ConnectWise Automate, formerly LabTech, is a remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform. It provides powerful automation to discover and manage devices, monitor for problems, and scripts repetitive action.
$700
N-able Take Control
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
N-able™ Take Control (formerly Solarwinds Take Control) and
Take Control Plus are cloud-based remote control solutions built for MSPs and
IT service businesses that need to securely access and troubleshoot end devices. With support for Windows®,
Mac®, and Linux® machines, MSPs can work from those
platforms or their iOS® or Android® devices with the N-able native app.
With N-able Take Control, users can assign techs or whole departments to specific
customers or individuals so that…
$19
per month
Pricing
ConnectWise Automate
N-able Take Control
Editions & Modules
Agents
$1.00-$6.00
per month/per agent
Implementation Fee
$700
Take Control
$19
per month
Take Control Plus
$45
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ConnectWise Automate
N-able Take Control
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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No credit card required. Login info sent directly to your email. Access technical support during your trial.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ConnectWise Automate
N-able Take Control
Considered Both Products
ConnectWise Automate
Verified User
C-Level Executive
Chose ConnectWise Automate
Automate is the most flexible and customizable tool on the market - but it's also the most complex and requires the most care and feeding to run smoothly...
I recommend it to all IT colleagues; regardless of the size of the PCs with which you work most of the time, the application allows connection stability between computers that make it possible to continue working or taking care of the infrastructure from afar.
I have used a number of remote access systems over my IT/MSP career, and Take Control stands out as the best I have ever used. If you are using the N-Able RMM I highly recommend, Take Control over the other options that can be integrated into the platform
Take Control is really good at accessing a device with no end-user involvement. The user doesn't have to click on permissions or visit a particular site. We simply can take control of their device from the RMM dashboard.
If Microsoft issues a patch/update, I can schedule a release of a mass install to all client sites at the click of a mouse from within my office.
They have conflicting scheduling paradigms. When scheduling patching for clients, the 1st Friday is interpreted as the very first Friday of the month, even if this is the 1st of the month. For scripting, the 1st Friday of the month is interpreted as the 1st Friday of the 1st FULL WEEK of the month. This makes no sense to have two different interpretations, and makes it unreliable to schedule recurring scripts to fall when recurring maintenance does. The scripts need to be done manually because of this.
There is no way to dictate reboot orders for patch policies. This tied directly in with my first point. We have some clients that require reboot orders. This is not possible without having different patch policies for each server and specifying a time this way. But, there aren't small enough increments of time to make this reliable, plus patching duration might vary. Excluding reboots with patching and scheduling reboot scripts fixes this. However, this can't be done once on a recurring schedule due to the different scheduling paradigms already discussed. We have to schedule these manually each month.
The primary reason for this rating is that ConnectWise Automate is currently so integral to our operations that moving away would involve more man hours than we would realistically have to invest. However, ConnectWise Automate is also completely capable of meeting all of our business needs and customizable to the point where if something is not meeting those needs out of the box, it can be modified to do what we want. From only installing software on machines if a different software package exists, to push a new version of that software is available, to check if credentials for user/machine have been updated to our new standards and then updating them if they have not, ConnectWise Automate is capable of doing everything we ask of it.
Basic use of the product is fairly easy. Information about the machines you manage can be found in customizable dashboards, which can be unique for each user, and, therefore, properly suited to the users' needs/job function. This is not a 10 because some of the interfaces are very clunky (Patch Management), and some features are not intuitive and not well documented (reporting). Scripting and Patch Management have a fairly steep learning curve (For structure in patch management and syntax in scripting), but once learned, they work well.
It used to be great, but then they broke reporting, speed and responsiveness with version 11 and the new Patch Manager. It's really bad and their support people are way behind on fixing so many bugs. They have really gone downhill. If they don't get it together soon, we'll start looking around.
ConnectWise Automate lets you manage more endpoints, with enhanced productivity and improved service, all without increasing expenses. It can manage patches and updates across thousands of computers. We also use it for customized monitoring and alerting on workstations and servers. Monitoring is really robust and granular. It does a great job of gathering a TON of data about the network, and that data is searchable. There are a bunch of different reports built in. Integrates with Manage, Control, and other applications. It does a ton of stuff out of the box, and has endless customization options.
The Online training has been re-done and needs a lot more work. When you look at training in different roles, it shows a lot of the same topics but no explanation to what is different about them. Several times that topics are the exact same, but they make you re-take the same information for a different topic, instead of marking that you have already completed that portion of training.
Start small and learn the in's and out's before making policies and rolling things out company wide. Ask the questions of why if you don't agree with something or your company does things a different way. Usually they are done a certain way for a reason. Start simple with roll out and slowly enable or add on the functionality that is needed.
I believe the monitoring and alerts in Continuum command is better, but [ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech)] does have stronger scripting, and perhaps a better interface. N-Central is inferior on all fronts to both. I did not make the purchasing decision. I would myself likely pick Continuum if I had to make a on the spot choice.
We were primarily a team-viewer customer before this point but the continued increases on cost, feature issues as well as core functionality and load issues we were beginning to see on the host machines we started looking for other options. As we were already a solar-winds customer utilizing the SAAS and Take Control for our Managed customers it was a no-brainer to look into Take Control. After a short review and the fact that we are already very familiar with the system via our management dashboard, it was an easy yes
We found we were able to provide good monitoring of our customers sites which was an objective. However, that came at a significant time investment that never seemed to be finished.
We were able to negotiate a price that worked for us for an up-front purchase which was nice.
We found the pricing to be very competitive.
Bottom line for us was despite the pros of the product, we found other RMM solutions to be a better overall "value" due to not having to dedicate technicians to maintaining the product.
