N-able N-central vs N-able Take Control

N-able N-central is highly suitable for IT Admins within large organizations that need oversight of all it equipment. Ideal for managing organizations that need inventory and management of more than 10 IT devices. Highly inappropriate for smaller scale companies that mange less than 10 PCs

In situations in which you have high-end, up-to-date hardware systems, Take Control will thrive. Using the software on older system, or clients that do not wish to update to current OS/hardware, Take Control will suffer.

• Remote tasks - entry-level techs can run basic tasks without physically touching a piece of equipment.
• Remote support - remote controlling user devices is easy and saves a lot of time with having to initiate a remote session.
• Management of devices, particularly patch management and anti-virus management - you can automatically approve and deploy patches and schedule automatic AV scans.

• Easy to use remote support.
• Easily and securely access sensitive systems.
• Easily set-up our end users with the ability to remote access to their own desktops as needed.

• Expensive software
• The support team are terrible
• Sales team will promise the world to get you over the line
• Subscription management is tedious
• Old software with very little development and the support team will not provide any further information on this - no roadmap
• Integrations galore - but none of them are effective

• Copy and paste functions from the host to a remote desktop is cumbersome.
• Screen sizing is an issue for lower resolution devices (servers).

Overall we have liked our solar winds experience, however, as our company has grown to support larger enterprises, this product does not have the functionality that our teams need in order to fully support them. The lack of granularity with backups and lack of ability to support nutanix environments is slowly drawing us into the use of other tools.

The user interface is fairly straight forward, with logic groupings for objects. I did not deploy this software, but am one of the daily administrators. Once you get the correct agent package (Which can be a challenge) the integration into AD is not bad. The UI could be more customized, but that may have been a design choice.

For the most part, support has been good, but often we need to reach out to our account manager to ask that cases be escalated. First level support can often be frustrating to work with. There are particular support engineers that we know we won't get good service from when they are assigned to cases. The level of support offered did become worse when the company was sold to SolarWinds.

Make sure if you your using a vm you follow the instructions for provisioning to the letter or it will be starting from square one

N-Central has automation manager, which allows you to automate multiple tasks, thereby saving time and effort through Automated patching. AV and Backups are built into the system, and can be deployed by checking a box. It's easy to update and keep secure. File transfer and remote controls are great and make easy work from off-site.

Take Control can be accessed through a browser whereas Windows Remote Desktop requires settings on the PC and device to remote into the end device. Installing the end devices application has mostly been a flawless install with limited setting configurations. GoToMyPC has often required a reboot of the end device in order to get it working.

• Reduced time to manage and support servers and endpoints.
• Provides support dept with more accurate information to assess and resolve issues quicker and more efficiently.
• The subscription cost associated with N-central, to our clients has a good profit margin for us.

• Looks professional and the ease of addressing issues raised by the RMM gives clients confidence in me as their provider.
• Managed Service clients tend to appreciate minimal work interruption, so quick connections that don't require user interaction is great.