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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Instana

    Score7.8 out of 10
    N/AInstana, an IBM company since the December 2020 acquisition, provides APM services for SOA, microservices, containerized applications and Kubernetes, and cloud native applications, as well as discovery and monitoring for IT assets.

    $75

    per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)

    N-able Take Control

    Score7.2 out of 10
    N/AN-able™ Take Control is a cloud-based remote control solution for MSPs, to access & troubleshoot end devices. With support for Windows®, Mac®, and Linux® machines, MSPs can work from these or iOS® or Android® devices with the N-able native app.

    $45

    per month

    Pricing
    IBM InstanaN-able Take Control
    Editions & Modules
    Essentials
    $20
    per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)
    Standard
    $75
    per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)
    Self-Hosted
    $93.80
    per month per Managed Virtual Server (MVS)
    Take Control Plus
    $45
    per month
    Take Control Plus
    Contact Vendor
    Take Control
    Contact Vendor
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM InstanaN-able Take Control
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—No credit card required. Login info sent directly to your email. Access technical support during your trial.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM InstanaN-able Take Control
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    N-able
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    61 Answers
    67%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    53 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    61 Answers
    83%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    40 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    47 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    IBM InstanaN-able Take Control
    Monitoring Tasks
    Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of IBM Instana and N-able Take Control
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    7.6
    3 Ratings
    9% below category average
    N-able Take Control
    -
    Ratings
    Remote monitoring9.14 Ratings00 Ratings
    Network device monitoring5.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple Server Monitoring8.94 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-device monitoring5.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automated alerts and notifications9.14 Ratings00 Ratings
    Management Tasks
    Comparison of Management Tasks features of IBM Instana and N-able Take Control
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    5.5
    1 Ratings
    23% below category average
    N-able Take Control
    -
    Ratings
    Software and hardware inventory6.42 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy-based automation4.52 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting
    Comparison of Reporting features of IBM Instana and N-able Take Control
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    6.5
    3 Ratings
    20% below category average
    N-able Take Control
    -
    Ratings
    Performance data reports8.34 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable reporting4.52 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data visualization8.83 Ratings00 Ratings
    Risk analysis4.52 Ratings00 Ratings
    Remote Administration
    Comparison of Remote Administration features of IBM Instana and N-able Take Control
    Feature
    IBM Instana
    -
    Ratings
    N-able Take Control
    7.9
    14 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Screen sharing00 Ratings8.013 Ratings
    File transfer00 Ratings10.014 Ratings
    Instant message00 Ratings5.012 Ratings
    Secure remote access with Smart Card authentication00 Ratings8.21 Ratings
    Access to sleeping/powered-off computers00 Ratings1.05 Ratings
    Over-the-Internet remote session00 Ratings10.013 Ratings
    Initiate remote control from mobile00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
    Remote management of servers & workstations00 Ratings10.013 Ratings
    Remote Active Directory® management00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Centralized management dashboard00 Ratings7.011 Ratings
    Session record00 Ratings8.07 Ratings
    Annotations00 Ratings9.05 Ratings
    Monitoring and Alerts00 Ratings8.011 Ratings
    Multi-platform remote control00 Ratings7.011 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM InstanaN-able Take Control
    Small Businesses
    Amazon CloudWatch
    Score7.8 out of 10
    RemotePC
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LogicMonitor
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Remote Desktop Manager
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    ManageEngine Site24x7
    Score10 out of 10
    BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM InstanaN-able Take Control
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.8
    (60 ratings)
    6.0
    (14 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.3
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM InstanaN-able Take Control
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    Well-suited for an org with a large application base, where many microservices are created and destroyed daily. IBM Instana doesn't require any manual configuration, so deploying the Instana agents takes very little time. Data capture from IBM Instana is highly granular and can detect even short spikes lasting a few seconds. Not suitable for legacy applications where there will be rarely any changes. They can use a simpler monitoring mechanism. Also, highly dense data capturing can sometimes overload the information.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    N-able
    I have used a number of remote access systems over my IT/MSP career, and Take Control stands out as the best I have ever used. If you are using the N-Able RMM I highly recommend, Take Control over the other options that can be integrated into the platform
    Read full review
    Pros
    IBM
    • Can monitor application(s) and system(s) with very large throughput of transactions by the second ( it gets everything !!!)
    • Provide strong drill down for your applications and will tell you where the points of failure of an application's is ( servers , network , Databases , etc you name it )
    • Very easy to set up and have it up and running when using the SaaS solution. There's an on premise solution which works just as well but requires more effort and preparation from an infrastructure point of view for your teams to implement.
    • Continuously improve their features and their agents auto-update and keep up. All while not interfering with your applications.
    • Let's you create your own dashboards and visualizations that can be tailored for different kind of users with the data collected.
    • Create your own events and smart alerts so you can know on the spot if something is happening or is likely to happen that needs addressing on your applications / systems
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    N-able
    • Take Control is really good at accessing a device with no end-user involvement. The user doesn't have to click on permissions or visit a particular site. We simply can take control of their device from the RMM dashboard.
    • If Microsoft issues a patch/update, I can schedule a release of a mass install to all client sites at the click of a mouse from within my office.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    IBM
    • It's very difficult to create custom dashboards, only a handful of scenarios can be visualized to dashboards.
    • Extracting information from Instana to further analysis into excel for example is something that can be improved. Using an API to get data is very limiting.
    • Open telemetry features which allow to send application data to Instana is not working as documented.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    N-able
    • Performance on low-end machines.
    • Verbosity when changing stream quality.
    • File manager needs improving, dragging files causes graphical issues.
    • Connection time needs to be reduced.
    • Ability to adjust re-connection time.
    • Integration with more password-storage applications.
    • Screen blanking is buggy in some instances and makes the session unusable.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    Instana has been able to fulfill our all requirement and provide out of box solution for multiple component like AWS RDS Monitoring and real time alerting setup on basis of that. it is also easy to integrate with other open-source alerting and monitoring tools which makes it easier to incorporate into our solutions
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    N-able
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    IBM
    IBM Instana totally alters our monitoring approach since it increases the stability of the system and simplifies the process of problem solving. And since it helps to lower the degree of alert exhaustion that we experience, it is a total game changer for us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    N-able
    The interface needs a lot of updating. It's just too "busy."
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    IBM
    IBM instana support team is good but when we ask them for support, they keep asking same thing again and again and mostly there is no solution
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    N-able
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    Instana is much more robust and modern compared to our previous product which was AppDynamics. We compared Dynatrace and Datadog and they were very similar in many aspects. The licensing simplicity with Instana and our existing relationship with IBM made it a much more enticing option and accelerated the adoption timeline
    Read full review
    N-able
    We were primarily a team-viewer customer before this point but the continued increases on cost, feature issues as well as core functionality and load issues we were beginning to see on the host machines we started looking for other options. As we were already a solar-winds customer utilizing the SAAS and Take Control for our Managed customers it was a no-brainer to look into Take Control. After a short review and the fact that we are already very familiar with the system via our management dashboard, it was an easy yes
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • Increase up time by early failure identification and performance optimization based on findings in Instana.
    • Enhance user experience by mapping user issues with backend failures
    • Automated actions help fixing known issues without human intervention
    • increase support team efficiency by root cause analysis which decrease the incident solving time
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    N-able
    • We we're able to bundle Take Control into our RMM pricing removing the need to pay for a separate system and maintain its intergration
    • Remote access is only a click away saving our techs time
    • Reliable connection mean issues are resolved without having to 'fix' the remote access first
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    N-able Take Control Screenshots

    Screenshot of N-able Take Control DashboardScreenshot of Take Control - home