Desktop Central from ManageEngine is a client desktop management with patching, remote control, and configuration.
$795
per year per user
Zabbix
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Zabbix is an open-source network performance monitoring software. It includes prebuilt official and community-developed templates for integrating with networks, applications, and endpoints, and can automate some monitoring processes.
ManageEngine Endpoint Central is very well suited to most kind of patches, updates, and software deployments. It's able to quickly recognize and update third-party software whenever a new security vulnerability is discovered, and it's able to do this for you automatically. The remote connection and management features allow us to begin troubleshooting immediately once a user reports an issue, regardless of whether or not they're working on-campus or from home. A ticket that might have taken a few days to close out now takes no longer than a couple minutes. If you use Mac, the remote connection feature requires the user to allow Endpoint Central through their system's Security/Privacy settings. This step can be difficult for your less tech-savvy users. You can remotely and silently access a computer's task manager, registry, and command prompt, which is incredibly useful. This saves us a ton of time on having to contact the user and schedule a meeting. The only complaints I have about these management features are that the UI is a little bare bones, and it occasionally has minor problems with responsiveness.
Zabbix is great for monitoring your servers and seeing alerts when the system uses too much CPU or memory. This allowed the system Engineer to be proactive and add resources to these systems to avoid interrupting the services. Especially servers running operations applications and services. This is one of the best usages for Zabbix.
We set alerts when a devices gets low on disk space. That is automatic and creates a ticket in ME SDP. We are then able to Add space to a VM Desktop, and then go thru ManageEngine Endpoint Central to extend the drives so the entire process can be done without interruption to the end user.
Using the patch scans we can easily see what patches have been installed for all manufacturers not just Microsoft, without having to physically go to the device. It also allows us to choose which patches we want to push out and automate the process so we can be hands off, freeing up out time for other things.
Remote access to devices. This allows us to remotely make changes, not just via remote control but also make registry changes and clean up space without going to the device and without interruption to the end user.
Alerts. We have set up to get email alerts when new hardware is plugged into any computers. This lets us know if someone is bringing in un-authorized equipment (thumb drives, hubs, etc) to better manage what is/is not on our network.
Collecting hardware data - CPU, Memory, Network, and Disk Metrics are collected and reported on.
Flexible design - It is very easy to build out even very large environments via the templating system. You can also start where you are - network monitoring, server monitoring, etc. and then build it out from there as time and resources permit.
Provides a "plugin architecture" (via XML templates) to allow end users to extend it to monitor all kinds of equipment, software, or other metrics that are not already added into the software already.
Very complete documentation. Almost every aspect of Zabbix has been documented and reported on.
Cost - Zabbix is FOSS software and always free. Support is reasonably priced and readily available.
The remote CLI/PowerShell interfaces should support tab completion and command history like the real-world versions
Remote control could work better
Having a standalone application, even if just a Java app or something for the remote control/remote command line versus running it out of a web browser
ManageEngine is considered an excellent product due to its comprehensive suite of solutions for IT management, with ManageEngine Endpoint Central specifically excelling in endpoint management. The platform stands out for its user-friendly interface, robust features, and versatility in addressing diverse IT needs. It offers organizations a centralized solution for endpoint security, patch management, software deployment, and asset management
It is free. It didn't cost anything to implement (other than my time and the cost incurred for it) and it is filling a badly needed gap in our IT infrastructure. Support is available if we have issues and can be done annually or paid for on a per incident basis as needed. Expansion, updates, and all other future lifecycle activities are likewise free of cost, so as long as someone is able to implement/maintain the software (and the OSS project is maintained) then I imagine the company will never leave it.
I gave this rating because ManageEngine Endpoint Central is reliable, easy to use, and delivers strong value for money. It helps us save time through automation and effectively handles patching, remote support, application management, BitLocker security, and corporate data wipe. Although cloud DLP support is limited, the overall performance and stability fully justify the rating.
I think every organization, especially the IT department, needs a tool like this. I know of another product like Zabbix that gives a similar or the same solution, but its range makes it very useful. You can see almost all the device info in one place: disk usage, disk space, network usage, etc.
The immediate chat support is great and very helpful. However, if you need escalated support or have a deeper need that the chat tool can't help with, you will experience significant wait times and slow responses. The time zone difference becomes painful to the point of often just giving up.
The setup is the most time-consuming portion of using zabbix. It takes a lot of effort to shape it into a usable format and even then it can get very messy. It's not exactly intuitive and as mentioned the UI seems a bit antiquated. If I was to roll out a monitoring solution from scratch, I'd probably look for alternatives which are easier to use and maintain.
It seems that the services offered with the purchase change from what is covered to what is an additional cost. Somethings I thought we had ended up requiring an additional purchase if we wanted to continue using the feature.
We are a mainly Windows environment, so it would be useful if we could have used Active Directory to deploy agents. As of version 4.2, Zabbix has announced a new agent MSI file to allow exactly that. Unfortunately, we didn't have that option. Also, for Linux and MAC deployments, there is no simple way to deploy that. Using remote scripts you may be able to create something, but most places will opt for either SNMP (agentless) or manual installation of agents to add to Zabbix. A way of deploying agents via discovery would go a long way to helping in the adoption of the tool.
This works great. It is super easy to setup automated patching and the patching actually works. When using Solarwinds, we would have to regularly troubleshoot machines and figure out why they were not patching. This is not the case with ManageEngine Endpoint Central. We have seen a significant decrease in number of troubleshooting hours since moving.
We're using the Solarwinds suite as our global monitoring standard, but it is very complex and its licensing model makes it difficult to monitor a wide range of technologies. So, we're using Zabbix as a complement on our monitoring process. Zabbix is a way more flexible and has free integrations to a wide range of technologies. It is also more 'user friendly' and easy to manage.
We have been able resolve and complete any requests which include things like software deployment or issues that include troubleshooting, much faster and more efficiently. This has had a sharp decrease in our response times and also time it takes to complete these requests or incidents.
The mobile device management features have allowed us to be able to have a much tighter grip on security. This means we have dramtically decreased our device vulnerabilities and risk of data breaches. This has saved us lots of time and money.
The remote features that are available have helped a lot with user's being able to work remotely and allow our organisation to sustain hybrid work. It means user's can still be as productive and IT support is as efficient no matter where the user is working.
