Netwrix Endpoint Policy Manager

Pros: The ability to make different policies for different pieces of equipment is by far the most important feature. This is because you can put rules into effect for particular computers or subgroups within your company without affecting other areas. We have several different departments, therefore many different requirements. I am going to take advantage of my bus being late and write some thoughts here regarding the Zero-Touch Deployment. Compliance Reporting has reduced our time to report compliance greatly. Support has provided us great assistance as needed and our wait times for them to respond were relatively fast.

Cons: It has a really high learning curve. There is no warning that there will be a high learning curve when purchasing this. Prior knowledge of how to configure the correct policies initially is required, or lots of trial and error while trying to complete tasks. The Dashboard is functional, but difficult to pass along to anyone that doesn’t know IT well; Non-Technical employees don’t understand it. Pet peeve; when scrolling through various inventory views sometimes the column headings go away, and then you’re lost again.

Pros: What I like about Netwrix Endpoint Policy Manager is that it allows me to deploy policies to end points without needing to physically go to each computer. In fact after finishing a very long shift my keyboard keys are sticking at least on half the letters and I was still able to successfully deploy three policy changes before even leaving the office. That is the whole idea – Once configured you can then centrally manage ALL of your end points from ONE location – Lockdown End Point Settings, Determine User Permissions on the End Points and it will apply automatically. No longer will you have to chase down employees nor explain Remote via Phone how to accomplish something.

Cons: I am not too fond of the User Interface (UI) of Netwrix. The UI may not be as user-friendly for new staff as some of the other products available. There is a Learning Curve associated with using the Netwrix Endpoint Policy Manager Product. Sometimes you get someone that understands your issue and gives you accurate information. Lastly the Licensing Model for Netwrix seems to be a bit arbitrary. It appears that whenever you want to add additional features it costs you more money per license.

Pros: In reality I thought the Browser Router would be a complete disaster but worked perfectly. The Least Privilege manager does allow users to do their own updates (so they don’t have to bother me).

Cons: The cost for VDI-based licensing becomes very expensive when you go over 100 pooled systems; and the cost per device is hard to sell to my finance group.

Pros: The ability to apply the same settings and policies to both on-premises and Intune-managed cloud devices—without having to build everything twice or maintain separate environments—is a major advantage. For on-premises deployments, the software does not require any special management server; it simply uses Group Policy, resulting in very low maintenance overhead.

Cons: While the product excels in settings management, its capabilities for software deployment are quite limited. Other solutions offer more robust and flexible deployment features, making them a better fit for that aspect of endpoint management.