Lansweeper vs. Spiceworks

sphinx99

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 23, 2006
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Any thoughts on how these compare for ~500 client environments? I have four locations with 250-750 clients (and a couple dozen switches, servers, etc.) that I would like to inventory and understand, and I am wondering how these two compare.

Spiceworks I have up and running in one location; functionality is impressive (especially the client warranty status!) but the scans tend to bomb, and it's extremely slow... with about 600 targets, it's running a 2010 Xeon quad at about 50% sustained... yikes.

I have not tried LANSweeper (yet).
 
All I can say is try Lansweeper...you'll be amazed. And it works well. Wicked detailed information you can pull from it. I've tried Spiceworks a few times...wicked bloated and misses a lot. Plus..no ad-ware in Lansweeper.
 
Check out the latest version of Spiceworks. I hear it works a little bit better than previous versions. All though if you need just basic information. Lansweeper does a great job

EDIT:

If you plan for this to be a perminate solution I recommend GPLI + OCS Inventory. You have to install the agent on each computer, but OCS Inventory provides a couple of tools to deploy the agents. I personally used their package tool and added the install as part of my logon script. Worked well and reports back alot of things about the computers (haven't tried to do switching gear, just servers, desktops, laptops).
 
I have Lansweeper running on one network and it's doing a fine job - I can appreciate how lean it runs. Some of the AD health check reports seem to be useful, and the simple scan status screen is a godsend! However it does not look to be as adept at scanning network components, and I have not found client warranty scan data yet. I wish Spiceworks were this quick.
 
So you think it is worth the $300 a year for the premium service?

That depends if the added features of the premium version have things you want
http://lansweeper.com/premium-users.aspx

For me, the free version does what I need..inventory of servers/workstations...with detailed info about hardware and software for asset tracking.
For remote control I use other things, and for software installs..I use group policy or manual.
 
In my view, $300 seems almost immaterial given the capability of the product. It's running now and much, much faster than Spiceworks. (Unfortunately, it's also rather workstation-centric, with reams and reams of useless information about desktop and laptop minutia.)
 
I tried to install Lansweeper just now and not very impressed. You have to install a SQL Server and all kinds of stuff, the SQL Express install did not work so I could not get this working.
 
I tried to install Lansweeper just now and not very impressed. You have to install a SQL Server and all kinds of stuff, the SQL Express install did not work so I could not get this working.

Well don't be unimpressed with LAN Sweeper just because your SQL Express install blew up...get your machine working right. The SQL Express installation is pre-LANSweeper..so it's up to the health of your Windows box.

You don't have to install SQL "Server"....you can use the mini version, SQL Express.
And for the "all kinds of stuff"..the only othing thing is IIS...which is pretty easy..just through add/remove windows components. The install wizard of LANSweeper does a great job of creating the instance in SQL, and the site in IIS.
 
That depends if the added features of the premium version have things you want
http://lansweeper.com/premium-users.aspx

For me, the free version does what I need..inventory of servers/workstations...with detailed info about hardware and software for asset tracking.
For remote control I use other things, and for software installs..I use group policy or manual.

So you are running the version which has a small program which runs on each pc?
Does lansweeper do a good job of pushing the program out or did you have to do a physical visit to each machine?
 
So you are running the version which has a small program which runs on each pc?
Does lansweeper do a good job of pushing the program out or did you have to do a physical visit to each machine?

It's a very easily deployed "lsclient.exe" file you push out via logon or GPO....covered well in the documentation for LANSweeper. No needing to go visit each PC. So upon logon...it's run on workstations/servers and they start reporting back.
 
How do these programs get all that info about a host without any any software on the host, just by scanning?
 
More than likely yes just by scanning
 
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It's authenticating to the client then doing WMI and other scans. You do need to provide some authentication credentials to make this work; I created a privileged domain account that got the job done. So far, I'm quite impressed with lansweeper but it is not proving to be a replacement for spiceworks, nor vice versa... I'm seeing value in having both running.
 
does spiceworks require a DB server and all that or is it just a stand alone program?
 
does spiceworks require a DB server and all that or is it just a stand alone program?

Yup since it stores data..it uses a database, SQLite in this case, main program is written in Ruby on Rails, and it installs Apache web server.
 
AMD Gamer, YeOldestonecat is correct concerning the bundled SQLite database with Spiceworks. The product can install on a workstation or server. To address your other inquiry above, it will use protocols such as (WMI) Windows Management Instrumentation for Windows machines in this case to scan/query and collect information from devices on your network, no client agent is required.
 
Thank you, Dr., I'll reply to your PM later today or tomorrow.

The use of SQL Server is a plus, not a minus - it affords considerable scalability.
 
How does this compare to zenoss? Does it do similar features or they different? Right now I'm running zenoss for snmp monitoring of servers/ switches.
 
we have been using Spiceworks in our company too, but had the same problem, lack of speed! with more then 3000 workstations in the company, the software costed us nothing, however it took almost the full capacity of 7000$ server..... so keeping this in mind, the 300 bucks spend for lansweeper were probably our best investment ever, we were able again to use our server also for other purposes...
 
Hi pykes, since Spiceworks is always trying to improve app performance and enhance the user experience.

- Can you elaborate on: "however it took almost the full capacity of 7000$ server"

- I'm assuming Spiceworks was hosted on a physical server, what OS?

- What other tasks are/were you running on this server?

- Were you using Spiceworks just for scanning or some of the other features also (help desk, reporting, monitoring)?

- How was the accuracy of discovery/inventory, did you have many unknown devices or many with errors?

- When scanning, did you access remote sites?

- Are you still using Spiceworks in your environment?

Since Spiceworks has a variety of different functions running simultaneously some of them will utilize memory resources more than others. Much of the functionality involves up/down pings ( for online/offline device status), Network Health checks, Event logging, network scanning, Help Desk ticket polling etc. which makes this an active application.

So some of these inquiries above will give us an idea of why/where your performance was impacted. Thanks in advance for any elaboration.
 
How does this compare to zenoss? Does it do similar features or they different? Right now I'm running zenoss for snmp monitoring of servers/ switches.

Never heard so much of it like Spiceworks and lansweeper. What's the updated thoughts on these all today?
 
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