what its the best software for remote services?

gazman

gazman

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Hello, I'm looking for good software to manage my remote access repairs. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
There was a thread on "Remote Options" active within the past month, and at least one each month prior to that as well.

A big part of it is going to depend on what you want (unattended? User initiated? monitoring? resellable? integrated support tools? pricing and # of seats? simultaneous sessions?)
 
Couple to name a few.

Splashtop, Teamviewer, Instant House Call, Screen Connect.

Depending on what features you need.
 
I feel like I should take some of the older spreadsheets of remote support programs, swipe what content is relevant (like lists of features) and update them to now after some of the changes and consolidations over the last year or so.

Ammyy - Tool of scammers everywhere, DO NOT USE
Splashtop - inexpensive, no-frills. Options for unattended, resellable unattended, and attended/client-initiated but all are separate products. Annual pricing, but cheap. Hosted by them.
Instant Housecall - active with forums and podcasts as well, includes toolkit based on D7. Subscription, $30/40/75/month. Hosted by them.
ScreenConnect - former local darling until bought by ConnectWise/LabTech which raised prices. Subscription, $50/month annual, cheaper options available with fewer features. Hosted by them unless you're spending $2200+. Has (had?) active forums and many scripts you could add in for cleaning, etc.
Simple-Help - pricing similar to ScreenConnect's old pricing ($320/year + 20% annual maint). Self-hosted by you. Discounts may be available including links from here back when ScreenConnect raised their prices. For an extra $50% you get remote monitoring and some tools but I have no experience with them. Never as actively developed as ScreenConnect. If the RMM features are good enough it's surprisingly affordable (under $1/month per endpoint the first year, $0.20/month per endpoint after that, all in blocks of 40 endpoints)
MSPAnywhere/BeAnywhere - $50/month subscription, purchased by Solarwinds (N-Able) in 2015. I don't think it has integrated tools, but has a good reputation for remote control.
TeamViewer - Solid product, one-time purchase (plus fees for upgrades) $800+. Has some sort of addon available for support/tools I believe.
LogMeIn - had many fans here until a few years ago when the price increases started. Not sure anyone here still uses them.
Chrome Remote Desktop - Free, and you get what you pay for. You can contemplate your errors as you wait for the other end to reconnect you. Again.
Zoho - VNC based? I know little about it other than being pretty sure it exists.
AnyDesk - €60/year or has a 6-year license at a discount. More expensive Professional version allows what I think is unattended access with the extra-charge PowerUser option.

I'm pretty sure there are others that I missed, but I think these are the ones I've seen mentioned most often (along with the one big warning).

Edit: I put IHC's pricing too high originally
Edit: Added AnyDesk
 
Last edited:
I would suggest adding AnyDesk to your list. Pricing details are here. I bought the lifetime Pay-and-Forget Lite license ($328USD) and am liking it a lot. The only criticisms I have are that they almost never respond to support requests, and unless you install the program for unattended access you have to request elevated access from the customer or some clicks do nothing. File transfers by cut-paste are also a weak point, vs separate file transfer function.
 
While we're on the topic; One I'm using is IMPCRemote. It's a VNC-based product; $29/yr per simultaneous connection + 250 endpoints per seat. Biggest issue I have with it, is that it doesn't use a standard port, so that security appliances need to be configured to let the traffic out. Some other issues I've had is it not 'releasing' a seat if the connection went offline (Can right click and manually release it), the interface lag is a little sluggish unless you use your own repeater, and occasionally the domain is blacklisted. The last one is my big concern, and wonder if it's because it's misused by scammers due to it's free options too.

I have never seen IMPCRemote show up on these lists, so I'm wondering if it is frowned upon in the community?
 
I'll add IMPCRemote to the spreadsheet I'm putting together. I think the reason you don't see it turn up is that there are so many VNC forks out there and none of them have really impressive performance. For that matter, you can also look at UltraVNC (http://uvnc.com, NOT ultravnc.com) which even has a couple of variants designed for one-click remote support and is free.
 
fencepost said:
I'll add IMPCRemote to the spreadsheet I'm putting together. I think the reason you don't see it turn up is that there are so many VNC forks out there and none of them have really impressive performance. For that matter, you can also look at UltraVNC (http://uvnc.com, NOT ultravnc.com) which even has a couple of variants designed for one-click remote support and is free.
Click to expand...
Biggest problem I had with uvnc, was that there's sooo much overhead and fidgeting to do to get it to work, I found. Unless someone has a good tutorial.

I will agree, VNC sucks BAD for quality/latency/refresh, but for most of what I need, does what I need it to do.
 
I evaluated a few. I picked Instant Housecall for a few reasons

  • They are a small business. All things being equal I like a small business
  • Support is very responsive and will admit a limitation
  • Custom branding with my business name and a download portal
  • Most important, it locks to me. Things like Teamviewer could be used by a scammer or someone impersonating me. With Instant Housecall, only members of my team with login credentials can use it. I warn clients that it is the only tool we use and don't accept remote support from anyone claiming to be us without using Instant Housecall. With all the remote scams out there, I need a tool that doesn't put clients at additional risk.
 
Has anyone used AeroAdmin? The pricing is spot on, $129 for branded. I cant afford much higher because I just dont do that much remote servicing. Maybe 1-2 every other month. Id like a take on the open source ones or free ones.
 
Your PCMD said:
Has anyone used AeroAdmin? The pricing is spot on, $129 for branded. I cant afford much higher because I just dont do that much remote servicing. Maybe 1-2 every other month. Id like a take on the open source ones or free ones.
Click to expand...
I've tried AeroAdmin when they were free. (A Russian knockoff of Teamviewer?) It was lacking quite a bit at the time. Then there was an introductory price, and since then, the prices seem to keep going up. I felt like I was a lab test rat for what you see today. Left me with a bad taste.
 
we have used teamviewer / screenconnect / vnc
teamviewer is by far the easiest... even if you have to pay $1100 a year for 3 accounts
screen connect is our backup if something goes wrong
 
We are still using Teamviewer 10. We have one license but are just adding a third tech to the team so we need to have at least two licenses so we can do more than one remote support job at a time.
What is the recommendation going forward?

- Keep using Teamviewer 10
- Buy Teamviewer 11
- Try something else
 
Your PCMD said:
Has anyone used AeroAdmin? The pricing is spot on, $129 for branded. I cant afford much higher because I just dont do that much remote servicing. Maybe 1-2 every other month. Id like a take on the open source ones or free ones.
Click to expand...

I tried this one awhile back. I kinda forget the exact particulars, why I moved away from it. I did like the user interface, seemed to work well, but If I recall correctly, one big flaw was that I could not reconnect on a remote reboot.
 
katz said:
I tried this one awhile back. I kinda forget the exact particulars, why I moved away from it. I did like the user interface, seemed to work well, but If I recall correctly, one big flaw was that I could not reconnect on a remote reboot.
Click to expand...
I went with AnyDesk. I found out AreoAdmin has too many back doors and my god the bad reviews of it. I can get back in AnyDesk from remote start and even through Safe mode using networking due to a script. I am happy and my clients are too.
 
If they would give Anydesk the function of knowing when your partner was back online after a reboot (like TV) it would be perfect. Or, maybe they have added that feature by now. It is very convenient to be able to tell at a glance in your client list - who is online & ready to connect.
 
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