NinjaOne vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
The NinjaOne Unified IT Operations Platform delivers endpoint management, autonomous patching, backup, and remote access. NinjaOne aims to give organizations' employees a great technology experience to work faster, smarter, and easier while IT teams modernize and improve efficiency.N/A
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is network diagnostics and troubleshooting technology, from Austin-based SolarWinds.N/A
Pricing
NinjaOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
NinjaOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsNinjaOne is a subscription typically billed annually and sold through channel partners. Monthly billing is nonstandard but billed on a case by case basis.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
NinjaOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Features
NinjaOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Monitoring Tasks
Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of Product A and Product B
NinjaOne
9.3
63 Ratings
24% above category average
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
-
Ratings
Remote monitoring9.360 Ratings00 Ratings
Network device monitoring8.455 Ratings00 Ratings
Activity Monitoring9.147 Ratings00 Ratings
Management Tasks
Comparison of Management Tasks features of Product A and Product B
NinjaOne
8.7
62 Ratings
21% above category average
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
-
Ratings
Patch Management9.461 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy-based automation8.861 Ratings00 Ratings
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User Ratings
NinjaOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(68 ratings)
9.4
(141 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(3 ratings)
8.1
(6 ratings)
Usability
9.3
(10 ratings)
7.1
(8 ratings)
Availability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(6 ratings)
7.7
(9 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
1.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Configurability
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
NinjaOneSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Likelihood to Recommend
NinjaOne
Well suited for support and management of a large fleet of endpoints, particularly across multiple regions and locations. Its well suited for MSPs for this reason. Its also effective for managing patching and updates for server infrastructure, where some other products are unable to manage. Its useful being able to access these features across multiple networks and domains. There is an option to monitor network equipment such as switches, but it didn't provide any information that wasn't already provided in the switches cloud portal.
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SolarWinds
Network Configuration Manager is well suited for backing up configurations of all your devices. It also has a great comparison tool for seeing only the differences in config. Another great feature is it's ability to push a script to any number of devices. This is very handy for pushing changes to one, 10 or multiple devices. There are also some great reports that you can run against the devices in inventory
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Pros
NinjaOne
  • Remote connections: the NinjaRemote client is spectacular and very easy to use and navigate. It quickly connects to customer systems so my engineers are able to work. As a bonus, they also offer a really good mobile app to connect to client systems.
  • Antivirus: Bitdefender Endpoint Protection is built directly into the NinjaOne portal. This makes deploying and maintaining AV very easy.
  • OS Patching: NinjaOne makes it very easy to handle patching across multiple clients and locations. It is very easy to use and doesn't take long to set up.
  • Support: NinjaOne support is always very prompt and helpful.
  • Documentation: the NinjaOne Dojo is a one-stop shop for all of your FAQs, guides, and forum needs. You can find almost anything here to help you deploy and maintain NinjaOne.
  • Automation Library: NinjaOne comes preloaded with a large number of ready-to-go automations. They also provide you with a scripting module to create your own.
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SolarWinds
  • Integrates with Network Performance Management for Alerting and Reporting.
  • NetPath and detects issues due to Configuration Change.
  • Keeps a record of which user made the change.
  • Which devices are not being backed up, devices where backups are failing, dashboard and alerting available.
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Cons
NinjaOne
  • NinjaOne does support Mac, however I would like to have more options for automation and scheduled task on Mac devices.
  • I would like it if NinjaOne also provided an MDM solution.
  • It would be nice is NinjaOne could integrate a PAM solution as well.
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SolarWinds
  • For our use case, it does everything great and some of the features we underutilize but I would like to be able to set a configuration baseline when initially adding a node instead of after the configuration is pulled but it's not a particularly big deal to let it pull the configuration then set it as the baseline.
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Likelihood to Renew
NinjaOne
We already did. After evaluating many platforms, we found the cybersecurity of the company, its development direction, and the performance of the platform to be far superior at its price point.
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SolarWinds
Medium complexity to set up in the beginning if using any non-standard devices or configurations, else fairly easy (e.g. Cisco Nexus or IOS-based devices). Reports are fairly straightforward to set up. Updates to the platform are fairly straightforward and don't take a major effort. Easy to add or remove devices.
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Usability
NinjaOne
NinjaOne is easy to use, intuitive, and provides great value for our organization specifically with inventory tracking and patch management. There is also a wealth of control from an RMM perspective that we have over our fleet of hardware as well as customer websites. The communications with our account representative is outstanding as well. I'd highly recommend for organizations to engage with NinjaOne, and this is from a user who's used other RMM's and related software offerings at different MSP's. Go NinjaOne!
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SolarWinds
The user interface is lacking. It is difficult to navigate at times and things can be done multiple ways. Quite often I am confused by how their notification structure works. It is not very intuitive. They do offer a free Academy. They also offer a community of other technical folks. I have enjoyed both.
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Reliability and Availability
NinjaOne
Availability is very good
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SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Performance
NinjaOne
The software loads quickly for the most part
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SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
NinjaOne
Ninja support has always been top notch. They have always been responsive and efficient both in troubleshooting issues or talking to me at a high-level about on-going improvements or needed changes. Both sales and Technical support has been good and I've been very pleased with the Customer service we have received from Ninja
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SolarWinds
To be fair, I have not had to involve Support in a number of years, but when I did, I was greeted with enthusiastic engineers who wanted to understand and solve the issue. It was a fairly complex scenario and I have discovered in my most recent implementation that engineering included that option as a standard now.
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In-Person Training
NinjaOne
Easy to learn and all of the functions and features were easy to learn. Once I started learning all of the features and functions, it made my everyday tasks much easier and more productive. The user interface is very easy to use. If I did have any questions, the Ninja Dojo was a big help.
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SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Online Training
NinjaOne
It was nice and self paced learning. The sections were easy to understand and the functionality was very worthwhile. The online training was very easy to learn and intuitive. I did not feel the need to ask for any clarification or assistance with any of the sections. I am still learning a lot of the functions but fined it very easy to use.
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SolarWinds
Solarwinds has actually produced new training since I last used it that is available on their site at any time. Their previous training was more than enough to get us started but now there is significantly more content. Since I'm comfortable with the Orion platform and the products we use I haven't checked the new training out yet but we have new staff go through portions of that training and they always come away with an understanding of the platform and ready to use it
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Implementation Rating
NinjaOne
Use of Organizations and locations
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SolarWinds
it was a fairly easy implementation and everything was pretty straightforward. only challenge we had was getting all the snmp communities updated on the networking equipment
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Alternatives Considered
NinjaOne
NinjaOne has the most rounded set of features however I believe all of the programs have there own plus and minus points. We use a mixture of programs however NinjaOne is the most heavily used.
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SolarWinds
At the time SolarWinds was the biggest player in the space and their whole portfolio was very comprehensive. As time progressed and newer technologies came about (i.e. SDWAN) their products couldn't keep up with the consumer demands and changing market. Security became such a big focus that once Solarwinds got hacked we had to remove all their products from our environment
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Scalability
NinjaOne
Overall the software is very reliable
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SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
NinjaOne
  • Allowed us to use our full IT staff in remote offices to troubleshoot
  • The quick site response times helps reduce the time spent trying to find, connect, and fix systems
  • The ease of use creates confidence from our users that we can quickly fix their problems from anywhere in the world.
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SolarWinds
  • Saves 100s of hours a year in man hours over manual configuration.
  • Saved easily 50k in lost revenue when a switch rebooted with months old unsaved configuration. NCM let us quickly restore a snapshot of the running config from the previous day.
  • Saves us several man hours per week of config auditing by reducing all changes to a summary email.
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ScreenShots

NinjaOne Screenshots

Screenshot of the NinjaRMM dashboardScreenshot of the NinjaRMM mobile appScreenshot of NinjaRMM automationScreenshot of NinjaRMM device detailsScreenshot of NinjaRMM network monitoring - NetFlowScreenshot of NinjaRMM virtual machine monitoring

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) Screenshots

Screenshot of Network Automation -  manage rapid change across complex and multi-vendor networks, reduce time needed to complete repetitive tasks, and maintain standards and service levels for uninterrupted ITScreenshot of Config Backup - rest easy knowing you can locate the most current configuration and quickly apply it to a replacement spare, or to roll back a blown configuration.Screenshot of Vulnerability Scanning - Take the hassle out of vulnerability scanning using NCM's integration with the National Vulnerability Database and access to the most current CVE’s to identify vulnerabilities in your Cisco devices.Screenshot of Inventory Management - Be able to know what devices are connected to your network, their hardware and software configurations, and when they approach end-of-service and end-of-life, with NCM device configuration management tool.Screenshot of User Management - Use NCM's integrated console to lock down devices from unauthorized access, delegate who can view device details and make configuration changes, and determine when network changes can occur.Screenshot of Baselines and Diffs - IT professionals can get a more comprehensive view by leveraging baselines across multiple nodes. Diff view in NCM’s network configuration management tool is designed to highlight only those lines that changed.