Kaseya VSA

A full-featured product that could use better support and documentation

Comments: Remote Monitoring and Management of user PCs.

Pros:

This software is very full-featured and allows quite a bit of granular control and automation. It continues to improve and has a nice amount of features that are included.

Cons:

Features that would be nice to have in the base version must be purchased as additional plug-ins so that one feels somewhat "nickeled and dimed" every time you want to expand your feature-set. The cost is on the higher end for a remote management product which could be justifiable if the support were better. I have found that it is a mixed bag of tricks in terms of how quickly you get a response and every time my ticket is addressed it is outsourced to someone for whom English is a 2nd or 3rd tongue. I don't have a problem with the outsourcing aspect but I often find there is more than a bit of a communication gap and it can be frustrating spending a solid chunk of time trying to get my point across due a language barrier. If this were a very low-cost product this would be more understandable but it is not. There is also a very solid learning curve in terms of understanding all of the features. They offer a Kaseya University option to address that (which I am currently involved with) but it requires a subscription that keeps having to be renewed or you lose access. As the content is static, it would be much better to have a pay once and access forever -certainly for the same version.

increasing helpdesk staff productivity

Comments: -- Tactical Responsibilities
Use remote monitoring and management tool KASEYA to deliver pro-active remote support
Establish monitoring and maintenance necessary for new and existing clients
Monitors Server Windows Operating System performance and takes action to resolve problems
Monitors the Microsoft Exchange Service and resolved any issues regarding the email systems
Monitors Workstation Windows Operating System performance and escalate actions
Monitors network Devices status and performance and escalate actions
Monitors Storage Devices health and takes action to resolve problems
Monitors VMware Infrastructure performance and takes action to resolve problems
Prepare and present service and monitoring reports to management regularly
Documents problems and resolutions on production servers
Completes scheduled audits and provides reports to customers periodically

Pros:

Kaseya is one of the best RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) tools in the market we have moved from REACTIVE to PROACTIVE and now we are moving to SERVICES related to "Service Management Maturity model" thanks to Kaseya we achieved 1. Analyze trends 2. Set thresholds 3. Predict problems 4. measure applications availability 5. Automate (highly appreciable when you handle hundreds of devices) 6. Mature Problem Configuration, change, asset and performance management 7. Increase Security in multiple layers 8. Manage the entire Windows updates process 9. Remote Control 10. Compliance and audit Reports

Cons:

unfortunately using kaseya core modules, it is not stronger to manage network devices

VSA X Needs Improvements

Comments: A much simpler and user friendly interface than VSA 9 but more limited in features.

Pros:

Modern interface with good functions, such as pinning systems and good filtering

Cons:

We were moved from VSA 9 to VSA X but this has reduced functionality, reports are now very limited for example, and performs worse in remote sessions than previously.

Kaseya VSA has been a lifesaver for managing our IT systems remotely. It's easy to use and helps keep everything running smoothly.

Pros:

The remote monitoring and management features are top-notch. It has saved us time and simplified our IT management tasks.

Cons:

The user interface could use some improvement. It feels a bit outdated and clunky at times, making navigation a bit difficult.

Kaseya VSA - Not just for MSPs

Comments: Kaseya VSA has helped me overcome hurdles with outdated software, missing updates, and deployment of new software. I used Kaseya to locate which devices are using old version of Office and using Windows version XP, 7 and and 8 and 8.1. This has helped me in the process of updating all of our devices to the newest Office and Windows 10.

Pros:

Kaseya VSA is not only for MSPs, but for anyone who needs help managing their assets in the office and in the field. I'm the IT Security Manager with all the hats in the IT world at a large confectionery broker. I manage over 250+ devices on my own, with the help of Kaseya VSA. I could not do my day-to-day job without Kaseya VSA.

Cons:

I'm not a fan of the app as the functionality seems to be spotty. Right-clicking the client app sometimes brings up a menu, and sometimes it only offers a simple selection of "Refresh". This is my only gripe in the 3 years I've been using this product.

Kaseya wins the award for worst support in any software I've ever used

Comments: embarrassingly disappointing

Pros:

The software is actually quite good when it works properly. It has a huge amount of features.

Cons:

Kaseya support is terrible, I mean really terrible. I think they only have one level 2 technician because the same guy gets back to me when the first guys can't fix it. First point of support is guys in India with no idea of manners and very little training on Kaseya. I currently have tickets open weeks and some for months. I have been in IT for 16 years and never experienced such dreadful support.

Kaseya VSA Review

Comments: Good overall experience although my service desk have had confidence knocked in the product with recent outages.

Pros:

Monitoring, Remote Control and Patching all within one management console. Ease of access to multiple features.

Cons:

At times, not user friendly and hard to navigate.

Feedback

Comments: Asset management, API into ITGlue/BMS as we're a full Kaseya house and remote access

Pros:

Being able to remote into devices easily

Cons:

Poor Reporting, Live connect disconnects

A great product Until the Company Was Sold

Comments: I have switche3d most of my endpoint management to competing products because I have had much better results. Overall, I am not satisfied with Kaseya VSA.

Pros:

Kaseya is a powerful product that allows you to complete a wide variety of endpoint management tasks. Reporting is stronger than in some competing products.

Cons:

I was very happy with the product until it was sold a few years ago. Support used to be very good and management was quick to assist with problems that we found. After the company was sold, the quality of support greatly deceased and the product stagnated.

Overall positive experience with Kaseya so far, but getting down to brass tacks.

Comments: This software allows my company to support and manage the networks, workstations, servers, and technology of our customers. It allows our technicians to remotely access and administer customer systems, automate maintenance tasks, monitor security and end user behavior, and also gives us a direct link into Kaseya's BMS product for support desk access with direct customer asset access and information. It has saved us many labor hours through automation of system patching and simple end user request or issue resolution.

Pros:

I very much like Kaseya VSA's patch management capabilities, discovery, remote control and Live Connect, as well as the many integrations with 3rd party products. VSA has made troubleshooting and reporting on ours and our customer's networks exponentially easier. I like that Kaseya is plotting out a roadmap to a software version that encompasses all aspects of Managed IT Services, and am looking forward to the next release.

Cons:

I am not particularly fond of Kaseya's Cloud Backup integration with Acronis, and while customer support was exceptionally good prior to our purchase, and for almost the next full year after, it seems that there have been some internal changes of late. We've had 4x account representatives in the 1.5 years we've been using VSA, and this last fellow just isn't cutting it. I've also noticed that our version (permissions) to the SAAS VSA do not reflect the same dashboard as others and getting features added or removed has been a process.

The Kaseya lego kit

Comments: We manage almost 8000 of our customers machines. On almost all servers we run monitoring to alert us to issues, like disk space problems, services not running or certain eventlogs popping up. Here the lego building part of Kaseya is obvious. You get the rough shape to help you set up, but you determine what machine needs what monitoring. You polish the whole in the right shape.
We have good security options with Webroot, Malwarebytes and Patch Management as most important parts. We have remote access when we need it and can investigate problems without having to bother users and take over the machine a few times a day. Then there's the luxury of running commands, or agent procedures as Kaseya calls them, in a heartbeat. You can automate cleanups by tying monitor alerts to commands. In the past this could take you weeks to setup and maintain properly, but that task is mostly done by Policy Management now. You setup the roles per group, do they need monitoring, antivirus, patch managent, etc, etc and Policy Management does it all. Unfortunately there is no complete coverage for all Kaseya options, but in our case it's about 80 to 90% and that saves hours and hours....
All in all it's a pleasure to work with if things don't break, which is not too often compared to other software products. And what would be the fun if it never went kaput. What would I do.... :-)

Pros:

- You can build a whole lot of automation with their building blocks; - The depth of information should cover your needs; - New leadership has taken some time to reform the company, but is now running full speed ahead; - The potential of venture capital is a big benefit to what they can do, if you make them see the need.

Cons:

- Old building blocks have lived on too long (this year is supposed to be the big clean-up); - The mix of old parts (up to 20 years old) and very recent changes in limited places is confusing; - Support can be great, but usually takes a few days to get up to speed on technical challenges; - Integrations of Antivirus are limited and the Kaspersky Anti Virus option will cost you a lot of time;

Terrible support, worse customer service

Comments: We paid for the 25 licenses up front and paid for the "on boarding" which they promise 8 hours of training on how to use their software. The Tech that did the on boarding had problems doing anything and said it was bug in the current system and the fix would be out in 3 months he would give us a credit and re-do the onboarding when the problems were fixed. we never heard from him again, we did not use the software as we were never showed how to use it and got next years bill on my cc and called in and spoke to a supervisor who refused to give us any kind of credit and said onboarding hours expire. So we tried using the software ourselves and called support for help. They literally just email you the link to the general help page and say figure it out or you were supposed to learn this in the onboarding (which we never got). So after calling the supervisor and telling him we have a client that is waiting for something we need their help to get it done in their software so we didn't have to manually remove a user & program to the 50+ computers we had added that week or we were leaving Kaseya. The supervisor promised to have support call us and help us with what we needed, would get us the promised credit & would have us re-do our onboarding. Except support never called us and when we called them they said they couldn't do anything but email us links. we have not gotten the credit or a response from the supervisor and the 8 hours of onboarding they promised us & that we paid for we get 2 hours instead. So if you want support they will just email you a link and say figure it out which is fine sometimes but when you need something right away and don't have time to read 50+ pages. Customer service promises the world but has 0 follow through (and yes I have all their promises in writing they don't care) the software is extremely slow and takes 1-2 minutes to load each page. (we have a 50/50 connection) you can host the software on your own server as they list the hardware requirements of a P1 (yes Pentium 1) 2.4ghz 166 fsb 4 gb of ram and 10gb of hard drive space. with requirements that low you would think their software would run fast. the licenses are expensive over $6.50 a month per computer considering they have no templates, no support, no best practices guides, nothing but instructions on how to setup massive amounts of worthless features but very little actual useful features.

Pros:

their initial sales pitch was good and convinced us to buy it.

Cons:

terrible customer service, NO Support, slow, lousy features for the price

Best RMM tool on the market. Period.

Comments: As an MSP (Managed Service Provider) in the highly competitive IT services market, our tool set is the backbone that enables the service delivery model that differentiates us from the competition. Because these tools are the skeleton of our business, we test all of them on a 3-year rotation to make sure we're using a best-of-breed solution that will make our services faster, more effective, more efficient and produce higher reliability and better outcomes for our clients. Last year we evaluated our BDR (Backup and Disaster Recovery) and RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) platforms with that backdrop. We included all of the major players (for RMM that was Kaseya, Labtech, N-able, Maxx, etc.) and a few free/near-free 2nd and 3rd tier players, and again Kaseya was the hands-down best-of-breed winner. That's not to say it didn't have some short comings. It's a piece of software so yes, there are some bugs but none of them are heart stopping or business-critical, and we're an IT company! - we can get them resolved very quickly. And the bugs are no more or less than the issues we found in the competition - so on net it was wash against the competition. But the overall scope and quality of the product, the depth of functionality, the myriad vendors that it integrates with, and the support team that we found responsive (slightly better then the competition) gave them a nod over the competition. Add to that the lightweight agent, integrated, lightening fast remote desktop access and HUGE user community where you can find a script for anything you need put them head and shoulders above the rest. Everyone can find something they will love in Kaseya.

Pros:

Robust features, lightening fast remote desktop access and huge user community producing thousands of scripts to cure every/any problem or request you may have. Full access to SQL database in included.

Cons:

Slightly above average support response times and longer lead times for enhancements. Their SaaS version is slower than some of the competitors (altho the on prem is blazingly fast).

Have used Kaseya 7+ years. I can do more in Kaseya than if I'm physically seated at the endpoint.

Pros:

I have logged, literally, thousands of hours in Kaseya. As stated above, I can do more in the VSA than if I'm in front of the PC. Hugely powerful. People ask me "So what kind of things have you done with Kaseya besides just remote into a desktop"? Then I give them a simple example, such as how I wrote a small agent procedure that allowed me to uninstall Office 2010, install Office 2013, and activate the product with a license key on more than 350 endpoints with (literally) three mouse clicks. And I did it with a 100% silent uninstall/install while the user was logged in and working. They had no idea anything was even happening with their workstation. Kaseya makes what could otherwise be a huge project super easy stuff. Kaseya is probably the most important force multiplier in my environment.

Cons:

Identifying a con is tough. The only drawback I would point out is that for brand new users there can be quite a bit of learning curve when you delve into the really powerful features. For example, writing complex agent procedures takes experience. That being said, the initial basic use of the most common features is easy to pick up right away, so even the learning curve isn't a big deal. When you're ready to "do more" and invest the additional time to learn the more advanced features, they're there waiting for you. For basic help desk folks, they may never need to go beyond the surface features.

Hopeful for change and more efficient software

Comments: Much better than the first experience I had with them. The people are good people and I trust and hope things are going to get better. It takes a while to implement all of the new changes that need to be done to keep up with all of the changes that Microsoft is making to the patching engine alone.

Pros:

I like the web based application and the abilities that it currently has. Much better performance that the previous systems we have used. I like having all of the modules in one pane of glass.

Cons:

The slow development cycle. Icons reverting back to non-customized images every other upgrade. New modules that are released are not ready for prime time and are lacking in functions that we need as MSPs. There appears to be no partner beta program, which is unfortunate.

A Review from a user and an administrator of the Kaseya VSA

Comments: Overall I (and our business) have a very positive experience with the Kaseya VSA in our day to day operations. The VSA allows us to centrally manage all of our customer remote operations including Endpoint Security, Backup of differing technologies, Patching, monitoring and remote access. The VSA also allows us to provide many of these same benefits to our customers which we support, enabling them to have a similar positive experience when needing to access their own systems.

Pros:

I am most impressed by the functionality and ease of use of the Kaseya VSA for everyday operations, from the perspective of a managed services provider. Supporting our customers in a way that allows quick resolution of their issues is a driving force behind our software purchasing mandate, and the Kaseya VSA allows for this without being cumbersome to use.

Cons:

My primary issue with the Kaseya VSA is around the licensing model. We run an on-premise VSA, but would prefer to have the flexibility of a monthly subscription service around our licensing as this is how our customers consume services in the cloud driven era we live in.

Great software, takes time to make great

Comments: Overall the software is great, I have tried all the major RMM software options over the past 10 years and still feel Kaseya VSA is the top of the line one.

Pros:

Scripting engine is better than other RMM software I have used. Remote Control protocol is fast and has useful features like session shadowing on Terminal Servers. Lots of community support for Addon for popular software.

Cons:

Support over the past 10 years has always been bad, there have been ups and downs but overall not good. Tree/Hierarchy for settings still seems like an after thought Promised features that never arrive.

We have been using Kaseya for many years. There are some frustrations . Overall the VSA works well

Comments: Asset management and OS and software patching have been very valuable. The Kaseya Remote Control is fast and easy to use. Our entire team uses it every day to support our end users.

Pros:

We are a private company that uses the VSA for supporting our internal network and users. As an asset management platform the VSA works well. We are able to leverage the many support features to provide assistance to our end users.

Cons:

The integration with end point security has been tough. The management platform for EPS was frustrating and difficult to understand. We experienced false positives on a daily basis on the EPS solution. Ultimately we moved away from the Kaseya/Kaspersky solution for end point security. We used the ticketing system for years before moving away from it last year. We found that the ticketing module did not provide the flexibility our team needed to track and manage tickets in the most efficient way possible. The ticket module was one of the modules that did not get much attention and did not get updates because we were pushed to the service desk solution.

Kaseya has overall been very good for our company.

Comments: We do all of our management for remote agents with this software but would look elsewhere if it was not so hard to switch and if we did not have so much money invested in the product.

Pros:

The feature set is good and it is stable overall. It has been very good at alerting, monitoring and backups.

Cons:

It feels bloated and slow at times. The filtering and search are not great. We have had lots of problems with remote control, sometimes it works, then it breaks and then they fix it.

In the past I used a few other RMM's and with the exception of a few bugs this one works well.

Comments: It allows me to manage many pc's with less effort across multiple organizations. If I need to push a script to several organizations that does the same thing it is as easy as deploying it in one place.
I also find the Live Connect functions to save time not always having to VPN in to different clients to gain remote access to client PC's.

Pros:

Policy Driven Events allow events to be happen by clients and departments easily. Easy to navigate dashboard. Scripting works well and has some nice functionality already out of the box.

Cons:

The Live connect can be a little glitchy. Would like to see third party updating added with out an add-in. Would like to see alerting improved by adding function like notification when a parameter like cpu usage returns to normal.

Kaseya touts a powerful system, but their Mac support is poor and their alerting is confusing compared with others.

Comments: I feel that this software is better for people who are extremely tech savvy and can tell right off which alerts can be ignored, and which ones are legitimate. We received thousands of alerts per month, with only maybe 10% of them being actionable items. This service ended up being quite a time-consuming. Also, with its per-agent pricing, the costs got a bit out of control.

Pros:

It is easy to deploy Kaseya. I like the integration with the Amazon cloud backup and the antivirus. The dashboard looks nice, and you can run custom scripts to help maintain your systems.

Cons:

Many extraneous alerts come through, and it's difficult to manage which monitors you want. Also, it advertises Mac support, but the agent crashes on Mac quite a bit and there aren't half as many management features on Mac as their are on PC. Every time Apple OS updates, there's a problem with the Kaseya agent. We switched off of this software. It is very expensive for what it does, and there are good alternatives.

The Kaseya Experience is good but takes alot of experience to work though it

Comments: a glorified remote support agent

Pros:

the almost unlimited options of monitoring capability's and that windows update works semi well on machines.

Cons:

how you go about setting up the monitoring and that you need a secondary monitoring tool to monitor networks or to sync machines and tickets you need to buy yet a nother tool that they dont tell you about

Some functionality not obvious

Comments: Overall, this has been an easy to install and implement software.

Pros:

Overall, it is easy to set up and administer. There are lots of functionality options in order to automate the environment and keep track of all workstations and assistance needs.

Cons:

Some of the modules, even using the help options available, are not obvious for set up and require some tweaking and re-tweaking. Occasionally it also requires reaching out to support, which is just a slow process. However, the people we have worked with have been thorough, knowledgeable and have been very helpful. Additionally, once data gets to a certain amount within Kaseya, it makes searching for tickets very difficult - and you can't search by ticket number.

Easy to use and has just always worked.

Pros:

Remote management is lightning fast. The audit piece is very nice to keep track of all the businesses assets.

Cons:

There seems to be a bit of a gap between releases. Sometimes you get a rep that keeps in constant contact and sometimes you don't talk to your rep for a long while. Not a bad thing though.

Highly Recommend VSA

Comments: Have used this product for over 2 years and have no regrets. Has helped us respond to our clients faster. In fact we have been able to lower our on site calls.

Pros:

The remote connection to pc's has reduced our response times greatly. The ability to see what they are doing helps troubleshooting the problems quicker. The ability to have their service tags / serial numbers allows us to check and verify warranty. Also, information that is shown on the main screen can help us locate PC's that are older or out dated.

Cons:

Updates with Live Connect, some times install will fail and have to uninstall and reinstall. Some connectivity issues when using live connect is slow.