N-able N-central vs SolarWinds Dameware Remote Everywhere (DRE)

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

I think for ANY environment it's worth taking it out for a test drive. It's very powerful, especially when using the agent to connect to sessions where the end user doesn't need admin rights but when not in a VDI environment it likely would perform better with its built in functionality to ask for elevation. It is really powerful, even with the ability to run command line scripts without the user seeing (kind of a built in psexec) and it does work with Mac and Linux to some degree too so it really is worth trying out regardless of your environment. It may be just what you're looking for and the sales folks at DRE are not pushy at all, at least in my experience, and give great advice even at the expense of selling less licenses!

• 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.

• The ability to send ad hoc links to a Samanage ticket allows users to be helped even if they're on their home computer and need assistance logging into our VPN was essential for us in the COVID-19 transition to an at home workforce!
• The methods of deployment are nice and easily managed through GPO.
• The interface of seeing waiting sessions and options to collaborate with other technicians is nice and user friendly.

• 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

• Connectivity to a helpdesk/knowledgebase would be nice feature so users can do self-help
• Offering a branded version of the client/agent would be a nice touch for businesses
• A web-only version of the technician console for remote support would be a nice feature

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.

SolarWinds Dameware Remote Everywhere is an easy to use software package. The manuals are easy to understand, and the installation is simple and straightforward. The Maintenance and support costs are relatively reasonable, and we maintain support and maintenance strictly for the upgrades rather than support. Over the years, SolarWinds has released numerous feature enhancements to the software package, making SolarWinds Dameware Remote Everywhere indispensable on our network.

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.

Dameware DRE is a powerhouse tool that in my opinion blows these other products out of the water. Each of these competitors offer great services but at a cost as they require multiple subscriptions or a pay to upgrade to the latest version (TeamViewer). DRE is a simple "one stop shop" where everything you need is readily at your fingertips.

• 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.

• seamless installation of MSI or EXE
• No Codes to enter when installing agent
• Agent automatically connects to cloud dashboard
• our deployment tool has messed up a couple of times, so agents get uninstalled or not installed when this occurs, and we can't see a computer in the dashboard