N-able MSP Manager vs. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
N-able MSP Manager
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
N-able™ MSP Manager (formerly Solarwinds MSP Manager) is a cloud-based help desk and billing software for IT service providers, which includes a ticketing system, customer portal, technician mobile apps, billing tools, and reporting dashboards. MSP Manager offers a lightweight ticketing system with a quick entry feature that allows users to capture essential information such as customer name, service items, and issue details from any screen. Tickets can also be…N/A
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
ServiceDesk Plus is free help desk software from ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corporation.
$10
Starting Price Per Month
Pricing
N-able MSP ManagerManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Standard
$10.00
Starting Price Per Month
Professional
$21.00
Starting Price Per Month
Enterprise
$50.00
Starting Price Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
N-able MSP ManagerManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
N-able MSP ManagerManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Considered Both Products
N-able MSP Manager
Chose N-able MSP Manager
I want to be clear. I did not choose MSP Manager, it was thrown at me, purchased by someone who did not understand how bad this tool was. I have used other ticket systems, Remedy, Spiceworks, and ServiceNow. Those all work, and do a lot of things this can't. We have to …
Chose N-able MSP Manager
The most important factor was integration with my RMM, so once I chose SolarWinds RMM, MSP Manager was the obvious choice.
Chose N-able MSP Manager
MSP Manager is a fully serviced paid option. Spiceworks is a free helpdesk. They both are very useful, but a company can just outgrow Spiceworks.
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
I use Jira Service Management in my personal lab environment to explore its features and DevOps integrations. While it's powerful and flexible, I find ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus more user-friendly and practical for enterprise IT environments.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Spiceworks was free, which obviously had both benefits and limitations - I will say that the community around Spiceworks has always been great. If we could replicate that experience with the ME user base, it would be terrific.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Jira Service Management is one of the strongest rival of Manage Engine Service Desk Plus. If we compare, both of them are really good for incident management and workflows. But when time to decide, Manage Engine Service Desk Plus is front of Jira Service Management with a few …
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk just had the right combination of features available that our business required, and a more reasonable price than some of the other products that were looked at.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Compared to Cherwell, SDP is much much faster, and easier to deploy, set up, and use. But it does not have automation, and has limited customization. Since it is smaller and easier, it does not require any development effort. On the other hand, it is far more expensive, …
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
We decided to make the change to move from ManageEngine Service Desk Plus to Spoke for our ticketing system solution. We have never looked back. Everything from the UI to the AI-driven auto responses is "night and day" better. It isn't even a question and we wouldn't be …
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Spiceworks was free and was not a good looking interface. With ServiceDesk Plus we are able to brand it specifically for our company.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Zendesk is more intuitive and has a better interface. We have other areas on campus like our front facing students center that use Zendesk. Zendesk provides better in-depth reporting and is easier to roll-out to other areas on campus.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
We are actually moving away from ServiceDesk Plus to JIRA Service Desk. This is because of the flexibility that JIRA offers versus the more "locked in" fields in ServiceDesk. It also is going to allow us to better customize our requests and track our SLAs on different types of …
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
We use Jira and Spiceworks in different departments in our company, but neither had the features we were looking for when it comes to end user facing help desk solutions. Jira is great for our coding/development teams but it doesn't have the ease of use that service desk plus …
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Just ended up being the winner of the tortoise race. Showed the most promise but costs to fulfill those promises made it fall short of expectations.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Spent a lot of time reviewing these type of software packages, this one does more right in a webified package. GotoAssist has the remote capability but lacks the resolution tracking of ServiceDesk Plus.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
We are able to do more things on SDP other than what TrackITcould do. And we went paperless, something TrackIT couldnt do.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Great overall ticketing system. Everything is very organized. Easy for someone to learn quickly without even seeing the product before.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
No contest. Remedyforce required a full time investment to understand the use of cryptically named variables, so all changes needed to be made by a specially trained administrator. Remedy had terrible problem handing capability. ServiceDesk Plus is a polar opposite - most …
Features
N-able MSP ManagerManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
N-able MSP Manager
-
Ratings
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
7.1
Ratings
13% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Service restoration00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Self-service tools00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
N-able MSP Manager
-
Ratings
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
7.7
Ratings
6% below category average
Configuration mangement00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Asset management dashboard00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
N-able MSP Manager
-
Ratings
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
8.0
Ratings
5% below category average
Change requests repository00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Change calendar00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Service-level management00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
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N-able MSP ManagerManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
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User Ratings
N-able MSP ManagerManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
4.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
3.9
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
N-able MSP ManagerManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
It's a good company to grow with because as needs change there are more features available.
Read full review
The cost for what you get is very good.
The amount of additional functionality is great too - we originally went in expecting to use it for just a helpdesk but eventually it evolved into change management and asset tracking.
We also started using the invoicing addon which helped massively and allowed us to track items from point of purchase to decommission.
Read full review
Pros
  • Help Desk Ticketing is very easy to use and organize.
  • Billing is robust and keeps track of client contracts and time very well.
  • Role management and ticket routing client are very robust.
Read full review
  • It's very simple to submit and handle ticket for both user and Engineer.
  • Set some customize template for intent replay or job done reply.
  • SLA management is the good option to maintain workflow.
  • There is solution option where user can resolve their common issues.
Read full review
Cons
  • Labeling/titling work "labels" without all the extra steps.
Read full review
  • When trying to select the top row ticket, you have to be careful not to select all tickets. Happened to us twice and we assigned all open tickets to one technician. Took a few minutes to correct.
  • Site is sometimes a bit sluggish to respond. Don't know if that is an issue with our network infrastructure or the program itself, though.
  • When users send emails to the help desk, we sometimes experience delays until the tickets appear on the site for the technicians.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
we are looking at other tools like Zendesk which may replace ServiceDesk. We are currently evaluating both tools to see which one would serve our needs better
Read full review
Usability
No answers on this topic
It is still very cumbersome, lots of data entry on the back end to build how we want it but it is still not completely user friendly. Many functions still dont work and contacting someone for help isnt always easy or we get told solutions for issues we have just arent built yet.
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Support Rating
I had the chance to talk to SolarWinds reps at their Empower conference. They asked how we liked MSP Manager. (For full disclosure, we use their whole suite of products). I told them it's the worst ticket software I have ever used. They said that it wasn't the first time they had heard that. I did not doubt that he was telling the truth.
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Our network administrator usually gets a good response when contacting ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus customer service. They are quick to respond and so far have been able to eliminate most of our issues. We have been through several upgrades of the software over the years and have no issues to report in regards to customer service.
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Alternatives Considered
I want to be clear. I did not choose MSP Manager, it was thrown at me, purchased by someone who did not understand how bad this tool was. I have used other ticket systems, Remedy, Spiceworks, and ServiceNow. Those all work, and do a lot of things this can't. We have to export a list of all tickets, then use BI tools to try and work the data, just to get reports on completed tickets. It's truly terrible. I would recommend having users send a carrier pigeon over using this awful awful tool.
Read full review
No contest. Remedyforce required a full time investment to understand the use of cryptically named variables, so all changes needed to be made by a specially trained administrator. Remedy had terrible problem handing capability. ServiceDesk Plus is a polar opposite - most customization is done using plain English and simple screens.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • For my managed service clients, MSP Manager has seriously reduced the time I spend billing. Overall data entry time may be the same, but now it's focused on documenting the work that was done and the billing simply follows.
  • The first few months of learning MSP Manager definitely meant doing lots of admin work twice, and double-checking the MSP manager invoices against the paper trail, to ensure it was accurate and working. Plan for this extra time overhead during the learning phase.
Read full review
  • It has provided better visibility to upper management in terms of the scale of the workload of the IT department
  • It has allowed licensed software to be tracked more efficiently, allowing redundant license to be reclaimed, rather than additional ones being purchased
  • It has fulfilled the requirements for multiple audits, including Microsoft audits, as it allows the assets and their software to be tracked
Read full review
ScreenShots

N-able MSP Manager Screenshots

Screenshot of N-able MSP Manager Dashboard