Do not use N-Central. Do not use N-Able.
We were using N-Able for N-Central, MSP Backup, M365 backup, AV-Defender, SentinelOne and MSP Manager.
We have recently moved away from …
We have recently moved away from …
N-able N-central
N-able N-central
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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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- No setup fee
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting / Integration Services
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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.
What is NinjaOne?
NinjaOne (formerly NinjaRMM) is a security-oriented remote monitoring and management platform. It allows for manual customization as well as scripting and automation.
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Product Details
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
- 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, SaaS |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android |
Comparisons
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are N-able N-central's top competitors?
Datto SIRIS, ConnectWise Automate, and Kaseya Traverse are common alternatives for N-able N-central.
What is N-able N-central's best feature?
Reviewers rate Usability highest, with a score of 9.1.
Who uses N-able N-central?
The most common users of N-able N-central are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees) and the Information Technology & Services industry.
Reviews and Ratings
(64)
Reviews
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May 16, 2022
Do not use N-Central. Do not use N-Able.
- 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
- Patch installation.
- Customization of monitoring services.
- Automation of routine tasks.
- Reporting very much needs to be improved. This is by far the weakest point of the product.
- Two factor authentication on built in accounts is awkward or not available.
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
- 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
- Monitoring
- Patching
- Providing an overview of issues using custom dashboards.
- The custom automation app can be a bit intimidating to use
- Some things are located in places you would least expect it.
- Building the dashboards is tricky at times.
- 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.