TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) vs. Zoho Desk

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    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

    Zoho Desk

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AZoho Support is a Saas help desk / ticketing system aimed at SMBs. I competes most often with Zendesk, and Desk.com.

    $9

    per month per user

    Pricing
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Zoho Desk
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Free
    $0
    Express
    $9
    per month per user
    Standard
    $20
    per month per user
    Professional
    $35
    per month per user
    Enterprise
    $50
    per month per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Zoho Desk
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalRequired
    Additional Details—A discount is offered for yearly billing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Zoho Desk
    Considered Both Products
    SolarWinds
    No answer on this topic
    Zoho
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    93%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    87%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 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
    10 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    85%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    Features
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Zoho Desk
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) and Zoho Desk
    Feature
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho Desk
    8.5
    5 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.05 Ratings
    Expert directory00 Ratings7.14 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings7.14 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings8.95 Ratings
    Ticket response00 Ratings8.95 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) and Zoho Desk
    Feature
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho Desk
    9.8
    5 Ratings
    20% above category average
    External knowledge base00 Ratings9.85 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base00 Ratings9.85 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) and Zoho Desk
    Feature
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho Desk
    6.6
    5 Ratings
    19% below category average
    Customer portal00 Ratings8.04 Ratings
    Social integration00 Ratings6.83 Ratings
    Email support00 Ratings6.15 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings5.44 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Zoho 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)Zoho Desk
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (142 ratings)
    8.8
    (23 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (9 ratings)
    8.0
    (12 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.7
    (9 ratings)
    8.8
    (11 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)Zoho 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
    Zoho
    Zoho Desk is a great customer service tool. It is very easy to track the ability to receive tickets and send responses in Zoho Desk. There are lots of options for customization. The knowledge base feature is very extensive and powerful. It makes creating internal and external FAQs easy.
    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
    Zoho
    • It provides a simple widget code with a few clicks once you decide to integrate it with your website or application.
    • There is a very user friendly dedicated mobile application for Zoho Desk for Android and IOS devices.
    • You can easily track all of your tickets and agents from the dashboard interface.
    • You can insert tags with each ticket to group them into specific categories for analysis and troubleshooting.
    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
    Zoho
    • The biggest drawback that I am facing while using the platform is that their ticketing system is not that great [in my opinion]. It does not give us the option to add sales tax and other charges in the invoices which leads to a big problem for us.
    • [I feel] its customer support needs improvement.
    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
    Zoho
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Read full review
    Zoho
    I give [Zoho Desk] [an] overall usability score of 9. This is partly due to the search functionality needs improvement. There are several times where I am left unable to find a ticket and have to generate a new one. I am hoping in the future that they will make some changes!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Zoho
    As Zoho Support is based in a different timezone to ours it can be an issue that we cannot get an immediate response to an issue. But I will say that once their Support is in the office they are fairly good to respond. they have resolved almost all issues I have told them about, but Zoho have also made system changes and not communicated these beforehand which means we are faced with something new and cannot get support on this until their support team is in the office
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Zoho
    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
    Read full review
    Zoho
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Read full review
    Zoho
    We selected Zoho Desk as we needed a platform that was going to allow the business to grow through both usage and staffing numbers. We wanted something cost-effective but still offered standard features in an effective cloud-delivered solution but would still allow customization by our internal dev team, to derive better value from the service where it natively didn't do what we needed it to. FreeAgent was okay for a while, but Zoho Desk has allowed a vast improvement in our service offering to end customers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Zoho
    • Zoho Desk has created an organised sytem of support which alows me to help my customers more efficiently.
    • By saving resolutions as articles, Zoho Desk has provided a training resource for current customers and support staff as part of solving problems.
    • All new customers become part of a database of customers who continue to receive support and education from forums created by the articles and customer questions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.

    Zoho Desk Screenshots

    Screenshot of Log and monitor phone conversations, convert them into new tickets, or attach them to existing ones. Convert social media interactions and live chat into tickets at the click of a button.Screenshot of Bring a Help Center directly into a website to strengthen self-service. Chat with Zia, an AI-powered conversation assistant. Customers can chat with Zia right from a mobile app or website. Zia processes their questions and suggests appropriate solutions from the Knowledge Base.Screenshot of With advanced process automation, internal processes can be setup within the help desk, implement them automatically, and make sure that all processes are followed precisely.Screenshot of Instant responses for instant happiness. Respond to customers the minute they reach out with Zoho Desk's embeddable chat widget. Customers can get in touch with agents instantly, right from the Help Center, so agents can respond and help them find answers faster.Screenshot of Monitor a team's performance, customize and schedule reports. Custom dashboards can be created.Screenshot of Zia brings together predictions across anomalies, sentiment, trending ticket tags, and more into a common dashboard for decision-makers to consume. They can drill down further into the details from the same dashboard to investigate further.