MSP Analysis: Which is the Best RMM and PSA?
The RMM/PSA ecosystem is in the midst of consolidation and the competition is getting fiercer by the day. With all the marketing rhetoric from vendors, it can be difficult to determine which platforms offer MSPs the greatest advantages. As the war of words has escalated over the last several months, Clarity Channel Advisors thought it would be beneficial to conduct an independent review of the top MSP platforms to give service providers an objective perspective of this dynamic marketplace.
Who is Jim Lippie from Clarity Channel Advisors?
Clarity Channel Advisors (Clarity) works with MSPs and the vendor community to develop comprehensive and successful cloud strategies for the channel. We are also the official data-aggregation partner for the MSPmentor 501 and serve as a Penton Media expert contributor. Jim Lippie is the founder and CEO of Clarity and knows what it’s like to be an MSP. From 2005 – 2012, he was the president and CEO of an MSP called Thrive Networks located in Boston. Thrive Networks was sold to Staples in 2006 where Lippie continued to grow the business into a national provider before leaving the organization in 2012.
Market Context
The industry has certainly changed a lot since Thrive Networks started its managed services practice in 2003. Managed services were initially built on RMM tools, then they needed a PSA to better manage client operations and now MSPs need seemingly dozens of tools to address the evolving needs of the SMB community they serve. However, over the last few years the vendor community has started to consolidate with PSA vendors acquiring RMM capabilities and vice versa. Vendors have created “platforms,” instead of specific one-off applications in the quest to provide MSPs with a “one stop shop” for all of their needs.
If architected correctly and with the needs of the MSP at the forefront, Clarity believes that the vendor platform approach can be very beneficial for service providers. However, vendors in this space have taken different approaches to creating their platforms – with some weighted towards automating the internal business processes of an MSP (PSA-centric) and others focused on broadening the service portfolio of MSPs (growth-centric) in order to expand their revenues. What’s the best way to evaluate these MSP platforms? This is the task that Clarity has decided to take on for the benefit of the MSP community in a “Consumers Report” approach to the “MSP Platform.”
There are a number of fantastic vendors in the MSP ecosystem, but we couldn’t review them all, so we decided to select the top 4 vendors who have integrated RMM/PSA suites. Those vendors are:
- Autotask
- ConnectWise
- Kaseya
- Solarwinds MSP
Disclosures:
Over the last decade, Jim Lippie has worked with all four vendors. At Thrive, he was an early adopter of ConnectWise (ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini actually performed Thrive’s implementation). Lippie also used N-able (now Solarwinds MSP) to monitor all clients’ servers, and Kaseya to monitor client end-user devices. Thrive still uses both vendors to this day. In addition, LogicNOW – now Solarwinds MSP – was a sponsor of one of Clarity’s recent advisory groups, and Lippie has hosted webinars with and/or spoken at every one of these vendors’ annual user conferences. So, in short, going into this exercise, the reviewer was not partial to any of the vendors and has, in fact, had positive experiences with all of them.
Methodology:
Clarity developed the evaluation methodology based on the general needs of the typical service provider and performed our own independent analysis based on those criteria. We approached this exercise as if we were an average-sized MSP looking to scale our business. The four platforms evaluated all have integrated an RMM/PSA offering, which was a requirement. A grading scale was used for each vendor’s offering and placed into a line graph with a score of 1 – Poor, 3 – Average, and 5 – Exceptional.
In the final analysis, vendors were given extra credit for having additional important components within their platform. We also factored in industry trends that should be considered by service providers when evaluating new products. Clarity hired an independent consultant to analyze the four platforms and Jim Lippie from Clarity reviewed the data, considered trends, accounted for the extra components and authored the final analysis.
When evaluating the RMM capabilities we reviewed the following 16 core capabilities:
- System Security
- Scale
- Admin Productivity
- Technician Productivity
- Discovery / Monitoring
- Asset Inventory
- OS and Software Patching
- Policy Management
- Automation
- Reporting / Dashboard
- Integrated PSA
- Open Platform
- Endpoint Security
- Backup
- Cost
When evaluating the PSA capabilities, we reviewed the following 14 core capabilities:
- Groups
- Contract Management
- Sales Management
- Cloud Billing
- Integrated RMM
- Open Platform
- Ease of Use
- Ease of Deployment
- Project Management
- Service Desk
- Cost
- Quoting and Invoicing
- Marketing
- User Experience
RMM Commentary
As indicated by the total index score, Kaseya was the outright winner when evaluating the RMM capabilities of each platform and was ranked first or second in core capabilities. Kaseya excels in the area of automation and technician productivity which is highly critical in a competitive landscape where fixed fee engagements have become the norm and MSPs need to drive employee efficiency to realize satisfactory profit margins. Kaseya also offers better scale around its functionality and gives service providers more features to impress clients, which is the most important aspect of any MSP platform.
Click here to view the full RMM evaluation.
PSA Commentary
ConnectWise is the most mature and feature-rich PSA for service providers, as their index score indicates. While a portion of the functionality within ConnectWise is essential to operating a quality service provider business, there are also a fair number of features that the average MSP will never use, despite paying a premium for the product. In addition, the ConnectWise interface feels more and more crowded and the web version fails to impress because it’s a client server application that has been “shoe horned” into SaaS. So, while ConnectWise beats out its competitors in the PSA race based on overall maturity and quantity of features, it’s a much closer race for those who prefer a more cost effective, web based solution with a cleaner interface like Autotask and Kaseya BMS.
Click here to view the full PSA evaluation.
Extra Credit
The extra components of each platform is where the companies really start to separate themselves. Autotask has added file/sync/share capabilities to complement a very solid PSA and a subpar RMM tool. Based on the LogicNow acquisition, Solarwinds MSP now has machine learning (Logic Cards) and their own back up solution to accompany a robust RMM package. However, their PSA is very immature. So when reviewing the “extra components” to each platform, it really becomes more of a two-horse race.
Both ConnectWise and Kaseya have made significant additions over the years to go well beyond RMM/PSA. ConnectWise boasts the attributes of the “ConnectWise Business Suite” and Kaseya has packaged all of their products into a bundle called “IT Complete”. With ConnectWise’s investments in Quosal and ScreenConnect, they have incorporated two mainstay functions of every MSP, quoting and screen share/remote control. In addition, they’ve added functionality around Office 365 administration and cloud billing with “Cloud Console”.
Kaseya, backed with the resources of their private equity firm owner (Insight Venture Partners), has added AuthAnvil (two factor authentication security, which many MSPs use for themselves or provide as a service to their customers), 365 Command (Office 365 administration) and Traverse (enhanced performance monitoring for complex data center and hybrid cloud networks) to round out their portfolio of services.
When it comes to the “extra credit” components, ConnectWise and Kaseya really separate themselves from the pack in the “MSP Platform Wars”
Looking Ahead
An important variable for MSPs looking ahead will be the interoperability between all of their tools, which is why it’s important for MSPs to select vendors that have a clearly stated “open” roadmap that includes integration with all the software providers in the ecosystem. In the years to come, it will be even more critical for service providers to keep their costs down in order to stay competitive and keep margins healthy. One of the ways to keep costs to a minimum is by ensuring MSPs are keeping their vendors honest with the real threat of migrating to another vendor.
Service providers can maintain this threat by working with vendors that are open and integrate with all relevant third party solutions. However, if an MSP finds themselves in a relationship with a vendor that starts to “freeze out” competitive products and 3rd party applications, they need to question the intentions of that vendor to avoid being locked into a “closed platform”. Clarity certainly sees the value and efficiency associated with a single platform, however, that platform needs to be open to other vendors; otherwise, the MSP loses leverage in future pricing negotiations or the ability to take advantage of future innovations.
Labor efficiency has always been important for MSPs. However, with SMB clients pushing for more fixed fee engagements, labor management will become even more critical going forward. Labor management can be tackled from two fronts; first by making employees more efficient, and second, by hiring less expensive resources. Both objectives are achievable with better automated tools.
Clarity believes IT documentation applications (example: IT Glue) will take on added significance in the years to come because a quality documentation tool creates prescriptive “run books” for technicians to follow when troubleshooting client issues. There is also a “search” function in documentation applications that can save technicians a tremendous amount of time when dealing with client issues. The combination of these benefits will allow MSPs to hire less expensive technicians and make them more efficient, thus improving the bottom line.
Lastly, Clarity believes that MSPs will need to move upstream to broaden their service portfolio and manage the needs of larger companies as their 10 to 20 person SMBs clients turn to more self-service solutions. So, when evaluating platforms, it’s essential to identify products that will help drive revenue opportunities with larger sized clients.
Ultimately, the aforementioned trends and factors are important to consider when evaluating MSP growth platforms.
And the Winners are……
After conducting our independent analysis, matching the vendor data points to our criteria, evaluating overall platform strategies and looking ahead to the future of the industry, if Clarity were to select an MSP platform today to scale a service provider practice, it would be with Kaseya.
Kaseya was the clear winner in the RMM/growth-centric competition, especially excelling in the important area of automation. They also have AuthAnvil, their own security product which is important since MSPs and their SMB customers consistently highlight security as a top priority. In addition, Kaseya has an enhanced monitoring product called Traverse, which goes far beyond traditional RMM and allows MSPs to move upstream to capture larger sized clients and bigger recurring revenue contracts. These are both important areas that ConnectWise has yet to appropriately address and in the end Kaseya helps MSPs drive more potential revenues.
ConnectWise won the PSA-centric platform competition with a more mature feature set, but their web based solution still leaves a lot to be desired. More importantly, in a world where IT documentation becomes essential for labor management, the overall role of the PSA becomes less important. This trend makes a lower cost PSA with core capabilities (ticketing/CRM) and a better interface that integrates with the leading IT documentation applications a much stronger play.
Lastly, each of the four platforms evaluated integrate with many of the other key MSP applications, however, ConnectWise is starting to signal signs of a more closed approach when dealing with the other competitive vendors. Based on the importance of interoperability, ConnectWise, while a comprehensive platform, receives negative points for their stated future integration roadmap with their competitors.
Unfortunately for Autotask, while they have a strong PSA tool, their RMM and extra capabilities fall well short of both ConnectWise and Kaseya. On the other side of the equation, Solarwinds MSP has a solid RMM product, but a very lackluster PSA component.
Again, when reviewing the criteria, adding up the extra platform components and looking ahead to the future, Kaseya becomes the clear winner in the MSP Platform war.
Parting comments:
This analysis and ultimate finding isn’t meant to be critical of the other platforms or the thousands of service providers who have chosen those vendors over the years. Rather, this analysis is intended to be an open and honest assessment of where the marketplace stands today. Of course, there will be those who agree, disagree and/or are critical of this exercise — perhaps because they have been successfully using other products for years or they have been drinking gallons of vendor “Kool-Aid” for as long as they have been in business, all of which is fair, everyone has their own perspective.
However, the one thing we can all agree on, is that the managed services industry has changed over the last several years and will evolve even more over the next several, so every service provider needs to focus on selecting and leveraging platforms that will allow them to maximize revenue opportunities and drive down costs.
What’s interesting to me in
What’s interesting to me in this land of total office is best is how weak the systems are in cloud billing, project management and they don’t even bother to compare mobile use, purchase contracts or pre-payment management. Put another way, the integrated market offerings are not well aligned to where the industry is heading as an operating model. As is noted often in this forum, the future for MSPs is to move away from a predominance of local break/fix work towards acting as a buying centre for cloud contracts (buy/sell), trusted advisor and project work, accessing data on the go. There is little point in having the best feature set in the old operating model once the industry has moved on.
I really enjoyed this blog.
I really enjoyed this blog. The approach really made sense to me. The best part from my perspective is the insightful commentary on the future of the MSP industry. I totally agree! Thanks for publishing.
Thank you Jim for this
Thank you Jim for this analysis. While I don’t agree with all of your conclusions I do think that the time is fast approaching when larger, mature MSPs will need to take a close look at their options for PSA/RMM/AV/etc., both to discover new feature sets and to better understand price relative to the market. ConnectWise is a critical part of our business, but it has become very expensive and the feature set isn’t growing as fast as I would like. When I scan the expense side of my P&L and see that PSA/RMM/AV/etc. is now a bigger expense than health insurance and rent, I start looking around. And when I have to add products like AuthAnvil, Insidesales.com, myITprocess, and IT Glue to fill gaps in the CW feature set I become even more frustrated. In a perfect world, CW would add these features and hold the line on price. If they can do that I don’t see a ton of movement away from CW. If they can’t MSPs will start drifting to other solutions, and the revenue they bring with them will fuel the growth of the next ConnectWise.
I think this blog is great!
I think this blog is great! I have been in managed services for over a decade and I have never seen anyone breakdown or compare these platforms like this. I wish more people/companies provided insights like this. Well done!
I would like to see a reason
I would like to see a reason as to why you gave the numbers you did to each product. An explanation of each category, and why the product deserves the score you gave to it, would go a long way towards making this a credible article instead of a sales piece.
I think someone’s been
I think someone’s been influenced by their guest spot at Kaseya Connect.
Really helpful review and
Really helpful review and overview of these products. This information is invaluable, especially for an MSP starting out or reevaluating their choices in these critical tools.
Guess who was a major speaker
Guess who was a major speaker at Kaseya Connect this year?
kaseyaconnect.com/index.php/all-our-speakers/
The Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission has rules that require bloggers and tweeters to be open about paid endorsements.
kaseyaconnect.com/index.php/s
kaseyaconnect.com/index.php/speakers/jim-lippie
Looking at the above link –
Looking at the above link – how can this blog be indioendent – this should be retracted and if not then a more detailed breakdown of how the points were worked out – this feels like a sales piece to me!
Its funny – Not only are
Its funny – Not only are there factual mistakes but this is a complete sales fluff piece for Kaseya. Kind of ridiculous really. Thankfully the MSP community is laughing at this as just another hidden marketing post 🙂
I just left Kaseya and out of
I just left Kaseya and out of the industry altogether but still get these alerts on my personal email and couldn’t resist commenting. Kaseya is getting very desperate and if you knew what we knew as employees, you know this is completely bogus. Just about every employee is looking for a way out or the next best job to come along. Customers certainly are leaving in a mass exodus. I’m surprised Mr. Lippie would agree to be a part of this desperate game. I guess you always have to follow the money.
This couldn’t be farther from
This couldn’t be farther from the truth. I’m a current employee at Kaseya, have been with the company for the past 2 years. The company is doing quite. Retention of customers and employees is not an issue – we’re growing rapidly right now. Nice try Connectwise 😉
I’m not sure why everyone has
I’m not sure why everyone has their pitch forks out here…the writer clearly states that he has relationships with all vendors through sponsorship, speaking engagements, etc in the Disclosure up front? He’s not hiding that he was a speaker at these events. Kind of weird that all these comments are Anonymous as well……
Regardless, I think the write up is an interesting one. Sure, the methodology is pretty subjective, but again that was stated. I don’t know that I entirely agree with the security score, but otherwise Kaseya and Labtech are definitely the two most powerful RMMs on the market. Depending on your perspective and when you last worked with them your experience will probably vary.
If you go back to whee it
If you go back to whee it says he has relationships with all four vendors, they never mention Autotask….. first lie
He may have failed to
He may have failed to explicitly describe the relationship with them in the accompanying text for those 4, but a little digging on Google shows that he does indeed have prior engagements with AutoTask:
autotask.com/press/details/2013/03/21/autotask-corporation-and-independenceit-partner-to-simplify-deploying-and-managing-cloud-services
Its interesting that you
Its interesting that you don’t have Labtech in this list. I would say Labtech would fall under the top 5 RMM tools in the industry, along with Kaseya and Continuum (one another good tool).
Probably, as the author mentioned earlier in the post that there are number of fantastic solutions in the MSP world, these might be his personal best.
I had been following MSPMentor for several years and these guys write and deliver valuable feedback on various tools and features and it is very bad to discourage them with all these anonymous comments. Why don’t you people just read and take the positive out of all the information MSPMentor shares.
It is important to support these people so as to receive their help. Moreover, other than than Labtech and Continuum the author has all the other top players in RMM. Propably, these anonymous comments accusing the author are from either Labtech or Continuum. And, as some of the above comments mention, it is very important to use these tools right now, to clearly understand what they are capable of now and how they have evolved. Keep all your historical thoughts about Labtech or Kaseya or other tools and give it a try, before you say something.
BTW, if you guys think that I work for MSPMentor, I dont even know where these guys are based out of.
And Jim, you are displaying good mannerism and professionalism here, by not deleting the accusing or irrelevant comments. 🙂
Labtech is in the list under
Labtech is in the list under Connectwise. If you click on the RMM comparison, Labtech is listed.
Continuum, LPI, Ninja, etc were not included because they don’t have a PSA, just like TigerPaw wasn’t included because they don’t have an RMM. From what I understand, Jim only included companies that provide both solutions.
Max
cloudjumper.com
I agree with many of the
I agree with many of the other people commenting on this article. It is very much a conflict of interest and is biased. It is unfortunate because this article does not reflect how most of us in the MSP world feel. ConnectWise, Nable and Autotask are the 3 most viable solutions.
Comparing features across
Comparing features across products can be misleading, particularly because every shop’s requirement should be different.
Whilst the PSA & RMM vendors seek to develop their tools they also aim to keep up with the overall market too, so they should all lead in some areas and lag in others. The skill has always been seeking the most appropriate tool.
Signing off with a nod towards Jim Lippie, thanks for the effort and sharing.
Gareth
The most effective MSPs won’t
The most effective MSPs won’t worry about point tools. Instead, they’ll take a holistic look at their customers needs, and then figure out how to best address those needs in the most automated way 🙂
The review, while
The review, while interesting, is looking at old, staid products. Most are nothing more than a convoluted collaboration of old product purportedly made to look like new. They are not. There are newer, better developments available that meet RMM | PSA | Mobile and other desired functionalities. While Connectwise | Kaysea | N-Able try to ‘Duke’ it out, new guys such as Pulseway and Atera are going to remold the turf.
I agree 100%. All of these
I agree 100%. All of these products/companies are old and getting passed by the likes of Pulseway and Atera. The MSP game is changing to what we call the “Business of Things” and I can do more with Pulseway and Dynamics 365 that I can with any of the old guard. Sales fluff or not the world is changing and these guys are dead unless they change their model.
I have a medium sized MSP,
I have a medium sized MSP, and we recently switched from Labtech to OptiTune, it is a great product in case you haven’t heard of it.
As a MSP owner.. how much
As a MSP owner.. how much risk do you think I will take with a lightweight, unproven solution like Pulseway, Atera?? These solutions are what they are with a longstanding of 10-15+ years. Maybe Pulseway and Atera will evolve to that level in another 5-10?? but for now, I cannot bank on a small solution that will not scale with the ever changing customer needs and market horizon.
Jim Lippie now works for
Jim Lippie now works for Kaseya. I’m ashamed in MSPMentor for allowing such biased pieces to exist on their platform. “Fake News”!
The 20, a Plano, Texas, MSP,
The 20, a Plano, Texas, MSP, switched from ConnectWise to Kaseya. The new features and capabilities of Kaseya technology made the decision a “no-brainer,” says Tim Conkle, CEO of The 20.
Guess who now works for
Guess who now works for Kaseya? That’s right one Mr. Jim Lippie. Everyone’s comments mentioning bias is now 100% confirmed as accurate. This article should be taken down.
These comments, wow! You do
These comments, wow! You do an evaluation of the top PSA and RMM vendors then, 7 months later, have an opportunity to work with the one you identified as the best. Should we really fault someone for wanting to work at the best PSA or RMM vendor in their opinion? Obviously other MSPs agree with Jim’s evaluation, why else would The 20 have made the move?
Completely agree. If one were
Completely agree. If one were to hold Apple, MSFT, Tesla, FB in high regard (which they are) and would want to work with them one day. There is nothing wrong in it. I think having done this research, Jim really had a dialog to understand the company vision and growth ahead.. and eventually made the choice to be a part of that vision and help the IT community at the same time.
– Pete
It’s not like Kaseya came out
It’s not like Kaseya came out of nowhere. Most have used it at one point or another in their careers and know what it is. I’d personally never use it again. Half of the agents never check in/go offline. Support is excruciatingly bad.