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ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AServiceDesk Plus is free help desk software from ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corporation.

    $10

    Starting Price Per Month

    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is network diagnostics and troubleshooting technology, from Austin-based SolarWinds.N/A
    Pricing
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk PlusSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Editions & Modules
    Standard
    $10.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    Professional
    $21.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    Enterprise
    $50.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk PlusSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk PlusSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Considered Both Products
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    No answer on this topic
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    Features
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk PlusSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Feature
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    7.5
    22 Ratings
    8% below category average
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Organize and prioritize service tickets8.022 Ratings00 Ratings
    Expert directory6.015 Ratings00 Ratings
    Service restoration7.217 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self-service tools7.020 Ratings00 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications7.716 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation8.818 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM reports and dashboards7.520 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM asset management
    Comparison of ITSM asset management features of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Feature
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    6.1
    17 Ratings
    28% below category average
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Configuration mangement6.616 Ratings00 Ratings
    Asset management dashboard6.516 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy and contract enforcement5.112 Ratings00 Ratings
    Change management
    Comparison of Change management features of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Feature
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    6.8
    18 Ratings
    22% below category average
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Change requests repository7.717 Ratings00 Ratings
    Change calendar5.813 Ratings00 Ratings
    Service-level management7.016 Ratings00 Ratings
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    ManageEngine ServiceDesk PlusSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
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    Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
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    SysAid
    Score8.9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
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    Score6.4 out of 10
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    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk PlusSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (22 ratings)
    8.0
    (142 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    7.7
    (6 ratings)
    7.0
    (9 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk PlusSolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    We use the free version, it allows up to 10 technicians to be added to the system, but that has never been an issue, as we are a small team. The functionality and usability of MESDP are great and can work with larger teams too. It is well suited to be used as a main Ticketing system, and this is not limited to IT only, I am sure other teams that need to keep track and log issues will be able to utilize MESDP without any issues. There is a self-service portal as an option, however, we do not use it as of yet, as there has not been the need for it. If you would need to use the same instance within multiple departments, this may be a bit tricky to achieve, as there is no easy way to limit visibility to tickets from other departments, however, I am sure there is a way around it.
    Incentivized
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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
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    • It is very easy to create business rules that automatically route email tickets to the correct department and apply templates to correctly categorize the incident.
    • The technician auto-assign function allows email tickets to be fairly apportioned using a round robin technique. We do not cuurently use the load balancing technique which is also available.
    • It is very easy to bulk edit requests to correct miscatergorization by Analysts. (i.e. Incidents vs. Service Requests)
    • Coordinating communications and notifying ticket holders when a network or application event is resolved is very simple.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    • Reporting tools; the report features can be a little limited, it can be quite tricky to get the information you want displayed in detail
    • You can set required fields within the ticket template, which should mean the user has to complete them before they can submit the ticket, however this often doesn't enforce correctly
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    Because this is the best tool, we have given ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus a rating of 9 out of 10 because it provides a good overall IT service management experience, especially for ticketing, asset management, automation, and reporting. It has helped us organize IT support processes and improve visibility. For ticketing.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    As any other feature-rich software package, starting out with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has a little bit of a learning curve, but it usually doesn't take very long until you can use the basic features. Training new technicians on the use of the software does not take very long, and for users to submit tickets it is as easy as sending an email.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    I have a few issues with MESDP and even though we use the free version, the support staff was very quick to respond and extremely competent and helpful. Luckily, I have only had to use them a couple of times over the 2.5 years I have been using their product, but they strike me as very competent, friendly and helpful, regardless of the version of their product you use.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    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
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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
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    • 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
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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.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    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.