Datto Autotask PSA vs. Spiceworks Help Desk

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Spiceworks Help Desk
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Spiceworks offers a set of free tools for IT network management and help desk support ticketing. The inventory management system essentially provides comprehensive device information for asset management. The Spiceworks Network Monitor provides information on observed IT for problem tracking and server performance monitoring. And finally, the Spiceworks Help Desk Software lets IT personnel stay on top of issues across the network with a ticketing system. Help desk roles with role-based…N/A
Pricing
Datto Autotask PSASpiceworks Help Desk
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
All Tiers
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Autotask PSASpiceworks Help Desk
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Datto Autotask PSASpiceworks Help Desk
Considered Both Products
Autotask PSA

No answer on this topic

Spiceworks Help Desk
Chose Spiceworks Help Desk
We found that for entry-level SMB in-house needs that Spiceworks had an impressive range of features and options at an unbeatable price-free! For our in-house and multi-tenant needs, we use a different product that is more appropriate to our particular needs, but with no cost …
Chose Spiceworks Help Desk
Spiceworks does things Autotask doesn't and vice versa. However, if you remove the network inventory aspect from Spiceworks, it's inferior to Autotask in every way, with the exception of price. Autotask is a CRM, Time Tracker, Helpdesk, KB, Projects, all of it. Spiceworks …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Datto Autotask PSASpiceworks Help Desk
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Datto Autotask PSA
-
Ratings
Spiceworks Help Desk
7.4
54 Ratings
6% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings7.453 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings5.646 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings7.241 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings6.444 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.153 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings8.752 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Datto Autotask PSA
-
Ratings
Spiceworks Help Desk
7.3
51 Ratings
6% below category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings8.847 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings5.947 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Datto Autotask PSA
-
Ratings
Spiceworks Help Desk
5.3
51 Ratings
37% below category average
Customer portal00 Ratings6.145 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings4.010 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings3.126 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings8.045 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings5.027 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Datto Autotask PSASpiceworks Help Desk
Small Businesses
Atera
Atera
Score 8.9 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Atera
Atera
Score 8.9 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 6.8 out of 10
SAP Service Cloud
SAP Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Datto Autotask PSASpiceworks Help Desk
Likelihood to Recommend
7.6
(29 ratings)
8.8
(82 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(29 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(8 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(4 ratings)
8.7
(26 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Datto Autotask PSASpiceworks Help Desk
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Read full review
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
It's a great helpdesk solution - we currently have five years of data within it, roughly 25,000 tickets. The older edition is a great inventory and software license tracking tool. It is easy for users to use the interface and submit tickets and requests on the web, and its email integration is solid. The new version is a below-average system monitoring tool, only giving up/down status and a few other metrics.
Read full review
Pros
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
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
  • It helps to multitask, even on the go with the mobile App.
  • We can customize to meet your needs with automated responses, notifications, and templates.
  • Detailed reports allow managers to keep track [of] and analyze data.
  • Allows for a database to store notes helpful for future tickets.
Read full review
Cons
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
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
  • I have always wanted a way to redirect a support request into another IS bin, such as a development task.
  • It's possible to extract the data from the Spiceworks database, but it would be helpful if the process to do so were easier.
  • Improved ability to customize the system generated emails to improve the formatting and company branding.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Kaseya
After using multiple products on the market, Autotask was intuitive and easy to manage.
Read full review
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
Spiceworks is a free tool, so there would be no hesitation if we are required to upgrade it. We have installed Spiceworks on a dedicated server with more than enough resources to get the most from this tool, so we will have this running in our department for years to come.
Read full review
Usability
Kaseya
The work flow is much better then other competitors
Read full review
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
Spiceworks is user friendly and easy to set up. It can be customized to suit your needs. If there are any problems, you can go to the community forums for support and be in contact with many IT Pros, as well as the Spiceworks support staff and development teams who are always happy to help users out
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Kaseya
No answers on this topic
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
We use it both locally on our own server so up time is decided by us and we also use the hosted help desk. We have never had an outage of that.
Read full review
Support Rating
Kaseya
They are fairly quick at returning a response to a problem and have been able to fix all issues for the most part.
Read full review
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
Spiceworks has been working out of the box, and some of the basic customizations have been successful with just our internal staff handling. We don't have any other issues with the tool. It provides us with the inventory information we want in a quick and concise report in a variety of formats for our team.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Kaseya
No answers on this topic
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
If you can spin up a VM to run it on, you'll thank yourself later. If you have remote sites, set up a local server (or dedicated computer) at each site and set them up as remote collectors for the main site. You'll save time and bandwidth
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
EGroupware UI is clunky and hard to use, Jira is great but the pricing is expensive in comparison with spice works that has a free version and you can test it out properly before buying and make a correct decision based on your business plan and company objectives with the right software.
Read full review
Return on Investment
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
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
  • Positive - Allow organizations to implement structured Help Desk procedures.
  • Positive - IT can begin to quantify their tickets and uncover needs within the organization.
  • Positive - IT can develop a solid roadmap with [the] management of future needs, equipment refresh schedules, etc.
  • Positive - IT can pinpoint employees who may need extra training or updated equipment based on historical ticketing data.
Read full review
ScreenShots