Looking for alternatives to Teamviewer

[AFurryReptile]

Don't get me wrong - I love Teamviewer. But the license is expensive and I have to convince my company that they want to buy it...

If you guys know anything on par with the functionality and speed of Teamviewer, let me know. I am aware of dozens of different support tools, but in my experience, most are VNC-based - and I hate VNC. It's ancient, and slow, and has issues with firewalls.

I've tried LogMeIn, too. I don't like it as much as TV, and anyway the cost would be more than a TV license.

Not sure what else to try. Teamviewer is just good; everything else seems bad in comparison.

 

[NeoV]

I haven't seen any of the free programs work as well as Teamviewer does.

In addition to being expensive, though - Teamviewer has a shitty upgrade policy.

Our company's TV license did not include an upgrade from V5 - which we were on when we bought it, to V6 or V7.

Did end up getting a TV7 license though - use it every day.

 

[Berryracer]

I work in a Multi National Company and they all use Team Viewer and it's free! you don't have to pay for a license just say you're using the free version

 

[capeconsultant]

Try the ZOHO remote module. I forget what it is called.

 

[AFurryReptile]

I work in a Multi National Company and they all use Team Viewer and it's free! you don't have to pay for a license just say you're using the free version

It doesn't work if you run it on a server, or on domain computers. It'll give you a 5 minute timer for each session, and disconnect you for 20 minutes after that.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Teamviewer is just good; everything else seems bad in comparison.

That's because it's true.

 

[Berryracer]

It doesn't work if you run it on a server, or on domain computers. It'll give you a 5 minute timer for each session, and disconnect you for 20 minutes after that.

ahh I see, what a shame

 

[Flopp]

Try ScreenConnect. I'm pretty sure its probably exactly what you are looking for. Like Teamviewer it is only a one-time fee- but uses the concurrent session model- so you can run it from as many workstations as you like. They have a free trial so you can see if it works for you.

http://www.screenconnect.com/

 

[AFurryReptile]

Try ScreenConnect. I'm pretty sure its probably exactly what you are looking for. Like Teamviewer it is only a one-time fee- but uses the concurrent session model- so you can run it from as many workstations as you like. They have a free trial so you can see if it works for you.

http://www.screenconnect.com/

Great suggestion! I'm really digging the software - it actually seems faster than TeamViewer. Plus, it's a local installation instead of on some random company's servers, and a license comes with free MSI installers to boot!

My company can definitely get behind this.

 

[Chapbass]

I use GoToAssist (now called GoToManage I believe) from Citrix....I prefer it to Teamviewer personally. Feels much faster to me.

 

[Zxian]

I work in a Multi National Company and they all use Team Viewer and it's free! you don't have to pay for a license just say you're using the free version

http://www.teamviewer.com/en/help/213-How-exactly-is-private-use-defined.aspx

As private use we understand any use of TeamViewer for purposes that are neither directly nor indirectly paid.

Examples for an indirect payment:

• teamwork among colleagues within a company

You're breaking the terms of service by using TeamViewer in a professional manner without paying for the license.


I'm not sure how many concurrent support sessions you'd need to use TeamViewer for, but the licensing for ScreenConnect seems just as expensive as TeamViewer for corporate scenarios.

A simple way of convincing management to pay for support software such as TV or alternatives is to break down the cost in terms of productivity hours. How much time do you and the support recipient save by using said software? What does that equate to in terms of revenue?

 

[Flopp]

Great suggestion! I'm really digging the software - it actually seems faster than TeamViewer. Plus, it's a local installation instead of on some random company's servers, and a license comes with free MSI installers to boot!

My company can definitely get behind this.

Great, glad you like it. Yeah I found it about a year ago. We started with one license just to make sure it suited our needs and have since bought 3 more. It is great. I think they get a lot of Teamviewer customers that are sick of forking over $$$

 

[joutlaw]

We use Bomgar, but it's not free.

 

[Flopp]

I don't think he is asking for free. But he is wanting something cheaper than Teamviewer and Bomgar is much higher than TV.

 

[slayernine]

I work in a Multi National Company and they all use Team Viewer and it's free! you don't have to pay for a license just say you're using the free version

Its not free for commercial use, you are essentially pirating it by breaking their terms of use.

 

[AFurryReptile]

Its not free for commercial use, you are essentially pirating it by breaking their terms of use.

The internet has no morals!

For the record, though, I think Teamviewer allows you to run in free mode in a commercial environment for testing purposes. I had a network that ran it for a good six months before we started getting the countdown timer - and that countdown timer started at 20 minutes, while working its way down to just 1 minute after a month.

 

[elvenwood548]

Hi, we're currently looking here to do the same, we used LogMeIn but it was crazy expensive, don't get me wrong it was great, I believe it to be one of the best remote desktop softwares in the market but its also way too expensive. We looked at Team-Viewer price and we're still more or less in doubt since it seems that we buy a lifetime license but then we have to get the upgrades each year.

I've also looked at ScreenConnect, thanks for the reference, it seems great, our techs are testing it now. We've also been testing another software called BeAnywhere, we created an account and were contacted right away to upgrade our account from free to Corporate for 50% of the normal price. They aren't very well known, which is why they probably are putting those prices, their software is nifty and has a management area that I have to confess is better than LogMeIn Central.

We're currently between going with ScreenConnect or BeAnywhere, anyone has a recommendation here to do? What is your experience with these solutions?

 

[Flopp]

There main difference, which I believe is a huge difference it self-hosted (ScreenConnect) versus Saas software which is rented software (BeAnywhere). I prefer ScreenConnect because once you buy it you own it (Teamviewer is the same even though it is acutally hosted). I haven't heard of BeAnywhere but I just visited there page and it seems to be $299/year which is actually more expensive than ScreenConnect or in my opinion even Teamviewer.

 

[blurredvision]

Another option for you, this is what my company uses:

http://www.simple-help.com/

 

[Relayer]

Try Dameware.

 

[elvenwood548]

Hi, thanks for replying, however I'm still a bit in doubt what do chose from and I have a bunch of new questions, I hope you guys don't mind. xD

I understood your point with the self-hosted vs SaaS software, however I have a few concerns that maybe you can explain. Since ScreenConnect is self-hosted does it have upgrades? My experience with self-hosted software is that any upgrade is a very messy situation. Regarding backup of data, does ScreenConnect allows for any automated backup on the Cloud? Or is it one of those solutions that if the infrastructure has a problem we risk all the data to be corrupted and lost? One other thing that I couldn't find on the ScreenConnect website, regarding support for how long do they provide support and what type of support?

Regarding prices, I believe the price of ScreenConnect is indeed better but only if you have like 5 techs that need to work at the same time. It seems better for big companies than small companies. For what I've been noticing most companies have their licenses pointed to the number of techs that work at the same time, for example LogMeIn is crazy expensive because for 5 techs to be working we would need to buy 5 Rescue Licenses, the price on that is just too much.

With ScreenConnect we can buy their Unlimited Session License for 3000 $ and that's it. However we're a small company that has 3 techs working at the same time and I have to say that 3000 $ seems a bit too much even if its a lifetime license, LogMeIn would cost mostly the same, Team-Viewer is around 2000 $ and yes its a lifetime license but if you want upgrades you need to buy them. With annual licenses one usually gets upgrades and support for everything during that year and that is important to me, in our industry one needs to keep up in terms of technology, for example if we compare the old versions of Team-Viewer with the ones that we have today the old ones are just terrible, well actually Team-Viewer 3 had a very cool bug that allowed us to install it on a server and use it with an unlimited number of techs xD.

The idea of lifetime licenses seems a bit useless since you have to end up paying for upgrades or risk using an outdated technology. For example I'm looking closely at Dameware, I can't seem to figure out if the price on the license is annual or not, but they ask to buy the upgrade for a new version which for what I saw happens often, they released 2 upgrades during this year, which again worries me.

Regarding Simple-Help, I actually liked it a lot, we could buy the Simple Help 3 license for 745 $ and have our techs working at the same time. I'm just worried again about the price of support and upgrades since it seems the only way to get support is to upgrade the license. I have to give them a call to compare their price in upgrades and frequency against the renewals at BeAnywhere.

What do you guys think? Are upgrades and support important? Is it better to have these types of software self-hosted or based on SaaS? Is it best to have a lifetime license or an annual license?

 

[AFurryReptile]

ScreenConnect is great. It's $300/simultaneous session, which is about as cheap as you're going to get for good software.

Updates are really easy. The admin panel has a version check, and you simply run an installer on the server when you want to update. The clients will automatically update as you connect to them.

ScreenConnect is fast, even with 2 simultaneous sessions and a modest 10mb connection. Faster than Teamviewer, when comparing side-by-side.

My only gripe is there isn't a built-in chat function, and that you can connect to unattended workstations without the user even noticing. There's no notification, except that the background turns black.

They have a free trial. You should try it; I was pleasantly surprised.

 

[elvenwood548]

My problem with SimpleConnect again is that it has a licensing of 300$/Simultaneous Sessions:

"A concurrent license is valid for an active session. A single technician can conduct more than one session simultaneously, requiring multiple concurrent licenses. Generally however, a single technician supports at most a single user at a time.

Most of our customers' technicians spend less than 25% of their time on active sessions. To account for variability, we recommend half the number of concurrent licenses as number of technicians, and round up."

What I take from this is that if I want two technicians to be working at the same time I would need two licenses of 300 $ each. And with this license we wouldn't be able to attend to multiple clients at the same time. Is this correct?

 

[AFurryReptile]

What I take from this is that if I want two technicians to be working at the same time I would need two licenses of 300 $ each. And with this license we wouldn't be able to attend to multiple clients at the same time. Is this correct?

That is correct. If you spend a lot of time in multiple remote sessions, I could see where this might become a problem.

 

[elvenwood548]

Yeah, has I've said we're a very small company, just 3 techs and because of that we usually provide support to multiple computers at the same time and we sometimes give formation to a few companies using Webex. So multiple sessions is something that we do need a lot. =/