Microsoft System Center vs. Spoke

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft System Center
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft System Center Suite is a family of IT management software for network monitoring, updating and patching, endpoint protection with anti-malware, data protection and backup, ITIL- structured IT service management, remote administration and more. It is available in two editions: standard and datacenter. Datacenter provides unlimited virtualization for high density private clouds, while standard is for lightly or non-virtualized private cloud workloads.
$1,323
per month
Spoke
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Spoke, headquartered in San Francisco, offers their ticketing and request management app designed to support IT help desks, HR, or management with handling employee requests and assistance needs.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft System CenterSpoke
Editions & Modules
Standard Edition
$1323
Datacenter Edition
$3607
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft System CenterSpoke
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
Features
Microsoft System CenterSpoke
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft System Center
-
Ratings
Spoke
8.4
4 Ratings
3% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings7.34 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings8.32 Ratings
Service restoration00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Self-service tools00 Ratings8.63 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings8.43 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings8.23 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft System Center
-
Ratings
Spoke
9.0
1 Ratings
9% above category average
Configuration mangement00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft System Center
-
Ratings
Spoke
8.3
3 Ratings
1% below category average
Change requests repository00 Ratings8.63 Ratings
Change calendar00 Ratings8.32 Ratings
Service-level management00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Microsoft System CenterSpoke
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies

No answers on this topic

Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft System CenterSpoke
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(20 ratings)
8.4
(4 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft System CenterSpoke
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
We used a product before that was designed to prevent users making changes and saving files to the desktop computer. This required a renewal of the license. By using SCCM in our environment we were able to discontinue using that product because SCCM allows us to completely restore a machine back to the original configuration. We have taught our users to save their individual work on either a network drive or a cloud drive. By doing this, if we do a re-image of their machine they have lost no data, and it makes for a faster resolution. In some instances having a computer in our SCCM environment it can become cumbersome when creating new users for very specific purposes. It can be done by creating new organizational units and applying new policies but when in a pinch it can be frustrating. For the most part we have tried to make "new" purpose images and groups to at least accommodate a quick install.
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Spoke
Spoke is well suited to ingesting the myriad questions and requests I get throughout my workday. If I receive requests directly, they make it easy to change those requests into tickets, which helps my team track and demonstrate the work that we do. Spoke is also great for auto-answering common issues and questions. It only takes three of the same general question for it to start recognizing and offering the answer from our KB. Spoke has also been a great partner in helping our team be more efficient and more effective, something we never got with our old provider. I can’t emphasize enough that Spoke is NOT for external-facing helpdesks. It’s just not. It works best for teams that are supporting their own colleagues. I would also say that, at the moment, it doesn’t scale well past a few hundred users. They’re implementing features this year that will be more helpful for that sort of thing. But it does work great for remote support!
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Pros
Microsoft
  • Provides our users the ability to deploy and manage our own datacenter based on defined software with understandable solutions for storage, compute, networking and security.
  • We are able to update at once all the computers from all departments without having to install the OS on every computer.
  • It allows us to have everything in one place for database management and datacenter inspection as well.
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Spoke
  • Routes questions to the right team or person via Slack, email or text
  • Obtain status updates on current job requests
  • Allows IT to follow up more efficiently on the job requests from employees
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Cons
Microsoft
  • Needs web based storefront for requesting new software
  • Needs ability to manage the packaging work flow better
  • Sometimes is slow to download and there is no indication the entire catalog is being loaded, resulting in confused users not being able to find common software in the available list.
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Spoke
  • Newer company, a lot of features on the road map that aren't yet available.
  • A few bugs with the Slack integration.
  • Filtering/searching tickets is not intuitive.
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Usability
Microsoft
It is not user-friendly for the most part. With IT infrastructure, sometimes it cannot handle excess requests. Every few months, you will need an upgrade in terms of server resources to keep up with incoming alerts and requests. This does not happen all of the time, but it does happen when there are too many requests.
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Spoke
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Microsoft
If I had to dislike something about the system it would be how much it changes once you upgrade. This could be more of a problem of mine since I get used to one way and don't like it when it changes so much. I am enjoying the newest update, but it is a mess when you are actually going through the upgrades.
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Spoke
Any questions we've had were fielded in a very timely manner and their staff have been very helpful in our launch and ongoing inquiries. Internally, it has been very well received amongst staff and has increased efficiency, company wide
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
We previously used a mix of FOG and Clonezilla to image machines. The biggest issues with these products is that changing one piece of the image required you to rebuild the entire image itself. These pieces of software also did not allow you to manage applications and Windows Updates, causing IT to have to constantly touch machines after they were imaged and update or manage them with a much more hands on approach.
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Spoke
Spoke is just... easier. Easier to set up and easier to use, for both admins and users. We already have asset management and didn’t necessarily need our ticketing system to be directly connected to it. We wanted a product that was friendly to use, not crazy expensive, and didn’t require us to purchase an implementation package and/or a multi-day training package to roll-out. It’s not rocket science!
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • We have been able to automate our patch management, firmware and other security concerns.
  • We have a standardized "image" ensuring our setup is consistent across the enterprise. This alone has saved us in time to support and time to understand how to use our desktops.
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Spoke
  • Spoke has been very cost efficient, more than paying for itself in gained productivity hours.
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ScreenShots