We performed a comparison between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Intune based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, ManageEngine Desktop Central seems to be the more favorable product. Its ease of deployment, its solid set of features, its affordable pricing, and its service and support all top Microsoft Intune’s offerings.
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The solution's stability is better than the other solutions in the market."
"We use the product to know about our assets and manage remote support."
"The product works perfectly for patch management and software deployments."
"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 solution is definitely scalable."
"Very good, functional solution for endpoint management."
"Desktop Central has improved these organizations and this is why it has been repeated multiple times at multiple organizations. If something works and is getting better it is worth repeating."
"As the solution is a software as a service, the scalability is unlimited."
"The most valuable feature is the UEM capabilities."
"The technical support of Microsoft Intune is good."
"It's easy to manage."
"The most valuable feature is the policy CSPs."
"...Intune itself integrates with that entire Microsoft ecosystem. As an individual product itself, it's okay. It holds up. But when you start saying "I've bought this as part of a wider solution, as a company we are going Microsoft throughout," then it makes more sense to have Microsoft Intune... so you have that single dashboard."
"The ability to send configurations to our systems is valuable, particularly as we don't have a regular Windows AD server. Our current environment doesn't have a Windows AD, which limits our ability to push GPOs. However, this is where the solution can step in and help us push policies."
"I like the fact that it's integrated with the rest of the Microsoft products, so customers can manage it from their Office 365 portal or Azure portal."
"Improvement should be done as per customer requirements."
"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."
"It is compatible with the systems such as Windows and Mac but not with Linux systems."
"Compared to the solution we use to manage our Mac products, this solution lacks the ability to create dynamic groups. We would like the ability, for example, for machines which have been upgraded to form part of a grouping based on this upgrade."
"We are looking for a complete solution for patch management with central management and the cloud which ManageEngine Endpoint Central does not provide."
"I would like to see more click to complete actions such as - USB lockdown for Mac, the ability to check AV compliance on servers, bit locker controls, printer tracking or print page tracking, self-help for self-healing like "BMC my IT" and more options in the self-service menu other than just software - maybe add integration in ADSelfService at the self-service menu."
"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."
"We would like to see options for deploying Microsoft 365 accounts into Outlook. For now we only can use it to deploy exchange accounts. Also we would like to see an option do decline Windows 7 ESU patches in a bulk."
"The reporting is subpar. That's the only issue we have with Intune. We use another solution for that purpose."
"It just doesn't handle software updates well at all by itself. You need to be a scripting wizard to make those happen properly, or you use third-party tools. The Windows feature updates are very difficult to implement. I would like to see a proprietary built-in remote control tool. I know that they have Team Viewer integrated, but it is not seamless. It would be nice if they had a seamless remote desktop capability directly from the Intune console."
"It would be good if, in addition to the minimal patching and compliance, we could also use Intune for application deployment. For instance, if a device is not patched, Intune should have the ability to push not only a Microsoft patch but also other patches, such as a browser patch."
"It doesn't economize when you scale up. We have over 14,000 employees, and we have between 7,500 and 8,000 city-owned or personal devices being used to conduct city business. Its price can be improved. It is not a cheap solution."
"I have a lot of Apple products in my environment. It would be nice to have an improved integration of Apple products with Microsoft Intune without Jam."
"Intune lags all of its competitors in terms of report generation."
"Microsoft needs to enhance device-level security, as sometimes when using Microsoft Intune, the device's operating system becomes stuck and requires a full uninstall to remove the Intune bug."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in terms of compatibility, extending beyond the well-known major brands."
More ManageEngine Endpoint Central Pricing and Cost Advice →
ManageEngine Endpoint Central is ranked 4th in Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) with 59 reviews while Microsoft Intune is ranked 1st in Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) with 164 reviews. ManageEngine Endpoint Central is rated 8.2, while Microsoft Intune is rated 8.0. 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 Intune writes "We can manage all aspects of our devices from a single console, easy to scale, and quick to deploy". ManageEngine Endpoint Central is most compared with Microsoft Configuration Manager, VMware Workspace ONE, Jamf Pro, ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus and SOTI MobiControl, whereas Microsoft Intune is most compared with Jamf Pro, VMware Workspace ONE, SOTI MobiControl, Microsoft Entra ID and IBM MaaS360. See our ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs. Microsoft Intune report.
See our list of best Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) vendors and best Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) vendors.
We monitor all Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) 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 has a great patch management feature. It is actually one of my favorite features because it allows you to approve or decline whichever windows or third-party patches you want. You can also schedule them during off hours, force reboots, or even wake devices up for patching. ManageEngine also has a very small yet powerful installation file, which I found very easy to deploy across the network even though I have several remote locations. Considering that ManageEngine is a multi-asset and IT process manager, it enables you to effectively manage all of the assets very well and has a very intuitive and dynamic interface.
One thing I dislike about ManageEngine is their software deployment tools. It’s great for mass deployments but I wish it included one-off deployments to a single computer. Also, in order to enable the file transfer option when you are using it for the first time, you have to install a plugin. Sometimes the control center can be a little slow, too.
Microsoft Intune is robust and it allows you to deploy applications to its enrolled devices. This makes it a beneficial solution in asset management and also patching machines. It also gives you the ability to restrict user actions on their machines, which I find to be very helpful from a security standpoint. In general, Microsoft Intune’s enrollment process on devices is straightforward and easy. You can set policies, and administrators are able to guide users on how to enroll their machines. One major downside of Microsoft Intune for me is that it has inferior and poor quality device reporting.
Conclusion:
Overall, I would recommend ManageEngine because not only is it a well-developed tool, but it also provides an excellent adaptation to its interface, and I have found its implementation and use to be nothing less than exceptional.
Hi . I use both systems . Intune is simply too good to configure a system via autopilot and enforce AD/ Azure AD policy whereas Desktop Central is excellent for patching
Desktop Central is great for patch deployment and software deployment but falls short on many other fronts like correctly reporting information - I had to raise tickets to their support to get it fixed
Intune too has its issues - I does not have an inventory reporting functionality
The company portal is an app which has to be installed on the endpoint . The reporting mechanism is not on par with Desktop Central.
DC does not have the OS deployment capability ( OS Deployer is an add on) whereas Intune has the Autopilot capability built into the system to remote install the laptop including enabling bitlocker encryption
DC has strong patch deployment capability whereas its bit vague on Intune
This list goes on so Im stopping here