The 2016 MSPs Guide to RMM and PSA Platforms

A relatively new RMM and PSA company has emerged claiming ease of use and a disruptive pricing model. Atera is 100% cloud based; it has no on premise version. Aimed at smaller MSPs, the company prices its technology not on the device but on the technician. While it has a small community of MSPs today (Atera claims 300), the smaller MSP not needing on premise options and wanting a combined PSA and RMM platform with no real need to integrate with other vendors may find Atera interesting.

Autotask

While originally a PSA platform, through its acquisition of CentraStage, Autotask is now a RMM solution a well. Many MSPs like the ease of use of Autotask since it is a completely cloud hosted solution. For other MSPs with more data privacy and security needs, the requirement of a privately hosted PSA and RMM solution demands other options. Autotask does enjoy the position of being one of the two major PSA solutions out there.

Autotask and CentraStage tend to be used by small and medium sized MSPs.

Auvik

Relatively new to the RMM community is Auvik. Providing network infrastructure monitoring designed to "compliment, and not compete" with other RMM platforms, Auvik's platform boasts some interesting features, such as multi-factor authentication, password management, and configuration management. Auvik is cloud-based; no word on whether it is available in an "on-premise" version.

ConnectWise

Another legacy PSA solution, ConnectWise has now created a juggernaut of PSA and RMM capabilities. The fusion of ConnectWise and its incubator RMM company LabTech is now complete. Many MSPs use LabTech and ConnectWise, in part due to the close integration between the two.

Another benefit of ConnectWise is the ability to select between on premise and cloud hosted options. ConnectWise/LabTech are typically used by small and medium sized MSPs.

Kaseya

Kaseya has gone through a number of management changes in the last few years, beginning with the shareholder shakeup when Insight Venture Partners invested in the RMM company. Since that time, Kaseya has been acquiring a lot of its functional capabilities, culminating with its launch of its own PSA solution. While adding a PSA brings Kaseya into direct competition with ConnectWise and Autotask, the PSA solution for Kaseya is not a competitive differentiator, but rather a useful add on to Kaseya's core RMM functionality. Kaseya is encouraging MSPs to adopt its PSA solution primarily because it will not disrupt the MSP's business model.

The core Kaseya RMM platform is available both as on premise and cloud hosted versions. The PSA solution is only available as a cloud hosted SaaS model. Kaseya tends to be used by slightly larger small and medium sized MSPs

SolarWinds

SolarWinds has made two key acquisitions in recent years, bringing the company fully into the managed services market. First was its purchase of RMM company N-able. The second purchase was just made this year when it acquired RMM company LOGICnow. While it may seem odd that SolarWinds would buy two RMM companies, the strategy may make sense when viewed in the following way. N-able has been a legacy RMM platform serving the small and medium sized MSP market; sometimes trending towards larger MSPs. LOGICnow has gone through a few name changes in recent years but has been an RMM company focused on mostly smaller SMB MSPs.

SolarWinds now has capabilities to target both the very small and slightly larger MSP market segments. Although no integrations have occurred yet between the LOGICnow and N-able products, it is possible these two products could become merged at some point in the future. For the time being, SolarWinds has two slightly overlapping RMM products which give them wide coverage of the MSP market.

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