N-able N-central vs Panda Systems Management

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

Panda Systems Management is well suited for small to medium sized organizations looking for a tool to centralize asset management not only physical but also assist with rapid deployment of patches, applications, etc. It proves also to be very beneficial as permits (to and extent) to do troubleshooting without interfering or interrupting end users.

• 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.

• Remote access. It's as good as any other on the market. It also allows for RDP connections which is a nice feature.
• Inventory management. We get some great insight from the reports we can run.
• Quick Jobs. If there's an app or service you use, there may be a quick job to install and update it remotely.

• 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

• More intuitive UI
• Better integration with Windows and Windows Update

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.

We have not had much trouble with Panda Systems Management. They've been fairly responsive, and do take suggestions. The onboarding process was smooth and about as easy as they could make it. There are times when it does take a while for them to respond, but they usually do respond within a few hours at worst.

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.

Much easier solution to use (by a ten fold), very intuitive user interface even for inexperience users... does not require on prem server because is cloud based

• 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.

• It's allowed us to be more proactive when it comes to things. We can keep an eye on computers that may need replacement. It was a lifesaver when updating to Windows 10.
• It saves so much time compared to our previous remote software, GoToAssist. While I think GoToAssist may be a bit more solid when in action, there's too much setup time, even with unattended access. Panda is click and go.
• Remote command prompt has also been a lifesaver, and nonintrusive for the user. The users think we are magic.