ScreenConnect - Top Value and Features for Money Spent
January 04, 2019

ScreenConnect - Top Value and Features for Money Spent

Wayne Herbert | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect)

Primary function is to allow 35 users remote access to their work desktops. We have a liberal work at home policy. Secondary use is to allow tech support to remotely access user computers for troubleshooting and software installs. Used across the entire organization. There are two flavors of ScreenConnect... Access and Support. We use Access primarily, but keep a Support account as well so that we are able to remote into employee's home computers as needed for troubleshooting.
  • ScreenConnect has very little lag while remotely accessing a PC. This was a principal non-cost reason for us to switch from LogMeIn.
  • While there is a learning curve, we are able to control access to PC's using a variety of different permissions combinations, from setting user types and permissions, to setting session configuration parameters.
  • Generally handles dual monitor display systems very well, although certain types of on board video cards can be problematic... as far as I can tell, an issue that SC cannot do anything about.
  • SC was clearly originally written from a tech support perspective. Consider: The person who is doing the remoting in is called the 'host' and the computer which is being accessed is called the 'client'. This is the exact opposite of LogMeIn, where the PC being accessed is the 'host', and the person doing the remote access does it from the 'client'. This is initially quite confusing to users who moved from LogMeIn.
  • For people who are on a single screen remote PC but logging into a dual monitor system, moving between screens is clunky. One either must use the drop down menu to select the other screen, or open two separate windows and then click between them on the task bar. LogMeIn has a quick key function to switch; this has not been implemented in SC.
  • Anytime a user copies data on the remote PC, the data is also copied to the cloud since SC doesn't know if the paste will be done to the remote PC or on the host PC. Normally, this is not a problem. However, our staff must often copy 100,000 line Excel files into reporting tools, and it takes a great deal of time to copy such a large dataset into the cloud. We have requested a config parameter to stop the cloud copies but it has not been implemented.
  • ScreenConnect is a far more cost effective tool than LogMeIn, and the principal reason we changed vendors was that LogMeIn kept substantially increasing prices, with no corresponding upgrade in features, performance, or support. LogMeIn has subscription steps of 25 and 100 users... 30 users means I must pay a very large per user subscription price. SC has the same steps but far lower pricing. Additionally, the support component in LogMeIn is priced separately and very expensive. For a single support seat, SC charges us nothing, and for our size, one seat is satisfactory.
  • We get less user complaints regarding performance and access with SC than with LogMeIn or VPN, the exception being the delay caused when copying large files. No hard quantitative data, and, our remote user productivity seems to be as good as when they are at work.
I cannot add RemotePC to my list above but we looked at it, too. We used LogMeIn for several years but they kept on increasing the prices until we had to find a more cost effective solution. ScreenConnect costs less than one third that of LogMeIn with better functionality and support.

Before choosing SC, we reviewed TeamViewer (one time, large chunk of money, up front pricing was not palatable to partners), as well as GoToMyPC and RemotePC. Both of these options were much more expensive than SC for our access needs, although I see that RemotePC has revised their pricing.
Generally very good remote access response for lots of users. Until the cloud copy issue is fixed, not so hot if your staff copies large amounts of data on the remote PC.

ConnectWise ScreenConnect Feature Ratings

Screen sharing
10
File transfer
8
Instant message
9
Secure remote access with Smart Card authentication
Not Rated
Access to sleeping/powered-off computers
8
Over-the-Internet remote session
9
Initiate remote control from mobile
Not Rated
Remote management of servers & workstations
9
Remote Active Directory® management
Not Rated
Centralized management dashboard
8
Session record
Not Rated
Annotations
Not Rated
Monitoring and Alerts
Not Rated
Multi-platform remote control
Not Rated