N-able N-central vs. PRTG Network Monitor

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
N-able N-central
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
MSPs and IT professionals use N-able™ N-central® to monitor and manage devices and complex networks remotely. N-central provides visibility and efficiency as the user's needs scale. N-central can help users: 1. Proactively monitor everything on a customer network—not just servers and workstations—and troubleshoot. 2. Stay on top of threats with features like MFA, antivirus, integrated endpoint detection and response, data backup, disk encryption, email protection,…N/A
PRTG
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
PRTG Network Monitor is the flagship offering from German software company Paessler, for monitoring local and wide area networks (LANs & WANs), servers, websites, apps, and more.
$2,149
per year
Pricing
N-able N-centralPRTG Network Monitor
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
PRTG 500
$2,149
per year
Hosted 500
$2,149
per year
PRTG 1,000
$3,899
per year
Hosted 1000
$3,899
per year
PRTG 2,500
$8,099
per year
Hosted 2500
$8,099
per year
PRTG 5,000
$14,199
per year
Hosted 5000
$14,199
per year
PRTG 10000
$17,899
per year
PRTG Enterprise
Custom Pricing
subscription license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
N-able N-centralPRTG
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
N-able N-centralPRTG Network Monitor
Features
N-able N-centralPRTG Network Monitor
Monitoring Tasks
Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of Product A and Product B
N-able N-central
7.4
6 Ratings
0% above category average
PRTG Network Monitor
-
Ratings
Remote monitoring9.66 Ratings00 Ratings
Network device monitoring8.26 Ratings00 Ratings
Management Tasks
Comparison of Management Tasks features of Product A and Product B
N-able N-central
8.9
7 Ratings
20% above category average
PRTG Network Monitor
-
Ratings
Patch Management8.97 Ratings00 Ratings
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
N-able N-central
-
Ratings
PRTG Network Monitor
7.7
65 Ratings
5% below category average
Automated network device discovery00 Ratings8.158 Ratings
Network monitoring00 Ratings9.464 Ratings
Baseline threshold calculation00 Ratings7.655 Ratings
Alerts00 Ratings8.765 Ratings
Network capacity planning00 Ratings6.746 Ratings
Packet capture analysis00 Ratings6.833 Ratings
Network mapping00 Ratings6.946 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings7.055 Ratings
Wireless infrastructure monitoring00 Ratings7.447 Ratings
Hardware health monitoring00 Ratings8.962 Ratings
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User Ratings
N-able N-centralPRTG Network Monitor
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(25 ratings)
8.8
(66 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(2 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
7.3
(7 ratings)
8.7
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(8 ratings)
8.0
(18 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.4
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
N-able N-centralPRTG Network Monitor
Likelihood to Recommend
N-able
N-Able is perfect for an MSP environment. It gives all the standard functionality an IT professional needs out of the box and can be configured to show almost anything required. For example, we have configured a dashboard to show when our backups need attention for each customer. This is achieved by running a small script on repeat via N-Central everyday/evening, and the result gives us information on the dashboard to help us identify exactly what is working and what needs looking into.
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Paessler
integrates seamlessly with Windows servers via WMI and PowerShell, providing deep insights into resource usage, performance metrics, and system health. It's excellent at tracking CPU, memory, disk space, and event logs, enabling rapid troubleshooting and proactive maintenance. PRTG Network Monitor also effectively monitors Fortigate devices, providing detailed data on firewall health, traffic patterns, bandwidth utilization, VPN status, and security alerts. This visibility helps detect and resolve network security issues promptly.
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Pros
N-able
  • 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.
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Paessler
  • Switch monitoring and finding out if there are communication issues or throughput alerts are reached
  • Big picture view of the whole infrastructure and what is functioning and what is not
  • Uptime tracking is great and lets us know for how long a device is down or overall uptime
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Cons
N-able
  • Customer support just points to online guides and I feel they aren't helpful.
  • During the trial they turn on a lot of features. In my experience, if you play around with the features, they charge you for them. Keep this in mind if you move forward with N-Able - they will charge for "trialed" services.
  • In my experience, some services that you're being charged for can't be disabled or monitored by you or your team. You only see them on the monthly invoice.
  • In my opinion, the "Scripting Automation" doesn't provide value. You're either going to be writing your own batch or Powershell to make scripting work.
  • In my opinion, monitoring software deployments is painful.
  • The default monitoring template can't be duplicated, edited, or referenced. You'll find that the default monitors in an unusual way and will throw needless recurring alerts into your ticketing system. To avoid this, you need to create a template from scratch which takes many hours to set up.
  • In my opinion, they're more concerned about a quick buck than customer service. "Buyer beware" company.
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Paessler
  • Licensing on a per entity basis can be cumbersome for devices which have a ton of monitoring points like network switches\routers. Each sensor may count against a license, which could be a lot of you were monitoring every TX\RX of an SFP for example
  • A better method to easily template\copy monitors across devices
  • The navigation in the web GUI could be a little more straightforward in terms of the hierarchy
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Likelihood to Renew
N-able
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.
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Paessler
I would renew it because the platform has brought us many technical and economic benefits that make the cost-benefit ratio very good. Additionally, to do so does not require large investments in training, licensing or infrastructure, and at the administration level, extensive knowledge is not required to be able to bear it.
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Usability
N-able
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.
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Paessler
The tool is very intuitive to use and it is Windows-based (everybody knows how to use Windows) so it's easy to get into. Every time is setup in a hierarchy so if you have a good initial hierarchy design, it will really reduce administrative effort down the road.
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Support Rating
N-able
Every time we have reached out to SolarWinds they are quick to respond, even offering support chat 24/7. Their support team is great and works with you to find solutions to issues. They have taken items we had issues with before and used those to create updates so that the issue is handled better in the future.
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Paessler
PRTG does everything we need it to do and more. Ease of use, ease of management and maintenance and clarity of monitoring of hundreds of different types of device and service gives this a large advantage over other products on the market that I have tried. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who needs a network monitoring product in their environment and even to people who don't know they need a solution yet!
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Implementation Rating
N-able
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
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Paessler
It's very important that de project's teams have different member of the TI. We have learned too late the importa of Security Analyst at the design architecture moment. We have to rebuild part of the implementation for made this big mistake.
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Alternatives Considered
N-able
Our version of SolarWinds was old and running on old hardware, but it was way easier to setup and do things with. It did not do everything N-able does such as patch management, or at least we didn't have a module to do so if one existed. However it definitely seemed easier to use and possibly more stable.
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Paessler
PRTG offers more versatility in monitoring when compared to the other solutions we tested. The other solutions were also limited as far as customization options, which made them less adaptable to our networks. When compared to Auvik, for instance, we prefer PRTG as it offers immediate notifications through the desktop client - not limited to email notifications as with Auvik. We also appreciate the fact that PRTG can be self/on-prem hosted vs Auvik's cloud model. This makes for an easier deployment and less firewall adjustments to allow traffic to cloud-hosted solutions.
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Return on Investment
N-able
  • We have lost hundreds of hours on the phone/emailing support with no resolution for any of our issues
  • We had to move all of our services away which was very painful
  • Staff satisfaction was low having to deal with this company
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Paessler
  • The ability to analyze multiple pieces of information in one place, especially with historical data, has saved our IT department time and headaches. It would be so much more difficult to trace an issue without PRTG, just relying on event logs and an open task manager window.
  • The cost is not cheap, so it's an expense that hits the bottom line like everything else. Figure in hardware costs as well, ideally a server outside of your main environment.
  • I keep saying this, but the historical data piece is worth so much. There's really no good way to collect all of that information in one place without something like PRTG. And that definitely saves time and money in the long run.
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ScreenShots

N-able N-central Screenshots

Screenshot of N-able N-central DashboardScreenshot of Remote desktop access with Take Control