After my recent nasty divorce from ITControl Suite (don’t get me started) I’ve been looking for an affordable tool that allows me to manage more computers & servers with less effort. That’s the whole idea behind RMM software isn’t it? (For those who may not know RMM=Remote Monitoring and Management)
I’ve been doing some testing and can’t decide what to do.
Hound Dog is now GFI Max - I had high hopes for it, but it hasn’t grown much in the last couple of years. Not a lot of capabilities, but their claim is they have 90% of what the big boys offer at 10% of the cost. Yep, they’re cheap and easy to get started with, but I had trouble interpreting the icons on the screen and the reports were pretty basic. Not a bad product, but not very inspiring either.
Packet Trap looks very promising, but I had some troubles there, too. It’s kind of like Kaseya light. It’s a sizable investment (but a fraction of the price of Kaseya) and does some really cool stuff that Kaseya doesn’t appear to do, but their community forum is a ghost town, the Tips & Tricks section doesn’t exist yet, the documentation is a little sparse and it makes my spidey sense tingle. After my problems with ITControl Suite, I don’t think I’m ready to deal with another young company. I really like the product, though - it’s not perfect but it has potential to rival the king of the jungle, Kaseya. There’s something to be said for jumping in now and getting grandfathered in and maybe even win preferred customer status as they grow. I feel like a fish…. They’re trying really hard to get me to bite and I want to, but there’s something just not quite right about that morsel and I’m still sizing it up.
Like I said… I can’t make up my mind. I loved the ITControl Suite product, but just couldn’t handle all of the billing mistakes. In the past I’ve been an N-Able customer (when they were brand new) and LPI (the problems I had with them were probably my fault because I hosted it myself). What’s a computer consultant to do?
I just ran across Apps4rent.com and they do a hosted Kaseya for $5.95 per seat and it gets cheaper after 250 seats. I’m signing up for that trial tomorrow. That may well be the answer. Cadillac tools at Toyota prices. (Yeah, I know… it costs more in the long run, but right now renting 2o seats at $6 per month that I can cancel any time sounds better than committing to $8-15 thousand).