Comparison charts are written by whoever wins them, so this is not one. It is the ten questions that actually separate the products in this category, the answer you usually get, our answer — and a plain list of when you should pick someone else. Bring the questions to every vendor on your shortlist and write their answers down in their own words.
The large platforms in this category were assembled from acquisitions — an RMM from one company, a service desk from another, documentation from a third — and joined afterwards, mostly at the login page. Guardian Plus was built as one system: one identity and permission model, records linked and read live, one audit trail, one release train. The table is what that changes in practice.
Recurring agreement billing is the centre of your month-end. Time against tickets becomes invoices at the contract rate and pushes to QuickBooks Online, but monthly agreement invoicing is roadmap. Weigh it heavily.
You are migrating a large documentation estate. There is no bulk documentation importer yet; nobody re-keys thousands of articles by hand, so this shapes the timeline.
You want one module beside another vendor’s. The modules run on one platform — that is what makes linked records possible — so you cannot run Guardian RMM next to someone else’s PSA.
You need a SOC 2 report on the vendor. We are not SOC 2 certified. There is a workflow that collects SOC 2 control evidence from your own estate; that is a tool for your audit, not a certification of ours.
The seams are costing you. Device names copied into tickets, passwords looked up to type elsewhere, a sync nobody trusts — the Stack Seams Score puts a number on it in two minutes.
You bought automation and never switched it on. Because nobody would sign off on a toggle. Approval modes and a floor are the difference.
Your network does not allow much. Segmented, regulated, questionnaire-driven: outbound-only, single-tenant, three postures, a written threat model on request.
You run Nagios. Plugins and NagiosQL import mean no rip-and-replace of the checks you trust.
Each one is answered in full — including our own answer where it is a no — in the guide and on the Why Guardian page.
What stops the AI doing something destructive? Which AI vendor gets my data? Is the device list live or synced? Read the guide
Tenancy, the three postures, encryption honestly, the audit trail, what we do not do. The security page
Two units, three service levels, the arithmetic — and no price card until the number is yours. Pricing
Thirty minutes, your workflow through one system, the honest limits at minute twenty. No slides unless you ask.
Reviewed September 2026. Every statement about Guardian Plus on this page also appears on the product pages; statements about the category describe the common pattern, not any named vendor.