N-able MSP Manager vs. SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
N-able MSP Manager
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
N-able™ MSP Manager (formerly Solarwinds MSP Manager) is a cloud-based help desk and billing software for IT service providers, which includes a ticketing system, customer portal, technician mobile apps, billing tools, and reporting dashboards. MSP Manager offers a lightweight ticketing system with a quick entry feature that allows users to capture essential information such as customer name, service items, and issue details from any screen. Tickets can also be…N/A
SolarWinds Service Desk
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds Service Desk (formerly Samanage) is a cloud-based, multi-tenant IT service desk and asset management software for IT and enterprise service management. Samanage is on a single, always new instance of software. The service desk includes a self-service portal, service catalog, knowledge base, and SLA management tool. The integrated agent-based asset management solution collects contracts and licensing data from Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix systems.N/A
Pricing
N-able MSP ManagerSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
N-able MSP ManagerSolarWinds Service Desk
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
N-able MSP ManagerSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Considered Both Products
N-able MSP Manager

No answer on this topic

SolarWinds Service Desk
Chose SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
SSD is more simplified than N-able MSP Manager. MSP Manager does seem to handle invoices better and is more robust. The screens are more complex but it takes time to get used to them. We went with SSD because it was easy to use without training. After completing the …
Chose SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
The main business need was having a cloud-based product that can allow all employees to submit requests and be able to track and manage the tasks in an organized manner. ServiceNow is a robust software and requires a full-time engineer to manage, BMC remedy was lacking the …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
N-able MSP ManagerSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
N-able MSP Manager
5.3
4 Ratings
42% below category average
SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
8.0
96 Ratings
2% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets4.54 Ratings9.395 Ratings
Expert directory3.54 Ratings7.956 Ratings
Service restoration3.92 Ratings7.357 Ratings
Self-service tools3.54 Ratings8.085 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications7.33 Ratings8.967 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation7.33 Ratings8.176 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards7.33 Ratings6.486 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
N-able MSP Manager
6.7
3 Ratings
20% below category average
SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
6.9
81 Ratings
17% below category average
Configuration mangement6.33 Ratings6.973 Ratings
Asset management dashboard7.23 Ratings6.980 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement00 Ratings6.963 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
N-able MSP Manager
2.8
4 Ratings
100% below category average
SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
8.0
79 Ratings
4% below category average
Change calendar1.01 Ratings7.743 Ratings
Service-level management4.54 Ratings7.871 Ratings
Change requests repository00 Ratings8.663 Ratings
Best Alternatives
N-able MSP ManagerSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Small Businesses
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Score 9.1 out of 10
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
N-able MSP ManagerSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Likelihood to Recommend
4.0
(4 ratings)
7.9
(118 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
6.5
(8 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(7 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(7 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
3.9
(2 ratings)
8.0
(92 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(3 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(4 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.7
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
N-able MSP ManagerSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Likelihood to Recommend
N-able
It's a good company to grow with because as needs change there are more features available.
Read full review
SolarWinds
If you are looking for a way to support a company and bill based on the outcome this software works really well. If it's a quick password change there was no charge, but if it's troubleshooting things you click the box to charge. It works really well for this. Also bringing all your assets into this and associating them to a client works well. I can't think of anything that this software would not be less appropriate for. It works well for what we use it for.
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Pros
N-able
  • Web Based
  • Automated Ticket creation
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • Approval flows: You can have multiple layers of approval required for the tickets and service requests you design. This helps us show auditors that access to privileged systems and data was formerly reviewed and approved by the appropriate managers.
  • Easy to design forms: You don't need to spend hours reading the documentation to figure out how to create forms. It's simple enough that you can just jump right in and start creating them with minimal training.
  • Lots of options and features are available for you to include in your forms.
  • Integrates well with SAML-based SSO and has capabilities for MFA.
  • Easy and useful search function. Need to find that ticket from last year that you worked for a particular user or issue? Just search by keyword or username, and it'll quickly find the ticket.
Read full review
Cons
N-able
  • It is just simply too slow! The web interface requires patience, even when moving between tabs or menu choices. This is by far the biggest detracting element of MSP Manager.
  • Input customization -- I would like the settings pages to allow me to customize some input screens, especially the Ticket Entry window. The "Quick Ticket" entry is missing a few key items I want in a trouble ticket, and the full ticket entry window has numerous fields I never use or are always the same, and so it just takes more time and effort than is necessary.
  • Both the asset tracking and the knowledge base should be more robust and integrally tied into the RMM console, so that licenses, serial numbers, procedures, network data are quick and simple to access from either interface.
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • There is potential to greatly improve the capacity for cascading attributes. Currently, categories are limited to a top-level category and one subcategory. This leaves a fairly shallow decision tree.
  • Greater flexibility to modify the layout of incident request forms.
  • More integration options for cloud file-sharing platforms. Solarwinds Service Desk has tie-ins to Dropbox but not other vendors.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
N-able
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
My renewal is soon coming up, it is fairly likely I will renew again for the 5th year. I may consider evaluating what else is out there, It was requested by my staff to not make a change. They feel that SSD fits our needs, is easy to use and should keep it.
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Usability
N-able
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Solarwinds Service Desk has a very "user friendly" interface. Everything looks nice and neat. And, learning how to use the system is very easy. It provides multiple services that are easy for most people to grasp, and allows for great organization of incidents and assets. Support for Solarwinds Service Desk has a good response and resolution time and are easy to work with.
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Reliability and Availability
N-able
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Because the data is stored on Amazon Web Services (AWS) there are very rarely any outages. There have been some times when the product has been slow to load, but because the interface is web based it could be anything between my computer and AWS that was causing the issue. But also, because the application is web based it can be access from anywhere which makes it very convenient
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Performance
N-able
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
When the system is working, the pages load very quickly. We run reports all the time in the system. The reporting can be extremely complex or very simple. Either way, we have not had any issues with the reports. We do not currently integrate Solarwinds Service Desk with any other software.
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Support Rating
N-able
They're good at resolving issues when they arise.
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SolarWinds
SolarWinds support department will respond to you quickly from the time of purchase to after-purchase instructions & supporting, and the company is great in customers support. In buying a software, our organization always has a priority for the seller and support and accountability is very important to us, and the manufacturer or seller must be responsible and supportive.
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Online Training
N-able
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
When we first purchased Samanage (now Solarwinds) they provided us with an informational training session to show us all of the basics on how the service works and showed us everything we were interested in using. There are still some areas of Solarwinds that we do not yet utilize but I know if we choose to use them in the future we would be able to schedule another session with our representative to have them show us what we need to know.
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Implementation Rating
N-able
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
The implementation process for our organization was fairly simple. We set up an email address to receive the emails from the system (for incident creation), and we allowed the system to spoof our IT email to respond to requests. Solarwinds helped us with the rest of the implementation, and it took less than a week to get the system fully operational.
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Alternatives Considered
N-able
MSP Manager is a fully serviced paid option. Spiceworks is a free helpdesk. They both are very useful, but a company can just outgrow Spiceworks.
Read full review
SolarWinds
We chose SolarWinds Service Desk for its user friendly platform compared to what we had. Its was easier for requestors to submit tickets, provide feedback, merge tickets, build a suitable approval process. Our organization had a hard time going back and forth with the end user on providing a status on their request or issue, where most users just didn't follow through or lost interest in their issue. We would have to send multiple emails to get any type of feedback and that's something we did not want to keep on doing.
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Scalability
N-able
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
We have over 500 computers and tablets across our organization and this has helped us greatly in keeping track of where computers are and who is currently using it. I can see this product being useful to groups both larger and smaller than us and I really appreciate this product.
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Return on Investment
N-able
  • We have had to spend time and resources to create our own reports, as MSP Manager does not have them.
  • Searching for a ticket requires scrolling, wasting time
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • We are more easily able to quantify user satisfaction with support.
  • We are able to develop SLAs that quantify and define the obligation of our support teams.
  • The actual cost of Solarwinds Service Desk per agent user is high in our estimation. The more you implement this platform across your organization, the more tightly tethered you are to this solution.
Read full review
ScreenShots

N-able MSP Manager Screenshots

Screenshot of N-able MSP Manager Dashboard

SolarWinds Service Desk Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of