TrustRadius Insights
Remote Tasks Feature: Users have found the remote tasks feature to be extremely beneficial, with many reviewers stating that it has saved …
Overview
What is N-able N-central?
MSPs and IT professionals use N-able™ N-central® to monitor and manage devices and complex networks remotely. N-central provides visibility and efficiency as the user's needs scale. N-central can help users: 1. Proactively monitor everything on a customer network—not just servers and workstations—and troubleshoot. 2. Stay…
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What is N-able N-central?
MSPs and IT professionals use N-able™ N-central® to monitor and manage devices and complex networks remotely. N-central provides visibility and efficiency as the user's needs scale. N-central can help users: 1. Proactively monitor everything on a customer network—not just servers and…
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- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is N-able N-central?
MSPs
and IT professionals use N-able™ N-central® to monitor and manage devices and complex
networks remotely. N-central provides
visibility and efficiency as the user's needs scale. N-central can help users:
1. Proactively monitor everything on a customer network—not just servers
and workstations—and troubleshoot.
2. Stay on top of threats with features like MFA, antivirus, integrated endpoint
detection and response, data backup, disk encryption, email protection, and
password management .
3. Automate routine tasks using rules and filters to customize policies by customer, site, or device type to gain precision and control.
N-able N-central Features
Monitoring Tasks Features
- Supported: Remote monitoring
- Supported: Network device monitoring
Management Tasks Features
- Supported: Patch Management
Additional Features
- Supported: Remote Monitoring & Management
- Supported: Endpoint Detection & Response
- Supported: Network Topology Mapping
- Supported: Mobile Device Management
- Supported: Remote Access
- Supported: Automation Manager
N-able N-central Screenshots
N-able N-central Video
SolarWinds N-central: One Powerful IT Management Platform
N-able N-central Competitors
N-able N-central Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android |
Frequently Asked Questions
Datto SIRIS, ConnectWise Automate, and Kaseya Traverse are common alternatives for N-able N-central.
Reviewers rate Patch Management highest, with a score of 6.
The most common users of N-able N-central are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(84)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Remote Tasks Feature: Users have found the remote tasks feature to be extremely beneficial, with many reviewers stating that it has saved them time and provided convenience in managing multiple devices without physical interaction.
Remote Support Functionality: The remote support functionality of the product has received high praise from users, who appreciate its efficiency in troubleshooting and resolving issues without the need for physical presence. Many reviewers have specifically mentioned how easy it is to remotely control user devices and initiate remote sessions.
Management Capabilities: The management capabilities of SolarWinds N-central, especially in terms of patch management and anti-virus management, are considered top-notch by users. Automatic approval and deployment of patches, as well as scheduling automatic antivirus scans, streamline the process and ensure device security without manual intervention.
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Poor Customer Support: Users have expressed dissatisfaction with the customer support provided by N-central, stating that the support team often gives scripted or copy-paste responses, leading to a lengthy process of back and forth before finding a real solution. Several users have mentioned that it can take more than a week for their support issues to be resolved.
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Lack of Granular Security: Some users have mentioned the lack of granular security in N-central, where users are assigned roles and everything under that role becomes accessible. This may not be ideal for all technicians who require more specific access controls.
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Prioritization of Sales over Customer Satisfaction: There are concerns among users regarding Solarwinds N-able's prioritization of sales over customer satisfaction. Many users have experienced difficulties in receiving timely responses to their support issues or concerns, while the sales team appears to be relentless in meeting its quotas.
Users commonly recommend the following for N-Central:
- Give it a try, especially with the free demos and trial period.
- Take advantage of on-boarding sessions to fully understand and set up the product.
- Spend time setting up and learning N-Central to fully experience its benefits.
- Make sure to thoroughly research and understand the options and features before implementing.
- Consider getting a trial to experience the capabilities of N-Central.
- Plan implementation and start with basic features before fully committing.
- Utilize global settings for easier use across customers.
- Build graphic charts to monitor and track performance.
- Dedicate a staff member to champion N-Central for maximum benefit.
- Review the product and talk to an MSP using N-Central before switching RMMs.
These recommendations highlight the importance of exploring N-Central through free trials, taking time to set it up properly, understanding its features, utilizing resources available, planning implementation, and seeking feedback from other users.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-21 of 21)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
March 30, 2023
N-Able? More like Dis-Able
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- A tad easier to setup than DIY solutions
- Easier to manage many customers than a few other options out there
- Relatively inexpensive if options are disabled
- Customer support just points to online guides and I feel they aren't helpful.
- During the trial they turn on a lot of features. In my experience, if you play around with the features, they charge you for them. Keep this in mind if you move forward with N-Able - they will charge for "trialed" services.
- In my experience, some services that you're being charged for can't be disabled or monitored by you or your team. You only see them on the monthly invoice.
- In my opinion, the "Scripting Automation" doesn't provide value. You're either going to be writing your own batch or Powershell to make scripting work.
- In my opinion, monitoring software deployments is painful.
- The default monitoring template can't be duplicated, edited, or referenced. You'll find that the default monitors in an unusual way and will throw needless recurring alerts into your ticketing system. To avoid this, you need to create a template from scratch which takes many hours to set up.
- In my opinion, they're more concerned about a quick buck than customer service. "Buyer beware" company.
March 16, 2023
N-Able is more like M-abye
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Easy to deploy
- Easy to push agents to the servers
- Has a plethora of features
- Very convoluted patch management
- Sometimes the agents seem to stop working and have to be restarted/reinstalled
- Feels like it tries to do to many things so doesn't really excel in any one thing
October 13, 2022
Brilliant IT Management Portal
- Remote Management of Multiple PC's in an organization
- Scheduled AV Scan and Management of AV
- Limits and Threshold alerts of specific requirements such as patch management or Disk space usage
- Server Management
- More Knowledge base articles
- Lack of Online support
October 06, 2022
Good product
- Overall GUI
- Functionality and tools
- Automation platform
- Terrible support, in my opinion
- Bugs in software with no real answers from N-able N-central I've found.
- Listening to its end users
May 16, 2022
Do not use N-Central. Do not use N-Able.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- M365 Backup
- Expensive software
- The support team are terrible
- Sales team will promise the world to get you over the line
- Subscription management is tedious
- Old software with very little development and the support team will not provide any further information on this - no roadmap
- Integrations galore - but none of them are effective
- Remote access through Take Control.
- Backup Manager is built-in.
- Antivirus builtin.
- Automation tool.
- A steep learning curve.
- Alerting needs some help. Alerts can take up to 20 minutes.
- It's pieced together from different software, and sometimes that shows.
October 20, 2021
Solid performer for the MSP market
- Remote access.
- Remote support data access.
- Patch management.
- User interface.
- Security
March 03, 2021
SolarWinds N-central Review
- Endpoint access.
- Patching.
- Some basic reporting.
- Apple product support.
- Scripting for apple.
- Removal tool of the agent is hit and miss.
September 03, 2020
SolarWinds N-Central Review
- Reporting
- Alerting
- Patching
- Remote Access
- I'd love for more built-in automation manager scripts
January 19, 2020
A great RMM tool, so long as you don't need support
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Remote tasks - entry-level techs can run basic tasks without physically touching a piece of equipment.
- Remote support - remote controlling user devices is easy and saves a lot of time with having to initiate a remote session.
- Management of devices, particularly patch management and anti-virus management - you can automatically approve and deploy patches and schedule automatic AV scans.
- Support - their customer support is extremely lacking. This goes all the way up to management. Entry-level techs provide scripted or cut and paste answers, which is not a bad thing, but there is almost always a back and forth process that happens before you can get to a real solution. The biggest issue with this is that it seems as if they only want to respond to an issue once every day - it is not uncommon for support issues to take a week or more to be resolved.
- Security features - Ncentral does not have very granular security. Users have a role, and basically anything under that role is game. We don't want all techs to have access to a clients Active Directory, but they would still need the ability to have remote access for example - there is no way to lock down specific features.
- Solarwinds N-able seems to be more focused on sales than customer satisfaction. It feels like pulling teeth to get responses to support issues or concerns, but salesmen will be relentless when it comes to needing to meet their quota.
November 19, 2019
N-central Review
- Patch management.
- Remote support.
- 3rd party application deployment is hindered by application size.
November 14, 2019
N-central Review
- Great deployment, training, and support with the product.
- Windows patch management is excellent.
- Great monitoring software with the added benefit of easy remote control options built-in.
- It is a large piece of software and does take some time to get set-up and configured.
- Limitations with some basic monitoring like site down/internet down and server state make it difficult to have accurate monitoring information.
- Reports and reporting are minimal, not very customizable and not pretty.
September 14, 2019
Best price for the most tools
- Patch management.
- Windows probe.
- Remotely take control support.
- Windows versioning.
- Mac automation.
- More integrated scripts/amps.
August 28, 2019
Good, scalable solution for MSP with some challenges
- Very easy deployment, all of the modules play with each other making it simple to place AV, screen tempting and management agents all in one spot.
- Automation of powershell module is great and a feature that others in this space do not have
- Linux based appliance is great if you have security conscious.
- Very easy to brand and change the look and feel of the agents and console
- Very good multitenancy separation and ability to push policies to every tenant or selectively.
- Backup module is very archaic, does not support memory based backup or hypervisor based updates, very geared towards individual workstations
- Use within a VDI infrastructure is challenging for deployment of the agents
- Most of the AV policies that come from defender are limited to working on workstation OS and not on servers.
- Reports have a weak look and feel to them and could use some data modernization, this is a place where others in this space have a huge edge over N-Able
- Robust patch management: it is easy to set up patching groups via tags, and configures patch management profiles and maintenance windows.
- Remote Control: as long as the agent checks in, it is very quick and easy to take control of an endpoint, either in a separate session (RDP, kick the current user out), or to join the existing session of the current user, to provide desktop support or collaborate remotely.
- Patch management reporting: while the patching feature is strong, the reporting side of it quite limited and can be inaccurate. There is no built-in way to easily demonstrate to the customer that you have successfully patched their endpoints, and this can result in a lack of customer confidence. In order to provide effective patch management reporting, it is necessary to export raw data into another tool and perform further analysis.
- Old UI: while the software has evolved through many versions and many features added, its UI is pretty much the same as before. There is no quick way to pull up devices which match a number of different criteria. You can do this by creating a filter, but when you have to create a filter, it is not quick anymore. The menu can be confusing to navigate. As a regular admin of the tool, I often forget exactly where to find items which are buried a bit deeper under the menu hierarchy.
- Bulk management: this is also an effort of the weak UI. Since there is no way to quickly pull devices that meet certain criteria, there is no quick way to easily make bulk changes to devices. Everything is done through rules and templates and tags, and it can take a while to set them up.
- No Access to OS: the tool is presented as an application only, and the vendor does not give you OS-level access. This can make it difficult to see the health/performance of your N-central server and to set up remote monitoring.
- Permission and Access: SolarWinds improved access granularity in version 11, but it still has a lot of room for improvements. When setting user roles and access, I often find that I can never give them the exact amount of access I want. I typically end up giving them a lot more due to the lack of granularity.
March 01, 2019
N-central deployment
- Endpoint monitoring.
- Deployment of security patching.
- Deployment of agents on new assets.
- Group policy integration.
- Initial setup/categorization of devices.
- Pricing per device.
- Holistic monitoring and AI of devices.
- Very customizable alerting and threshold setting to quiet noisy alarms
- Hardware monitoring is an intricate process in many monitoring tools, N-central makes it quick and easy after installing the appropriate software on the server(s).
- Easy to navigate interface that allows quick view of items needing to be addressed and the ability to drill down into clients and their devices.
- Remote desktop access tool could use some help. Several other monitoring systems have perfected the remote access process but N-central can be a bit slow.
- Patch management system could use some additional features/customizability.
January 29, 2019
Great software for computer management and remote control!
- Allows for easy remote connection.
- Will display statistics and information for the machines.
- Allows the ability to push out software or updates without interrupting a user who is working.
- More advanced search options for machines
- Ability to see information about pending updates for a machine
- More detailed info about hardware issues/errors
- SolarWinds N-central is an excellent tool for automation and deployment across thousands of network devices using the Network probe and Agent.
- SolarWinds N-central allows for constant monitoring allowing us to resolve issues before the client knows they have occurred.
- SolarWinds N-central has excellent integration as we use it in conjunction with Autotask for automated ticket logging based on alerts.
- SolarWinds N-central could benefit from a modular or customizable user interface.
- There is a steep learning curve if you wish to truly utilize all the functionality that N-Central offers.
October 17, 2018
Great RMM for Serious Managed Service Providers
- Actively monitors devices on the network to allow us to be proactive
- Can automate different fixes for recurring issues
- Integrates very well with our PSA client, able to create tickets and fill out notes within N-Central.
- We find the layout and configuration could be more user-friendly, seems over complicated at times
- We need to host the solution ourselves to get the Report Manager add-on.
- Dashboard needs to be cleaned up and easier to read
August 10, 2018
You won't find much better than this one!
- Remote control sessions are seamless and quick to connect.
- Software inventory list is very complete even including windows update patch levels.
- The amount of data N-Central gathers from the end-PCs is great for a performance snapshot and makes it quick to diagnose simple RAM issues etc.
- Navigation between the view screens could be a bit simpler. Once you click a machine your list goes away and isn't simple to get back to.
- I would love to add more negative points here but really it's a well-built piece of software.