ManageEngine Applications Manager Vs Datadog

Both Datadog and ManageEngine Applications Manager are well-known in the cybersecurity world as some of the top network monitoring software out there. However, seeing as the market for network security monitoring tools is growing larger by the day, every tool needs to do more to set itself apart from the rest.

Both of these tools have a firm foothold in the market, however, which of the two is the better tool for you?

In this article, we’ll be comparing the two directly and shining a light on the good and bad within both tools so you can pick the right one for you.

What Is A Network Monitoring System And Why Do I Need One?

A network monitoring system is any software or hardware aiding you in keeping track of the metrics within your network. This can mean tracking network uptime, traffic, data usage, or any other of a myriad of metrics.

Many companies turn to network monitoring software because doing this by hand is grueling and time-consuming, even in a small business. In medium or large businesses, doing these tasks manually becomes an exercise in futility. Similarly, the more your business grows, the more important keeping track of these metrics becomes.

Cyberattacks, data leaks, and simple mismanagement are much larger threats to an enterprise than shelling out for a good network monitoring tool. Yet, because of this, most of them elect to use one in order to help them track performance, find cyber attacks and plug up data leaks if one arises.

Network monitoring tools won’t only help you with this, however. They’ll also help you optimize your resource usage correctly and predict how this usage will change over time.

ManageEngine Applications Manager Product Highlights

ManageEngine is a product division of the Zoho Corporation, formerly known as AdventNet. It deals with IT management solutions mainly geared towards SMBs, although lately, they’ve been giving some attention to enterprise-level solutions as well.

Founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu, the Zoho Corporation has been quite influential in the IT management sector. ManageEngine Applications Manager is their attempt at creating the best network monitoring system for SMBs and enterprises.

This tool is quite affordable, generally coming up to around $795 a year; however, it can be challenging to place a firm price tag with its feature-based approach to pricing.

ManageEngine Applications Manager excels at handling SMBs and offering excellent customer support. For example, suppose you’re a small to medium business owner and aren’t sure how your network monitoring setup is. In that case, their customer support is quick to respond and quite helpful, with them even offering in-person training at select locations.

One of the most significant downsides of the ManageEngine, however, is the lack of any mobile integration, which can lead to some delays and require someone to be present at a desktop device for monitoring to be fruitful.

Main Features

• Multi-platform monitoring capabilities
• An excellent customer support system with on-premise training options
• Specialized for SMBs
• A surprisingly complex suite of options
• Extremely quick installation times

Datadog Product Highlights

Datadog has provided comprehensive, in-depth monitoring options for businesses of all sizes ever since it was founded back in 2010. It offers both on-prem and cloud support, with a highly detailed dashboard and various highly customizable features, including its high-quality alerts system.

Datadog has acquired many firms in the network monitoring space within the last decade, leading to it providing a breadth of services to its users. It also integrates with existing service stacks exceptionally quickly and supports over 450 different integrations. This flexibility is what draws many companies down to Datadog.

Datadog has a very transparent pricing model

• Network Performance Tier This tier is made for SMBs, priced at $5 for each function you need, and can often be the most efficient way to get the most out of Datadog for an SMB.
• Infrastructure Tier Medium network owners should look at this tier, as it seeks to offer a centralized but network-encompassing solution.
• APM Tier Although a bit expensive at $31 per host, this enterprise-level tier is made with various specialized features like service and device layer fixing that can help boost an enterprise’s network to new heights.

There are also multiple other specialized tiers like the log management or serverless tier, each of which offers only a subset of Datadog’s features, in case you’re only interested in a few elements.

Main Features

• Great UI catering to newbies and experienced network monitoring professionals alike.
• Easy integration with most commonly used apps like Slack, PagerDuty, email, and the like.
• Robust customization features let you craft your own network monitoring experience.
• Datadog offers a variety of data analytics features that can make a dedicated data analytics tool feel obsolete.

ManageEngine Applications Manager & Datadog Head-to-Head

User Interfaces

Datadog offers excellent data presentation and a customizable dashboard. Although it can take a little bit to get used to the interface for complete newbies, it provides incredible depth compared to how relatively simple it is to use.

While ManageEngine Applications Manager doesn’t have a lousy UI per se, it does look quite dated, and some sections are presented a bit unintuitively. This is perhaps the most extensive area the tool could improve in when it comes to making SMBs happy.

Although both of the dashboards are customizable to a degree, Datadog goes significantly deeper with the customization. With its color-coded metrics and real-time monitoring, Datadog has one of the better UIs on the market.

Furthermore, the ManageEngine Applications Manager lacks a mobile client, while Datadog can easily integrate with your phone.

All in all, Datadog wins this section by a landslide.

OS & Customer Support

Both of these tools support the most common operating systems(Linux, Windows, and macOS.)

Where they’re different is in their customer support. Datadog has excellent, responsive customer support with available phone, email, forum, chat, and knowledge base. However, the ManageEngine Applications Manager takes the edge here due to offering both on-premise training and slightly faster response times.

Installation

Datadog can be a bit of a hassle to get going. If you don’t have a very experienced team at your hands, it could take up to a week to get Datadog fully deployed on your network, despite being a cloud-based tool.

The ManageEngine Applications Manager is an exclusively on-premises solution. Unfortunately, this means that if your business is looking to get a SaaS-based answer, it’ll need to look elsewhere. With that being said, it is effortless to deploy and can get going in just a day or two.

All in all, Datadog takes a slight edge here due to the prevalence of cloud-based software these days; however, your business might value the ManageEngine’s faster setup time more.

Cost

In terms of price, Datadog lets you pick and choose a plan that works for you, sometimes containing just a few crucial features. ManageEngine does much the same, charging you on a per-feature basis.

With that being said, if you’re a small to medium business, chances are the ManageEngine is significantly cheaper for you. Of course, Datadog will generally come out about even in terms of price; however, it’s a much better setup to support them.

Reporting

One of Datadog’s most significant weaknesses is its lack of any reporting functionalities. In their stead, it employs prominent graphical representations of data on your dashboard. With that being said, for many teams, this simply won’t cut it. Furthermore, without any plugins, Datadog can underperform in these environments.

The ManageEngine, on the other hand, has some straightforward and intuitive reporting functionalities. This will help you share the data gathered from your monitoring efforts with your team and develop a cohesive strategy.

In this department, the ManageEngine has a transparent edge.

Plugins & Integrations

When it comes to the quantity and versatility of plugins and integrations, Datadog takes the cake with over 450 different integrations available. These range from commonly used ones like Slack or PagerDuty to more obscure software. Freely available plugins are also out there to patch up any holes you might feel the base tool has.

The ManageEngine, on the other hand, features a more straightforward integration process, with many functionalities, such as Slack integration available right out of the box.

Though this comes down to whether you need a breadth of features or simplicity, we’ve got to give it to Datadog on this one for the sheer versatility its plugins offer.

ManageEngine Applications Manager VS Datadog Verdict

While Datadog and ManageEngine Applications Manager are excellent network monitoring tools, we believe Datadog comes out on top.

The most significant area where ManageEngine Applications Manager edges out is cost, especially to SMBs. If you’ve got a smaller network and need to skimp a bit when it comes to monitoring costs, this might make the ManageEngine work out better for you.

Datadog brings with it an insane amount of depth, in addition to a very polished UI and over 450 different available integrations. Furthermore, a cloud solution is nearly always better than an on-premises one in this day and age, as the tech world trends more and more towards cloud-based tools.

Which one of these tools do you prefer?

What two tools would you like us to compare next?

Let us know in the comments below!