7MS #271: Patching Solutions Bake-Off - Part 1

Seems like every business I meet with needs some sort of help in the patching department. Maybe they've got the Microsoft OS side of the house under control, but the third-party stuff is lacking. Or vice-versa. Either way, the team I work with is excited to kick the tires of some popular patching solutions over the next few weeks, and we'll audibly barf up what we learn into this mini-series!

Solutions we'll poke around with include:

• Ninite
• ManageEngine
• PDQ Deploy

PS: None of these solutions are sponsoring 7MS. They're just popular patching solutions we're trying out to learn more about 'em and give you the pros/cons we discover!

In today's episode I dive a bit into...

Ninite Pros

• Cheap
• Does one thing, and does it well
• Been around for a long time
• Cloud-based - doesn't rely on LAN-side server

Cons

• Only cloud-based...no LAN-side option
• Requires an agent
• Agent's only purpose is patching - no extra bells/whistles like remote control or inventorying capability