BrightGauge vs. Shiny

BrightGauge lets us know when we have critical issues that need solving. A massive influx of tickets all at the same time triggers an investigation. Usually, it is tied to a server going down, which we can address. It would not be helpful for a small MSP or IT department with just a few daily tickets. The stats are better used to track a large amount of clients.

Incentivized

Shiny is very good for developing dashboards or web applications with specific functionalities. But it is not so easy to use to develop from scratch, it is always better to use another tool to have a general idea of ​​what is expected of a dashboard and then develop the most specific functionalities in Shiny. It is much more flexible than other tools and that is why I consider it to be better for most cases, only that it is more complex to develop or has a longer learning curve.

Incentivized

• SQL queries can be presented in many different ways to illustrate the data. They can be used in lists, graphs, meter, etc.
• The datasets frequency of updates can be customized to from 5 minutes to annually. It's very granular in this respect.
• It allows dashboards to be shared outside your organization with clients, partners, and vendors to maximize collaboration and reporting.

Incentivized

• Data tables are appealing to look at.
• Enables us to create trend indexes in an effective way.
• Easy to integrate with the rest of my R syntax.

Incentivized

• Modifying data sets to bring in custom fields requires an experienced SQL engineer
• Cost when bringing in lots of data sources can be prohibitive
• Limited ability to format gauges and reports
• Make MFA a requirement - this data is sensitive and giving the admin the ability to force MFA is a MUST!

Incentivized

• Shiny can be really time consuming to create visuals.
• It needs excellent knowledge of R programming and coding skillset.
• It still has a limited set of options to choose from.

Incentivized

Usability is BrightGauge's strength. Granting the ability of virtually any user to be able to create a dashboard is incredibly valuable. If an organization very simple and straight forward reporting needs then BrightGauge is a perfect fit for them. Connecting to the dataset we used was very quick and easy and I imagine it would be the same for any major data source you would like to pull from.

Incentivized

We did not need to use BrightGauge's support for the entire time that we used it. Best support is always the one that isn't needed because nothing breaks.

Incentivized

I'm not aware of any other competitors to Bright Gauge that we selected. They seem to be very close to managed IT service providers and have been great at tailoring their support to the PSAs like ConnectWise, AutoTask, etc. I can see Bright Gauge getting more and more popular as time goes by

Incentivized

Whilst dashboarding may be comparable with some of the other products we evaluated. Nothing compared to the analytical capabilities on offer with Shiny. An added advantage was that we had colleagues knowledgeable in R which meant bringing in Shiny and getting to grips with it was a lot more seamless and welcomed by the end users.

Incentivized

• Faster compilation of Business Review material
• For larger customers, the dashboarding has helped our customers to remain sticky and add services/revenue to our MSP. They want to add more fragments of their IT for the 1 pane rollup.
• From a leadership perspective, BG has allowed me to make difficult staffing decisions with confidence. Detailed metric driven decisions on who is hitting KPIs/who isn't - as well as when data proved we were overstaffed and understaffed.

Incentivized

• We saw a good involvement to researchers when showing their models in shiny.
• We can have a quicker review from the user when the model is in production.
• False positives can be found easily and they help the retraining of the model.

Incentivized