We performed a comparison between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, we would conclude that ManageEngine Desktop Central is the preferred choice over Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager. Our users feel ManageEngine Desktop Central is affordable, easily scalable, and offers great patch management. It is a very good functional solution for endpoint management.
"Well, what we like is that it catch actually a lot of features constantly upgrading. So all the three maybe there there were some features as the tenant on the earliest version. Now it's it's almost everything that we we need. So managing security ManageEngine configuration. It's we are very satisfied because it has the Telstra that's what we we need."
"The most important feature we found to be useful in the COVID situation is the secure connection, which gives the IT support staff the ability to seamlessly connect with the users remotely and in a secure way."
"The ability to run event viewer, task manager, services, command, file browser, certificate all remotely without interrupting users is the most valuable aspect. Software deployment and prohibiting, allowing us to standardize on the software that has been deployed through the environment and then prohibiting illegal software such as torrent applications has been valuable."
"One of the benefits of Desktop Central is it made the provisioning process simpler because now we have a provisioning package. We have around 1,500 laptops at the moment and all these PCs were provisioned by a provisioning package. In the provisioning package, we have integrated every aspect of renaming, deploying applications, patching, etc., so we simply execute the provisioning package and as soon as it's executed, it will install the management agent. Once the agent is installed, it will take care of all the tasks, so we don't have to sit in front of the computer to prepare the machine. This really helps us to provision the PC quickly with our agent."
"The most valuable in Desktop Central is the way it is tightly coupled with the rest of the modules and the entire gamut of ManageEngine."
"The stability is great."
"ManageEngine Desktop Central automatically alerts you if there are newer releases or updates. You do not have to go to their website and check."
"Page management and ADA integrations are the most valuable features of ManageEngine Endpoint Central."
"Patching is very effective and reporting is very good."
"The technical support is good."
"It works well for the endpoints for the customer I'm consulting. It has a bunch of knobs, and you can tune it to do lots of things."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is the availability of being able to manage the Microsoft estate. It handles many areas, such as asset management and tracking."
"The most valuable features are application deployment and task-sequenced imaging."
"It has the ability to perform mass distribution."
"Technical support was helpful and responsive."
"This has made the management of our environment easier."
"The only problem with it is that the setup isn't very intuitive. I know that they just upgraded the product to make it a little bit easier to use, but compared to some of the other platforms, it is not easy to configure it, set it up, and get it running. However, once you have set it up and got it running, it runs great."
"I would like to see them include the ability to find out the network usage but I believe that might be a feature of it already."
"Each of their products is an independent product, and they don't have anything to do with each other. It is a suite of packages. They all run independently, and they all are a little different because they were acquired differently. They could standardize their portfolio."
"The reporting analytics could improve in ManageEngine Desktop Central. However, there are some third-party add-ins or modules you can purchase to do reporting analytics."
"Its licensing should be improved."
"There is a slight delay in customer support, which is something that can be improved."
"I really feel like asset explorer should be a component of desktop central. That would make it the ultimate desktop management tool. This would also simplify the asset management role since an agent is already being deployed and assets could be added at the same time."
"The reports provided by the product are an area of concern where improvements are required. The visibility provided by the reports is not very attractive."
"The availability of technical support could improve."
"I want the system to provide some dependency relations. I would also like to see the relationship between different machines."
"On some hardware, we'd like an easier way to get peripherals attached."
"One area of improvement is regarding the patching of Office 365 products. We have some difficulties on this side, and it can be improved."
"I'm looking for a single solution for all discovery needs. It fulfills about 40% of the requirements, and I'd like to see the other 60% so that I don't have to keep doing this."
"Our company would prefer not rebooting computers while people are using them. There seems to be no strategy behind it."
"I would like to see more automation."
"The assets have reached their end-of-life, and patching them is a complex and laborious task. It would be highly advantageous if there were an integrated solution that provided distinct options for each end-of-life asset, streamlining the process and facilitating comprehension."
More ManageEngine Endpoint Central Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Microsoft Configuration Manager Pricing and Cost Advice →
ManageEngine Endpoint Central is ranked 1st in Client Desktop Management with 60 reviews while Microsoft Configuration Manager is ranked 2nd in Server Monitoring with 78 reviews. ManageEngine Endpoint Central is rated 8.2, while Microsoft Configuration Manager is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of ManageEngine Endpoint Central writes "An in-depth and intuitive product with good cross-platform capabilities, but they should have a more global support channel". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Configuration Manager writes "Affordable, easy to use, and easy to understand". ManageEngine Endpoint Central is most compared with Microsoft Intune, VMware Workspace ONE, Jamf Pro, ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus and SOTI MobiControl, whereas Microsoft Configuration Manager is most compared with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, BigFix, Tanium, Microsoft Intune and AWS Systems Manager.
We monitor all Client Desktop Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily and use the chat feature to speak with any user. In addition, using this product has helped me identify outdated PCs and has been very useful when I have needed to assist with remote control and software monitoring. With ManageEngine Desktop Central, I can see what is installed on users’PCs, which is especially helpful for users who have laptops. ManageEngine provides peace of mind for me because it offers exceptional security, which was very important for me when users were forced to work remotely at the start of COVID-19. One downside for me is that ManageEngine doesn’t give me the option to install the agent remotely. And I wish the solution was better for integrating with other solutions. Otherwise, it has excellent performance and is quite reliable.
Regarding Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, I found that amongst all of the features it offers, the reporting tools are one of the best ones to support your environment. It offers package deployment as well as application deployment. Its security management is also excellent at identifying any vulnerabilities so they can be fixed right away. I also really like that Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager accommodates the bandwidth you have available. Moreover, it works well with Windows, it's very stable, and scales well. In addition, I found that it was very easy to implement, with a straightforward set up. The disadvantages of it are that it lacks a good user-friendly environment and needs a much better GUI.
Conclusion: Based on my needs, I chose Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager over ManageEngine Desktop Central because my primary use case was for client and server deployments and software metering, and I felt that it was better suited to address these requirements.
The main question is what are you trying to accomplish, what is the end-game from your perspective when it comes to patching, such as:
- Do you need to meet specific compliance?
- Are you falling behind on the current patch workload?
- Having too many manual processes and trying to automate?
- Security and IT are not connecting?
If you'd like, one of our patch experts will be happy to go over the requirements with you, without any commitment, and help you better define your needs and how they can be met.
Quest's Unified Endpoint Management - please have a look at this solution: easy to manage, best for mass task deployment, comprehensive and customized reporting.
My recommendation is to use MS Intune as a solution and you can drop both SCCM and ManageEngine Desktop Central.
Intune is the best solution for managing mobile devices and endpoints. You can also manage your servers but there will be some difficulty in managing on-premises servers.