, whereas in Continuum Command there is a lot that is maintained by their team for you. Even without paying for the premium NOC services, the cloud-first construction and other specific features (like the Windows patch testing and delaying, etc.) are clear wins over the more traditional RMMs like Automate. Automate certainly wins in the technical prowess department. Its scripting engine and level of customization are unrivaled across basically all of the rest of the tools out there. As such, it will be very interesting to see what happens now that these two products live under the same roof. Hopefully, someday, a powerful hybrid of the tool that ConnectWise can focus all development on that harness the positives of each. Keep your eyes peeled...

Incentivized

It has been a while since we first purchased SolarWinds, but I looked over several other products that I can't remember now. Many other products tried to scan the network to find computers but given that our computers are located in various places across campus with other computers in our buildings that are not ours that type of network scanning was not what we needed. Other services have extra services that we had no need of and I liked the ability to add custom fields in SolarWinds so we can track the information on each computer that we need to know.

It is hard to find the recommended SQL setup and convince others that is the way you should configure the server when you set it up

Incentivized

• The product upgrades stay up to date with our business needs.
• The product is an important part of our overall budget.
• The product helps with the planning and success of our Department.

Incentivized

• Less time spent investigating causes of issues. We are alerted straight away and can find the root cause of the issue in less time.
• We have been able to ditch all our previous individual monitoring solutions, none of which integrated with each other for a single solution which fully integrates with each of the different modules to provide a single portal for monitoring and alerting.

Incentivized