N-able N-sight RMM vs. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

It's great for the basics of device management for Windows PCs, I wouldn't recommend it for Mac other than asset management. The patch management and monitoring templates are helpful for the day-to-day, and the "Take Control" feature for remote assistance allows us to provide fast service to clients - we often are on a machine within 5 minutes of receiving a ticket.

Incentivized

ServiceDesk Plus is very easy to configure at the start, and then adjust the categories and rules as the implementation is refined. Its greatest strength is the ability to program without requiring a full time administrator. There is very little jargon involved. Reporting not so much. The canned reports are useful but do not always cover some of the basics. Fortunately, the user groups freely share report definitions so one could springboard from something close to your desired result.

Incentivized

• It provides fantastic remote access capabilities. The Take Control tool gives us a robust platform that is capable of remote controlling almost any endpoint we need to and the chat, file transfer, and screen recording tools are all exceptionally useful.
• SolarWinds RMM is particularly useful as a single pane of glass solution that allows us to monitor and manage thousands of endpoints across dozens of different clients. It does a solid job of allowing us to sort, organize, and filter based off of who and what we want to see at any given time.
• Due to its client based nature, the platform excels at in-depth monitoring of services, event logs, and the functionality of systems with custom script checks.

Incentivized

• Ticket logging for end users, so they can see the progress on their help requests
• Asset management; it has an agent that can be installed on machines which can then feed back information on installed software, active times, logged on user etc
• Project management; larger projects can be managed within ManageEngine ServiceDesk as well as end user help tickets, where progress/milestones etc can be recorded
• Active Directory import of users, so that it automatically updates when users are created/deleted and links their accounts in ManageEngine ServiceDesk with their email address as well to enable email alerts

Incentivized

• UI speed and threading across multiple windows (1 window refreshing, causes all refreshes to hang).
• Load times in certain menus, regardless of server specs.
• Integration with 3rd party applications.
• Speed of dev team response in regards to existing features malfunctioning, or major bugs that Solarwinds does not consider major.

Incentivized

• When trying to select the top row ticket, you have to be careful not to select all tickets. Happened to us twice and we assigned all open tickets to one technician. Took a few minutes to correct.
• Site is sometimes a bit sluggish to respond. Don't know if that is an issue with our network infrastructure or the program itself, though.
• When users send emails to the help desk, we sometimes experience delays until the tickets appear on the site for the technicians.

Incentivized

we are looking at other tools like Zendesk which may replace ServiceDesk. We are currently evaluating both tools to see which one would serve our needs better

Incentivized

The interface is easy to navigate. Setting up policies is straight forward. The antivirus and web filter are simple and exceptions are easy to make. Upgrading the agent is made simple and creating scripts is made fool proof. (Well, almost)

Incentivized

It is still very cumbersome, lots of data entry on the back end to build how we want it but it is still not completely user friendly. Many functions still dont work and contacting someone for help isnt always easy or we get told solutions for issues we have just arent built yet.

Incentivized

The ease of use, full functionality, reliability and excellent support.[N-able RMM (formerly Solarwinds RMM)] gives users a full suite of tools with a single installable file. Unlike standard tools, you don't have to install several different executables to be able to have fully protected end points.

Incentivized

Our network administrator usually gets a good response when contacting ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus customer service. They are quick to respond and so far have been able to eliminate most of our issues. We have been through several upgrades of the software over the years and have no issues to report in regards to customer service.

Incentivized

Ultimately, we chose to stay with N-able N-sight due to their competitive pricing and billing system that we integrated into our accounting. The other competitors do offer better-made modules/new technology, but we were not ready to make this big move because of the cost. In the future, perhaps, we will still consider NinjaOne.

Incentivized

Spiceworks was free, which obviously had both benefits and limitations - I will say that the community around Spiceworks has always been great. If we could replicate that experience with the ME user base, it would be terrific.

Incentivized

• The ROI is immediate for us. The advanced alerting alone makes this product an ace in our bag. The confidence you have in your network is wonderful.
• Another big ROI we get from the advanced alerting is the peace of mind that our engineers feel. We are a 24/7 shop, so being on-call goes from being hectic to extremely manageable.
• The only negative I can honestly say is when the time comes to patch the product. Micro-patches are easy enough, but jumping versions can be a bit taxing.

Incentivized

• The tool does not scale well from an ROI perspective. As you add a customer, you must add a new instance, hence a new license.
• The tool is probably on the expensive side (34,000 USD per 130 technicians per year).
• There is no usage beyond incident, change, and problem management. The CMDB feature is extremely limited and cannot generate additional ROI. There is no knowledge-base or integration with other software (other than ME Desktop Central).

Incentivized