Atera vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)

Atera is doing well in the monitoring part as it is informing the real time ping of running devices and if any device goes down, it is informing us on the real time. It is helping us to monitor the last reboot status, current logged in users, time zone, IP addresses and other things so that we can track our end devices status. In the patching part Atera is pathing our all devices with the notification stating user to restart device at their convenient time. It is also patching our third party applications. It is good in installing and uninstalling of the third party application but limited to availability in the Atera inventory. Atera is not good in some parts such as in the patching part of applications, sometime it fails to update all 3rd party applications that were not installed via Atera. It is not good if you have to transfer a file to multiple systems at the same time.

Incentivized

[SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)] works well in education, I'm responsible for over 500 classrooms, thousands of users and computers. Using WHD to keep track of who has what devices and which devices need to be retired has helped the user experience. I'd recommend this product to anyone managing an IT department.

Incentivized

• Remoting in from anywhere, even on my phone or tablet, has enabled me to quickly diagnose, or even fully resolve, problems.
• The ticketing, once users are set up, is a breeze. It also keeps everything in one place for them.
• With Atera the need to travel on-site has been dramatically reduced.

• Email notifications are pretty good; you can add hidden notes, close/resolve/update tickets just by selecting the appropriate link in the email that is sent when a ticket is created or edited.
• It provides a great deal of information to both the user and tech.
• It allows us to automatically update asset information with our mobile device management system by using an extension.

Incentivized

• Some basic functions need some extra work
• Some basic things are behind paywalls
• Feature board is not credible. Ideas taking very, very long to implement
• Atera has no clear road map
• SNMP monitoring needs a make over and needs more options

Incentivized

• I have been a user for over 8 years and the product continues to exceed my expectations!
• I am amazed at the fact that the users have an impact on how the product continues to evolve
• Continued efforts put forth on the security of all the SolarWinds products have been amazing

Incentivized

As of right now, we have found nothing that can offer as many features as Atera does along with the affordability. They are doing monthly releases each month and not just making small changes (shared scripting library, chocolatey support, Install packages, Splashtop SOS support, Scheduled tickets to name a few). The uptimes are great and accessibility to the dashboard has yet to be limited. We are a happy customer and bordering on fanboy status now

Incentivized

We are definitely going to be sticking with Web Help Desk for the foreseeable future since the product is very inexpensive for the features that it provides, the integration that it has with our existing systems, and the ease for managing users, assets, locations, and tickets. Web Help Desk is a great product that is backed by even better support, which is well worth looking into if you are considering moving to a new ticketing system.

Incentivized

Atera has a user-friendly interface that improves navigation. Support staff can quickly access real-time alerts and remote devices and manage tickets without much training. ​Atera’s usability has positively impacted our organization by increasing operational efficiency and improving response times to resolve issues.

Incentivized

It's not cloud based so users have to be on the network to submit a ticket. It doesn't plug into Google or Microsoft Azure so all inventory has to be manually entered. It seems like solar winds is allowing the product to slow fall into obsolescence

Incentivized

Atera support provides answers to my questions lightning fast. They have never left me feeling like I'm out there on my own. I can ask questions by email, or by chat, or by opening a ticket with them and they are always on it quickly. They also have a forum where other Atera users can help you if you need it, and you can also add feature requests via the forum.

Incentivized

SolarWinds is a great customizable and affordable ticketing system. We use SolarWinds Web Help Desk for IT and Software
Development trouble ticket tracking and resolution. The reporting that
SolarWinds provides is great since it helps us discover problem areas and fix
those areas so they don't keep reoccurring

Incentivized

Take the time to roll out a test VM to configure and make changes to before doing a live deployment, this way you don't end up with a VM that has been tweaked and re-tweaked until it's perfect and instead end up with a final, polished product. I would also recommend taking the time to read through the support forums for figuring out minor issues that may pop up, chances are that you aren't going to be the first one to encounter them. When all is said and done, SolarWinds Support is VERY responsive and you shouldn't hesitate to contact them.

Incentivized

Atera is well designed for remote monitoring and management purposes. The other tools, such as ManageEngine Endpoint Central, are more focused on managing the endpoints and applications, such as installation or removal of applications, and blocking or whitelisting applications. Atera is well structured for core monitoring and management purposes. It works like a well designed monitoring tool and at the same time works as a well designed management tool. Price point of Atera is very low as compared to other applications and the main part is that it does not cost you for the number of devices it covered, instead it will cost you on the basis of admin licenses you have. You can have one license and under that you can manage thousands of devices. Apart from this, Atera has a lot of tools that are integrated with it, and they are really useful.

Incentivized

I used ManageEngine ServiceDesk and ServiceNow at previous jobs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk was in place when I came to this job and I was disappointed when I started using it as it has a more clunky, less intuitive interface, and lacks the features of those products. And it gets frustrating because sometimes it doesn't work right. Like I will open a ticket and click on the button to add a note and instead it will close the Notes section. So then I have to close and reopen the ticket and try again. Same with closing a ticket. I change the Status to "closed" and click on "Save" and it doesn't save. So I have to keep repeating this until it works. Also, it's lacking features like the ability to unmerge or split tickets, that I had in other products. And sometimes when users reply to tickets it creates another ticket instead of adding it to the existing ticket and then we have to merge tickets. Also, it's lacking the integration with users and assets that those other products have.

Incentivized

• It helped us considerably increase the pace of onboarding people.
• Deployment of updates was easier and seamless compared to before the Atera phase.
• It was easier to control employee laptops to troubleshoot issues remotely since most of our employees worked from home.

• Overall we have become more efficient using this tool and our ROI for implementing this has been great. By having a service tool that can manage inventory, tickets, as well as change management just to name a few, our company is better off in our support.
• The core business community has seen quicker responses to tickets through use of the ticketing tool. Business continuity has had less disruptions as we are better able to anticipate or respond to issues.
• Finance has been happier with our ability to do cost analysis by using the various tools in SolarWinds help desk.

Incentivized