Action1 vs NinjaOne: free patching against a full RMM

Choose Action1 if patching is the job you need done and your estate fits inside its free endpoint allowance; choose NinjaOne if you need patching plus monitoring, alerting, scripting and remote support in one console. The Action1 vs NinjaOne decision is really a question of scope: one is a patch management product that grew some extras, the other is a full RMM that includes patching. Here is how they differ on the four things that matter, and how to tell which side of the line you sit on.

Two products answering different questions

Comparing these two head to head is slightly unfair, because they were built for different jobs. Action1 started as cloud patch management and its centre of gravity is still there: find what is missing on Windows machines and third-party applications, approve it, deploy it, report on it. Its free tier is a genuine product, not a crippled demo, which is why internal IT teams and small MSPs keep finding it.

NinjaOne is a remote monitoring and management platform. Patching is one module among many: device monitoring, alert policies, scripting, software deployment, remote access, and optional extras such as backup and documentation. It is sold as a paid product, quoted per endpoint.

So the honest framing is not which is better. It is whether patching alone covers your actual workload, whether the machines belong to clients or to your own company.

Patching scope: closer than the price gap suggests

On patching itself, the gap is narrower than you might expect.

• Operating system updates: both handle Windows updates with approval workflows, scheduling and reboot control. Both let you stage updates to a test group before the wider estate.
• Third-party applications: both maintain catalogues of common applications, browsers, PDF readers, runtimes and the like. Catalogue breadth changes often, so check the specific titles your users run rather than trusting a headline count.
• Reporting: both report compliance by device and update. If an auditor or a client asks which machines are missing which patches, either will answer.
• Vulnerability context: Action1 leans into vulnerability reporting tied to missing patches, which suits teams whose real brief is reducing exposure rather than running IT.

If patching is the only thing failing in your current setup, Action1 may simply fix it. Our guide to third-party patch management software covers what to test in any catalogue before you commit.

Remote access: built in either way, with different depth

Both products include remote access, so neither forces you into a separate subscription by default. The difference is in what surrounds the session. NinjaOne pairs remote control with background tools: file transfer, a remote shell, service and process management, and registry access without disturbing the user. That background toolkit is what makes an RMM fast in daily support, because most fixes do not need to take over anyone's screen.

Action1's remote access is useful for a patching-led team that occasionally needs to look at a machine. If your technicians spend most of the day on remote sessions, test both on your own heaviest workflows. We have written more on whether a separate remote access tool is still worth paying for.

Monitoring: where the two really part company

This is the dividing line. A patch tool tells you what is out of date. An RMM tells you what is going wrong right now: a disk filling, a service stopped, a backup job that failed overnight, a server that stopped responding.

NinjaOne is built around policies that watch devices continuously and raise alerts, with automated responses through scripts. Action1 offers inventory and some status visibility, but it is not designed to be the thing that wakes someone up when a server goes quiet.

Ask yourself one question: when something breaks, who finds out first, you or your users? If the answer is your users and that is acceptable, monitoring may be a luxury. If you are an MSP with service agreements, it is not. Finding out from a client's phone call is a monitoring strategy only in the sense that a smoke alarm is optional.

What happens past the free endpoint limit

Action1's free tier is capped by endpoint count. The allowance has been generous enough to cover a small office or a modest internal estate, but it is a cap, and the published figure has changed over time, so check Action1's own pricing page on the day you decide rather than relying on any article, this one included.

Crossing the cap is where the economics change. Past it, you are paying for a patching product, and the comparison is no longer free against paid. It becomes one paid patch tool against one paid RMM, and the extra scope of an RMM starts to look cheap per pound spent.

Three practical consequences are worth planning for:

1. Growth arrives in steps. An MSP signing one mid-sized client can jump from comfortably inside the cap to well past it overnight. Model the client you hope to win, not the estate you have.
2. Licensing terms differ for MSPs. Free tiers are often aimed at a single organisation. If you manage several clients, read the terms for multi-tenant use before you build on it. Skip this and you may find the free tier was never available to you.
3. The second tool problem. Teams that outgrow free patching often keep it and add monitoring elsewhere, ending up with two agents, two consoles and two bills. That can be fine, but cost it honestly.

NinjaOne does not publish a public rate card, so you will be quoting per endpoint. Our tracked figures are on the NinjaOne pricing page, and the MSP software price index sets them alongside other vendors.

Which one fits your situation

Failure modes on each side

Choosing Action1 when you need an RMM fails slowly: patch compliance looks excellent while disks fill, services stop and backups quietly fail, and your team learns about them from tickets. Choosing NinjaOne when you only needed patching fails expensively: you pay for monitoring nobody configures and a console nobody fully uses.

A free tool you outgrow is not free. It is a deferred migration.

For a broader view of the patch-only route, see our piece on Action1 alternatives and when free patching is not enough.

Where this fits with Helios

Helios sits on the full platform side of this comparison, and goes further than NinjaOne by including the PSA as well: monitoring, Windows and third-party patching, remote access, a helpdesk with SLA clocks and billing in one product. It is priced by fleet size rather than per technician, with every feature on every plan, from £20 a month. Helio, the built-in AI technician, investigates alerts and applies fixes within rules your technicians set in plain English. It will not beat a free tier on price for a small estate that only needs patching, and if that is you, Action1 is a sensible choice. If you need the rest of the stack, you can compare Helios with NinjaOne directly.

Common questions about Action1 and NinjaOne

Can you run Action1 and NinjaOne together?

Running Action1 and NinjaOne together is technically possible, with Action1 handling patching and NinjaOne handling monitoring and remote support. The risk is conflicting patch policies, so disable patching in one of them. Two agents and two consoles also add overhead, so this pairing usually makes sense as a temporary step rather than a permanent design.

Is Action1 a full RMM?

Action1 is best described as a patch management platform with some RMM features, such as remote access and software deployment. Action1 lacks the depth of continuous monitoring, alert policies and automated remediation that a full RMM like NinjaOne provides. For teams that mainly need patching, that narrower scope is a strength rather than a gap.

Is Action1's free tier suitable for MSPs?

Action1's free tier can suit a very small MSP, but the endpoint cap is shared across everything you manage, and multi-client use may carry different terms. An MSP should read Action1's current licensing terms and model expected client growth before relying on the free tier, because crossing the cap changes the economics quickly.

Researched and written with Helio SEO, our AI writer for business blogs.