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.
"All of Desktop Central's features are valuable, especially its simplicity."
"The patch manager is good, and it's easy to use."
"The ability to run event viewer, task manager, services, command, file browser, certificate all remotely without interrupting users is the most valuable aspect. Software deployment and prohibiting, allowing us to standardize on the software that has been deployed through the environment and then prohibiting illegal software such as torrent applications has been valuable."
"One of the benefits of Desktop Central is it made the provisioning process simpler because now we have a provisioning package. We have around 1,500 laptops at the moment and all these PCs were provisioned by a provisioning package. In the provisioning package, we have integrated every aspect of renaming, deploying applications, patching, etc., so we simply execute the provisioning package and as soon as it's executed, it will install the management agent. Once the agent is installed, it will take care of all the tasks, so we don't have to sit in front of the computer to prepare the machine. This really helps us to provision the PC quickly with our agent."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the Patch Management."
"The stability is very good."
"ManageEngine Desktop Central has greatly improved our organization by utilizing Service Desk Plus to monitor and keep track of issues that our end users report to our Help Desk Department. We also have written in the ode of our company's software to notify Support if an end-user experience an issue and does not report it."
"The initial setup is easy."
"I have found the solution to be scalable. We have around 50,000 users using the solution."
"The cloud account management is a valuable feature."
"It's a stable product."
"There is a faster time to rollout. If we get a new PC, it can be ready for productivity right away."
"This solution captures all the devices in our infrastructure."
"I like its ease of use. It does what you need it to do, and it's a one-stop-shop for the company and for all your deployments. If you incorporate Intune into it, you can have both. You can bring your own devices and corporate devices, and everything runs out of SCCM and Intune."
"The scalability to deploy the package."
"With the right administrator, application deployment can do wonders."
"The support could be faster."
"The team should work on improving the stability, particularly with massive patches deployment, clients are not 100% getting patches and the information provided by the system does not help; more detailed report would be very useful."
"I really feel like asset explorer should be a component of desktop central. That would make it the ultimate desktop management tool. This would also simplify the asset management role since an agent is already being deployed and assets could be added at the same time."
"The pricing is lower than other well-respected solutions in this category."
"The product's remote access manager needs improvement."
"In relation to ManageEngine Endpoint Central, ManageEngine NGAV seems to be completely useless right now."
"The Deployment scheduler needs updating to support various methods for deployment."
"Even when it shows Java as up-to-date, it might not be. So, to make it better, they should improve the accuracy of Java patch reporting."
"SCCM should strive to enhance the accuracy of its reporting functions in order to avoid any issues with incorrect or inaccurate data."
"It would be better if reporting were more user-friendly. I would like to see an upgrade in the reporting structure in the next release. At the moment, you have to use an SQL query or configure it to pull reports through the graphical user interface. Their updates could be more regular. I think Mircosoft updates it every six months. They are also moving many things to Intune, and Microsoft decided to move the deployment solution there. I think SCCM is getting old, and Intune is new."
"It needs to be able to load faster during deployment."
"There is a reboot issue with the patching. Sometimes, if patching runs into any issue whatsoever, it doesn't reboot but it doesn't tell you it errored out. It just sits there and we don't find out until the next day whether it patched or not. That was a big issue for us. We're working through that. They added some stuff in there now where you can actually tell reboot is pending. But we still need some kind of notification that if something fails or is pending, we know. We shouldn't have to go in and look. They don't have anything for that right now."
"SCCM can improve on third-party application support."
"The database should be made to be more stable and robust, but not so much the configuration."
"The main room for improvement is the on-screen display. I think it would be good if some improvements were made."
"The cost of the product can be improved."
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 60 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 "Affordable, easy to use, and easy to understand". 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, BigFix, Tanium, Microsoft Intune and AWS Systems Manager.
We monitor all Client Desktop Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
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.