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.
"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."
"All of Desktop Central's features are valuable, especially its simplicity."
"The patch management aspect of the solution is the most valuable part for us."
"The most valuable feature of ManageEngine Endpoint Central is the central management console. Additionally, inventory tracking is helpful for knowing where our assets are."
"ManageEngine Desktop Central is stable."
"It's a complete product that allows you to remote troubleshoot, has an inventory of systems."
"The solution is time-saving and resource-saving."
"The mobile functionality is very easy."
"The scalability to deploy the package."
"It's a stable product."
"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."
"I have found the solution to be scalable. We have around 50,000 users using the solution."
"SCCM does everything from A to Z for a Windows operating system."
"The ease of usability is the most valuable feature. It's user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ability to deploy patches to nearly all applications."
"It is a good choice for deployment that performs very well."
"There is a slight delay in customer support, which is something that can be improved."
"The product's remote access manager needs improvement."
"The MDM feature isn't very good. It doesn't support Amazon vendors."
"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 tool's security can be better."
"The performance sometimes lags a bit because the solution is demanding on system resources."
"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."
"The support could be faster."
"It needs to be able to load faster during deployment."
"It is a bit of an old and outdated product."
"As far as load balancing across, they don't have that support yet, so that you can actually build multiple primaries and have it load balance across. They don't have any of that functionality yet. That would be a nice feature, to scale that way."
"The time the solution takes for updating systems could be quicker. For example, the system information status is not updating as it should. Additionally, the database synchronization querying is slow and could be improved."
"In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long."
"The solution can be improved by speeding up the synchronizing of the policies on the devices."
"It is not easy to get good technical support, especially at level one."
"I want the system to provide some dependency relations. I would also like to see the relationship between different machines."
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 59 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 "Seamless system updates, useful integration, and reliable". 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, Microsoft Intune, BigFix, Tanium and AWS Systems Manager.
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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.