Spiceworks Review

Automatic inventory of network connected assets and ability to add assets that are not connected to network - such as monitors and docking stations.

Spiceworks replaced our previous attempts to track inventory and Help Desk related issues via spreadsheets. It provides the ability to generate custom, very detailed and on-demand or scheduled asset inventory reports. Help Desk feature was helpful as well, and replaced many walk-ups and tracking of issues via email.

The main issue we had with the Spiceworks was always performance related. A dedicated server would sometimes become unresponsive, and would need to be restarted.

We've used this solution since Spiceworks version 2.0.

We had no issues with deployment.

The server would become sluggish as more assets were populated in the system.

Scalability was an issue. The server would become sluggish as more assets were populated in the system.

Customer support was great, I was always able to find solutions in the forums.

Spiceworks was very active on forums and was always aware of performance issues and included improvements with every version release.

Spiceworks was the best product per our testing, and was recommended by other IT professionals at the time. We evaluated many low cost or free solutions, and none came close to Spiceworks abilities and ease of use. Price was also a big factor during times when management was not looking to spend capital, but still demanded consistent process, asset tracking, and reporting improvements.

Initial set-up is the simplest I've ever seen in such a product. I was able to initiate a discovery network scan in less than a few minutes after initial installation.

In-house team. Just make sure you dedicate appropriately sized server to accommodate the size of your environment.

Other than dedicating an ageing server and some initial set-up and configuration time, ROI for a free product is great.

Be aware that Spiceworks free tier is an ad driven product, but you can remove ads for a reasonable monthly fee if needed.