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IT comparisons and decision guides

Straight verdicts on the choices US companies actually face, from the team that installs both options.

Search any product pair and the top results were written by one of the two vendors or by an affiliate site paid per click. Neither has ever migrated a company off the losing option at two in the morning. We have. Everything below comes from running both sides in production for American clients, which is how you learn where a datasheet claim survives contact with a real tenant and where it does not. Choose the decision you are facing and you get an answer, including the ones where we make less money being honest.

Ask us to referee your decisionBrowse the decisions
Engineers comparing IT platform options for US businesses
  • 8Decisions mapped
  • Both sidesWe deploy each option
  • US lensLicensing and compliance here
  • No biasThe verdict is per company
How we compare

The method behind every verdict on this site.

A verdict is worth nothing unless you know how it was reached. Four rules govern every decision on this page. If one of them ever stops being true of an entry, the entry comes down rather than staying up looking respectable.

Hands-on before we write

Nothing here is assembled from datasheets. Each verdict comes out of live deployments, migrations in both directions, and years of support tickets. Feature grids never tell you the things that decide it: what the renewal conversation looks like, which data does not survive the export, and how fast a real human answers when production is down on a holiday weekend.

No vendor kickback bias

We hold exactly two vendor relationships, Microsoft CSP Partner and Apple Jamf Partner, and we say so wherever a comparison touches either. Recommending the wrong option costs us the client within a year, so the incentives genuinely point at getting it right. We have given verdicts that favored the option with the thinner margin.

Company size changes the answer, and we say where the line sits

A twelve-person agency and a two-hundred-seat firm under HIPAA are not solving the same problem, and a verdict that ignores that is useless to both. Every entry names what actually moves the decision: the licensing already sitting in your tenant, headcount, who you have in-house to run the thing, what your auditors require, and where the company is heading in three years. When one option simply wins for nearly everyone, we say that instead of manufacturing balance.

US specifics, not generic content

Licensing bundles, HIPAA and SOC 2 expectations, CMMC flow-down clauses, state privacy laws, and cyber insurance questionnaires all shape the answer for a US business. Every verdict is checked against what actually decides these choices in this market, not against a global feature list.

The decisions

Pick your decision, then read both sides.

Each decision below carries the one-line verdict up front, then links to the full page for each side of the choice. Read both, then bring the tie-breaker questions to a scoping call if the answer is still not obvious for your situation.

Managed IT vs IT support

If you want an outcome owned end to end, monitoring, maintenance, security, and helpdesk under one agreement, choose managed IT. If you have some internal capability and want responsive help under an SLA, IT support is enough.

  • Managed IT servicesThe fully outsourced model: your whole IT operation run for you.
  • IT supportOn-demand help under a tiered response SLA, remote-first.

Managed IT vs IT AMC

Managed IT owns the outcome and the roadmap. An annual maintenance contract covers a defined estate at a fixed scope. Companies that want IT off their desk entirely pick managed; companies that want contract-backed upkeep of known equipment pick the AMC.

  • Managed IT servicesStrategy, operations, and reporting under one agreement.
  • IT AMCPreventive maintenance and support for a defined estate.

Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace

Microsoft 365 wins for most US businesses on compliance tooling, desktop Office, and the depth of the security stack. Workspace wins for browser-native teams that live in shared docs and want less to administer. What your key hires already know is a bigger factor than either feature list.

  • Microsoft 365The platform most US offices run on, and the one with the deeper compliance stack.
  • Google WorkspaceThe browser-native alternative, strongest for collaborative, doc-centric teams.

Intune vs Jamf for Apple fleets

Intune if Macs are a minority inside a Microsoft estate you already license, one console, one conditional access story. Jamf once the Apple fleet is large enough to deserve a specialist platform, because Apple-native management still goes deeper. We hold partnerships on both sides of this one, so the verdict is genuinely per fleet.

  • Microsoft IntuneCross-platform device management inside the Microsoft licensing you may already own.
  • Jamf ProApple-native management for Mac and iOS fleets, zero-touch deployment included.

Entra ID P1 vs P2

P1 covers Conditional Access and most day-to-day identity security, and it is bundled into Business Premium. P2 earns its uplift once you need risk-based sign-in policies and privileged access governance, which usually means a compliance driver or an auditor asking. The Entra page covers both tiers.

  • Microsoft EntraIdentity, Conditional Access, and the P1 vs P2 decision in full.
  • Microsoft 365 licensingWhich bundle already includes the tier you are about to buy separately.

Windows 365 Cloud PC vs traditional laptops

Cloud PCs win for contractors, offshore teams, M&A onboarding, and anywhere the data must not live on the endpoint. Traditional, well-managed laptops still win for most full-time staff on cost and offline work. The crossover is about who the user is, not how big the company is.

  • Windows 365 Cloud PCThe per-user cloud desktop: where it fits and where it does not.
  • Microsoft IntuneWhat a properly managed physical fleet looks like, the other side of this decision.

One tenant or two after a merger

Consolidating into one Microsoft 365 tenant wins for most acquisitions: one identity, one security baseline, one bill. Staying on two tenants with cross-tenant collaboration is right when a divestiture is possible, when regulatory separation applies, or while deal integration is still unsettled.

  • Tenant-to-tenant migrationThe consolidation path: mailboxes, files, and identity moved into one tenant.
  • Cross-tenant sync and collaborationThe two-tenant path: working as one company across separate tenants.

Run the tenant yourself vs managed tenant

Self-managing is fine while the tenant is small and nothing is regulated. It stops being fine when security baselines, licensing, and auditing become someone's neglected side job. The honest crossover is earlier than most owners think, usually around the point an insurer or enterprise customer starts asking questions.

  • Microsoft 365 tenant managementThe managed model: baselines, licensing, and admin run for you.
  • Microsoft 365 administrationWhat competent day-to-day administration involves, whoever does it.
Why trust these verdicts

Four reasons this is not another affiliate comparison site.

We support whichever option you choose

None of this funnels toward a single product. We build and support both sides of every pair listed, so what we recommend has no bearing on what we can bill afterwards. Reading a verdict, picking the other option, and asking us to deploy it is an ordinary week here.

We name the loser cases, not just the winner

Each entry names the cases where the option we did not pick is the correct one, because those cases exist in every pair we have ever looked at. A comparison that concedes nothing is an advertisement wearing a table for a disguise.

We have migrated clients in both directions

For the platform pairs listed here we have run the migration in both directions for different clients. There is no faster education available, because migration is the moment the marketing meets the export file and one of them gives way.

Verdicts get updated when the products change

Bundles get reshuffled, tiers get renamed, and features migrate between plans on a schedule nobody outside the vendor understands. When one of those changes is large enough to flip a verdict, the entry gets rewritten. Leaving a stale conclusion up because it reads nicely is how comparison sites become useless.

Do it yourself

How to run your own comparison.

This is what we actually do when a client asks us to referee a decision. It generalizes to any pair, including ones we have never written about. Set aside an afternoon and work through it properly and you will end up better informed than a month of reading review sites.

Before you look at either product

  • State the problem in a single sentence before you look at any product
    If the sentence will not come out, you are shopping rather than solving, and there is a sales team on both sides delighted to help you keep shopping.
  • List what you already own and license
    The single most expensive mistake we find on takeover is a line item duplicating something already included in a Microsoft bundle the company has been paying for all along.
  • Name the constraints that cannot move
    A HIPAA obligation, CMMC language flowed down from a prime contractor, a control your carrier requires for renewal, a standard the parent company already set. Constraints knock options out far faster than features pick winners.

While you evaluate

  • Run both against your own data, never the vendor sandbox
    Behavior changes with your file sizes, your user count, and your network. A demo tenant is tuned to look good and proves nothing you can rely on.
  • Test the exit before you enter
    Ask both vendors, in writing, exactly how you would leave: what comes out, in which format, and with how much notice. How comfortably they answer tells you more about year three than any feature they demo.
  • Score the admin burden honestly
    A powerful product nobody has time to configure loses to a simple one that is set up correctly. Choose for the team you have, not the team you would hire in a better quarter.

Before you sign

  • Price the move itself, not just the destination
    A slightly better product that costs six weeks of professional services to reach is usually the wrong answer.
  • Check the compliance and insurance angle, not just features
    Confirm the option satisfies the frameworks and questionnaires your business actually answers to, in writing, before committing.
  • Decide the review date at purchase time
    Products move and so do you. Book the review while the reasoning is still fresh, and write down why you chose, because in eighteen months nobody will remember.
Coming next

The comparisons buyers ask us for next.

The following come up on scoping calls regularly but have no entry above yet, usually because one half of the pair has no page here. If one of them is the decision in front of you right now, ask on a call. You get the current working answer rather than waiting for us to write it up.

Sophos vs Fortinet

The perimeter firewall decision. Sophos for synchronized endpoint-and-firewall security from one console, Fortinet for raw throughput and larger multi-site networks. Neither product has a dedicated page here yet, so this one is a call.

Azure Virtual Desktop vs Windows 365

Both are Microsoft. Windows 365 gives you a fixed per-user price and almost no operational surface. Azure Virtual Desktop gives you pooled sessions and far more control at the cost of running it properly. The seat count where the second starts to pay off is lower than most people assume.

Jamf Now vs Jamf Pro

Jamf Now suits a small Mac fleet with modest requirements. Jamf Pro is the answer once you need real policy logic, smart groups, and automation. Before paying for either, check whether the Intune entitlement in your Microsoft licensing already covers what you need.

Teams Phone vs a hosted VoIP provider

The business phone decision, where what you already pay Microsoft shapes the answer as much as the feature lists do. Our IP telephony page covers the delivery side today.

Veeam vs Acronis

Both are strong products built on different beliefs. One starts from infrastructure and virtualization, the other bundles backup with endpoint security in a single console. What decides it is what you are protecting and whether you have anyone to operate it daily.

In-house IT vs MSP

Underneath every other choice here sits a staffing question: hire, outsource, or run the co-managed middle that fits more American mid-market companies than either pure option. The table gives the short version.

The decision under the decisions

In-house hire, break-fix, or managed IT.

Before any product choice comes the question of who runs IT at all. The honest comparison, without the sales gloss:
Coverage hours
In-house IT hireOffice hours, vacations off
Break-fixWhen you call
Managed IT24/7 under contract
Specialist depth
Networking, security, Microsoft 365, compliance. You cannot hire one person who is senior in all of them.
In-house IT hireOne generalist
Break-fixWhoever answers
Managed ITA bench of specialists
Preventive maintenance
In-house IT hireIf time allows
Break-fix
Managed IT
Security baseline owned
In-house IT hireBest effort
Break-fix
Managed IT
Compliance evidence produced
In-house IT hireRarely documented
Break-fix
Managed ITStanding deliverable
Cost shape
In-house IT hireFixed salary plus benefits
Break-fixUnpredictable spikes
Managed ITPredictable monthly fee
Risk on a resignation or sick week
In-house IT hireYou are uncovered
Break-fixNone, but no continuity either
Managed ITSame contracted service
Feature
In-house IT hire
Single generalist
Break-fix
Pay per incident
Managed IT
Contracted outcome
Coverage hours
Office hours, vacations offWhen you call24/7 under contract
Specialist depth
Networking, security, Microsoft 365, compliance. You cannot hire one person who is senior in all of them.
One generalistWhoever answersA bench of specialists
Preventive maintenance
If time allows
Security baseline owned
Best effort
Compliance evidence produced
Rarely documentedStanding deliverable
Cost shape
Fixed salary plus benefitsUnpredictable spikesPredictable monthly fee
Risk on a resignation or sick week
You are uncoveredNone, but no continuity eitherSame contracted service
Comparison FAQ

What buyers ask about these verdicts.

Structurally, not because we promise it. Both sides of every published decision are things we deploy, so the verdict does not change whether we get the project. The margin gap between two options in a pair is small; the cost of pushing the wrong one is losing the account at first renewal. That arithmetic points at accuracy far more reliably than good intentions do. We hold exactly two partnerships, Microsoft CSP and Apple Jamf, and both are disclosed wherever they are relevant. Where a comparison involves something we do not deliver at all, that is stated too.

Yes, and it comes up constantly. Often your circumstances are exactly the ones where the other answer wins. Just as often the decision was settled by something a published verdict cannot see: a standard set by the parent company, a contract with three years left, or a team that knows one product cold. Both sides of every pair here are things we run. The one thing we will not do is call a setup optimal when it is not. If your configuration is working against you, you will hear it once, plainly, and then we will support it properly regardless.

Then the honest result is a third option, which happens far more often than comparison pages like to admit. Sometimes it is a product outside the pair entirely. Sometimes it is the cheaper edition of one of the two. Quite often it is doing nothing, because the capability is already sitting inside a license you renew every year without reading. A scoping call settles it quickly: we look at what you run, work out what problem you are really solving, and tell you what we would put in ourselves. If the answer is something we do not sell, you still get the answer.

Because we would rather link you to two honest, detailed pages than publish a thin versus-page for the sake of having one. Each decision above carries its verdict in the description, and the linked pages carry the depth on each side. Dedicated comparison guides are being written in the same hands-on method, and as each one ships the decision above will link to it. If your decision needs more than the verdict line before then, the scoping call covers it in full.

Yes. The checklist above is our own method, and when real money is attached most companies would rather we ran it. That means inventorying what you already own, agreeing the criteria that will decide it, testing both options against your genuine workload wherever that is practical, and handing back a written recommendation with the reasoning exposed rather than summarized. The document is yours whether or not we do the build. It also answers the board member or the auditor who asks, two years later, why this option was chosen.

Almost never. A verdict on a web page is not worth an early termination fee. The usual play is to serve out the term while quietly preparing: fix what can be fixed in place, stop adding modules that deepen the lock-in, and schedule the migration to land on the renewal date. Reasonably often that preparation reveals the incumbent was fine all along and merely configured badly, which is a much cheaper discovery than a migration. The math changes only if the current setup is actively costing you money, leaving you exposed, or failing an audit. We will tell you which side of that line you are on.

Yes, and for regulated businesses compliance is usually the deciding factor rather than a footnote. A framework can settle a product choice outright: CMMC assessment scope shapes where data can live, HIPAA obligations shape logging and access control expectations, and cyber insurance questionnaires increasingly assume specific controls exist. When a compliance obligation applies to you, bring it to the scoping call first, because it can eliminate one side of a pair before any feature comparison starts.

When a product change is big enough to move the verdict, not on a fixed schedule. Tiers get renamed and features shuffle between plans constantly, and the overwhelming majority of that noise changes nothing. When something genuinely does, the entry gets rewritten. If you are reading one of these in the week of a major vendor announcement, ask us first and we will tell you whether the announcement actually moves the answer or just the marketing.

No, and that is a deliberate choice. Published figures rot fast, real pricing varies by agreement and bundle, and a number that fits a ten-seat company actively misleads a hundred-seat one. What the verdicts describe is the shape of the spend: whether it is per user or consumption-based, where the costs hide, and what the switch itself will take. For real numbers, ask, and we will quote both options against your actual headcount and what you already license.

Ask anyway. What is mapped here is simply what we are asked about most, and one-off comparisons are routine work, including narrow or industry-specific pairs. Where we have hands-on time with both products you get the same treatment as a published verdict, privately and against your own circumstances. Where we genuinely lack depth on one side, you will be told that up front instead of receiving an improvised opinion, and we can usually still help you structure the evaluation so you get to a sound answer yourselves.
Related pages

Where to go next.

Why GR IT Services

How we work, what we stand behind, and the questions worth asking any IT provider, including us.

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Switching IT provider

If the comparison you are really running is your current provider against a better one, start here.

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Stuck between two options?

Name the two options and describe your setup. We will call it straight.

A short call about what you run now, what is already licensed, and what this decision has to accomplish. You leave with a recommendation and the reasoning behind it, including the times the answer is the option that pays us less, or something outside the pair altogether.

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