N-able N-central vs. Pulseway

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
N-able N-central
Score 7.2 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
Pulseway
Score 8.9 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Pulseway is an IT monitoring and management solution that enables users to monitor, manage and control all systems and servers from a smartphone, tablet or browser. For system administrators, Pulseway sends a notification, so they can see an issue and sort it in seconds. Pulseway features: Automation: Auto-remediation workflows, so that IT issues are fixed before users even notice them. Mobile Access: Customers can monitor, manage, connect with…
$0.80
per month per installation
Pricing
N-able N-centralPulseway
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Enterprise
$0.80
per month per installation
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
N-able N-centralPulseway
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsNo hidden fees or contracts. Term-based discounts.
More Pricing Information
Features
N-able N-centralPulseway
Monitoring Tasks
Comparison of Monitoring Tasks features of Product A and Product B
N-able N-central
5.9
3 Ratings
21% below category average
Pulseway
-
Ratings
Remote monitoring5.43 Ratings00 Ratings
Network device monitoring5.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Management Tasks
Comparison of Management Tasks features of Product A and Product B
N-able N-central
6.0
4 Ratings
18% below category average
Pulseway
-
Ratings
Patch Management6.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
N-able N-centralPulseway
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
Intermapper
Intermapper
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
N-able N-centralPulseway
Likelihood to Recommend
4.8
(22 ratings)
8.0
(12 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
2.0
(4 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(8 ratings)
9.6
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
N-able N-centralPulseway
Likelihood to Recommend
N-able
In my opinion, N-able N-central is a good "learn your lesson and move onto something better" tool. I've used many RMM tools over the years and I feel that this one is slow, does a terrible job with reporting, alerting, monitoring, software deployments, etc. The ability to turn on services like AV, backup, etc easily is cute, but you're not going to be able to use your own tools with this easily. In my experience, if you do turn those tools on for testing during the trial, you'll be charged later (despite it being a trial). They also turn off your ability to monitor these increased costs or to turn them off yourself. As a company, I found that they were impossible to work with. The sales team is right there if you want to buy something - but if you need anything other than to buy something, in my experience, they take days or weeks to navigate. I found that they are not a terribly ethical company and are more concerned with making a few dollars than creating a partnerships with MSPs. I can see value is in the advertised price of $99 for a hundred endpoints. However, you need to remember to not trial any other tools (like AV, backup, etc).
Read full review
Pulseway
If you have to manage a large number of computers, especially spread over multiple clients or a large physical area. This is one of the main products that allows us to act as a Managed Service Provider (MSP) and actually manage our clients devices and not just react to issues as clients call them in. Clients really love the proactive approach it allows us to take.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Pulseway
  • It monitors computers and notifies us of any issues with any computer.
  • It allows remote control of computers, such as requesting a computer to reboot itself.
  • It is very highly configurable to monitor exactly what we need to monitor. For example, on server, we can have it notify us any time the server is shutdown or rebooted. On the other hand, for a desktop computer, we don't have to be bothered with notifications when a user decides to reboot his computer.
Read full review
Cons
N-able
  • 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
Read full review
Pulseway
  • It would be nice if they increased their scope of supported third-party apps.
  • It would be great if they would create an ios app for their ticket system.
  • If they could possibly build in a location service for tracking devices, that would be helpful.
  • If they had two-factor authentication, it would be nice.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Pulseway
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
Pulseway
Pulseway is very user friendly. The system is labeled in terms and grouped together by function so that anyone can understand and locate the functions that they need. We use this system to monitor a file server that we have that can have an unstable power supply. This allows us to easily see that the system is offline and get it back to operational with minimal downtime.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Pulseway
I haven't really needed much support for Pulseway, so I can't really say a whole lot about their support. Pulseway has been pretty much trouble-free for us. There are regular updates and new features. The updates never seem to break anything or cause problems. It just works.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Pulseway
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
Pulseway
Pulseway has the most features, the best looking app with the best design and better usability than any others we evaluated. We liked the uniformity of the app design across all platforms (Windows, Android, Apple) and the notifications displayed on each platform. The price was a major contributor to our selection of Pulseway compared to the competition.
Read full review
Return on Investment
N-able
  • 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.
Read full review
Pulseway
  • Problems can be dealt with more rapidly because I have access to systems from anywhere. I don't have to carry a computer with me nor do I have to find a location with potentially non-secure wifi to gain access to my systems.
  • I can handle 99% of my system admin tasks using Pulseway and never have to touch a system or connect to the console.
  • Pulseway gives so much control over a system that I don't need to spend extra money on other software to perform management tasks.
Read full review
ScreenShots

N-able N-central Screenshots

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

Pulseway Screenshots

Screenshot of Cross-device functionalityScreenshot of Auto-Remediate IT IssuesScreenshot of Visibility Across the Entire NetworkScreenshot of Remote Control to Any SystemScreenshot of Systems and Application patchingScreenshot of Detailed Custom Report