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SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) vs. Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/ASpiceworks offers a set of free tools for IT network management and help desk support ticketing. The inventory management system essentially provides comprehensive device information for asset management.

    $0

    (free for 1-5 Seats)

    Pricing
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Core Plan
    $0
    Premium
    $6
    per month per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Considered Both Products
    SolarWinds
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    Well, Spiceworks is free, but the support is almost non-existent. ConnectWise is good, but they are heavy on the price side. Solarwinds suites well right in the middle where most business live and it does it well. I have used it at my last 3 jobs and have no desire to move away …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    NCM is superior to ManageEngine or Spiceworks in its ability to automate the primary tasks of a configuration management tool. Of course, it integrates well with other applications in the SolarWinds Orion suite of applications. The list of vendors supported by NCM is larger as …
    Incentivized
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    35 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    35 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    34 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    27 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    31 Answers
    Features
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) and Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Feature
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    8.1
    56 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings8.855 Ratings
    Expert directory00 Ratings5.548 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings4.943 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings9.346 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings10.055 Ratings
    Ticket response00 Ratings10.054 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) and Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Feature
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    9.5
    53 Ratings
    17% above category average
    External knowledge base00 Ratings9.549 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base00 Ratings9.549 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) and Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Feature
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    8.7
    53 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Customer portal00 Ratings9.847 Ratings
    IVR00 Ratings4.512 Ratings
    Social integration00 Ratings9.028 Ratings
    Email support00 Ratings10.047 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings10.029 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (142 ratings)
    10.0
    (84 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    10.0
    (29 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (9 ratings)
    9.8
    (10 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    8.7
    (26 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
    Read full review
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    It's a great helpdesk solution - we currently have five years of data within it, roughly 25,000 tickets. The older edition is a great inventory and software license tracking tool. It is easy for users to use the interface and submit tickets and requests on the web, and its email integration is solid. The new version is a below-average system monitoring tool, only giving up/down status and a few other metrics.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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
    Read full review
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • It helps to multitask, even on the go with the mobile App.
    • We can customize to meet your needs with automated responses, notifications, and templates.
    • Detailed reports allow managers to keep track [of] and analyze data.
    • Allows for a database to store notes helpful for future tickets.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    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
    Read full review
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • I have always wanted a way to redirect a support request into another IS bin, such as a development task.
    • It's possible to extract the data from the Spiceworks database, but it would be helpful if the process to do so were easier.
    • Improved ability to customize the system generated emails to improve the formatting and company branding.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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
    Read full review
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    Spiceworks is a free tool, so there would be no hesitation if we are required to upgrade it. We have installed Spiceworks on a dedicated server with more than enough resources to get the most from this tool, so we will have this running in our department for years to come.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    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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    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    Spiceworks is user friendly and easy to set up. It can be customized to suit your needs. If there are any problems, you can go to the community forums for support and be in contact with many IT Pros, as well as the Spiceworks support staff and development teams who are always happy to help users out
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    SolarWinds
    No answers on this topic
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    We use it both locally on our own server so up time is decided by us and we also use the hosted help desk. We have never had an outage of that.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    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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    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    Spiceworks has been working out of the box, and some of the basic customizations have been successful with just our internal staff handling. We don't have any other issues with the tool. It provides us with the inventory information we want in a quick and concise report in a variety of formats for our team.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    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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    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    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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    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    If you can spin up a VM to run it on, you'll thank yourself later. If you have remote sites, set up a local server (or dedicated computer) at each site and set them up as remote collectors for the main site. You'll save time and bandwidth
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    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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    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    EGroupware UI is clunky and hard to use, Jira is great but the pricing is expensive in comparison with spice works that has a free version and you can test it out properly before buying and make a correct decision based on your business plan and company objectives with the right software.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    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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    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • Positive - Allow organizations to implement structured Help Desk procedures.
    • Positive - IT can begin to quantify their tickets and uncover needs within the organization.
    • Positive - IT can develop a solid roadmap with [the] management of future needs, equipment refresh schedules, etc.
    • Positive - IT can pinpoint employees who may need extra training or updated equipment based on historical ticketing data.
    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.