Comparison
Lansweeper vs Mojo Helpdesk
Two tools districts shortlist for device tracking and IT operations, compared the way a buying committee actually reads them: what each is, what each does well, and what to check before signing. We build Chalk, a third option in this space — that context is worth knowing as you read, and it is why every claim below carries its basis.
Lansweeper
The strongest network discovery engine in this comparison — it will find every device on your wire, including the ones nobody told it about, and it will not know that any of them belongs to a seventh grader.
Where Lansweeper is strong
- Genuine network discovery, which almost nothing else in this category has: agentless scanning of Windows over WMI, Linux and macOS over SSH, and printers, switches, routers, firewalls and NAS over SNMP, so the inventory includes devices no one ever entered.
- A passive traffic sensor that discovers assets from network communications, catching devices that active scanning misses entirely — the closest thing to a real answer for shadow IT and unmanaged OT gear.
- An IT Agent for Windows, Linux and macOS endpoints that rarely touch the LAN, and Cloud Discovery across Azure, Intune, Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, AWS and GCP — with a reconciliation engine that merges the same device seen through several sources into one asset record instead of three.
- Vulnerability detection built on CPE correlation and VulnCheck, with CVSS severity and patch status against the software and OS actually in your inventory, alongside hardware and software lifecycle tracking for end-of-sale and end-of-support dates.
- Deployment packages in Lansweeper Classic — install software, run scripts and make remote changes on Windows machines from the same console that inventoried them.
- A full built-in help desk in Classic: tickets from the web console, email, API or import, dispatching rules, SLAs, teams, internal notes and a knowledge base.
What to check before you buy
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Lansweeper is two products with a documented feature gap between them — Lansweeper Platform in the cloud and Lansweeper Classic on-premises — and which capabilities you get depends on which one you deploy.
Basis: Vendor's own 'Comparing Lansweeper Platform and Lansweeper Classic' documentation page, which lists discovery targets and features per product.
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ChromeOS discovery is a Lansweeper Classic capability. In the newer Lansweeper Platform the vendor's comparison table marks Chrome OS as 'Planned (Cloud Discovery)'. For a district whose fleet is Chromebooks, that is the whole fleet sitting on the older product.
Basis: Vendor comparison table lists Chrome OS as supported in Classic scanning and Planned for Lansweeper Platform.
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Even in Classic, ChromeOS scanning is work you do yourself: your license must support Chrome OS scanning, and you build a Google Cloud project, enable the Admin SDK, create a service account and grant it scopes before a single Chromebook appears.
Basis: Vendor's 'Chrome OS scanning requirements' documentation page.
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The help desk is licensed per agent. Unlimited users can file tickets, but exactly one agent license is included, and every additional technician who answers tickets is a paid seat at $120 per year.
Basis: Vendor's 'Manage helpdesk agents' documentation plus the listed price in Lansweeper's own online store.
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That help desk belongs to Classic. The cloud Platform documentation covers no ticketing module of its own — service management appears as connectors to Jira Service Management, ConnectWise, Zendesk and Freshservice, meaning a second vendor.
Basis: Lansweeper's documentation index places every help-desk article under Classic, and lists ITSM tools as integrations under Platform.
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The asset meter has teeth: reaching your licensed asset limit can stop scanning of new and existing assets until you delete assets or upgrade.
Basis: Vendor's 'Manage your licensed asset limit' documentation page.
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No student, guardian or enrollment concepts, and no SIS or rostering connectors — the identity sources documented are Active Directory, Entra ID, Intune and Microsoft 365. Students arrive by CSV, if at all.
Basis: Absent from Lansweeper's documentation index, which covers directory and cloud identity sources only.
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Nothing models the 1:1 program itself: no device agreement, no parent signature, no fee for a cracked screen, no family balance, and no funding-source dimension for ESSER, Title or E-Rate reporting.
Basis: Absent from the vendor's documented feature set, which is discovery, inventory, risk and deployment.
Mojo Helpdesk
A simple, inexpensive per-agent help desk with a real K-12 following, a light asset module with check-in/check-out, and a deliberate pitch that you can go live in days because it does not depend on your SIS.
Where Mojo Helpdesk is strong
- The lowest published per-agent entry price on most K-12 help-desk shortlists, with the numbers on the page rather than behind a demo request.
- An explicit 25% education and non-profit discount, published as a percentage you can actually compute against.
- A genuine asset module included with the help desk rather than sold as a separate product: laptops, tablets, servers, and software licenses, with repairs and incidents logged against each item.
- Check-in and check-out with return due dates and automated reminders, plus a live view of what is out and what is overdue — closer to a circulation desk than most generic ticketing tools get.
- Warranty and license contract expiry tracking with renewal reminders ahead of the date.
- Broad sign-in support for districts: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, ClassLink, Active Directory, LDAP, and other SAML providers, with staff and department import from Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
What to check before you buy
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Hosted SaaS only — no self-hosted or on-premises edition, so the software cannot be run on district infrastructure or inspected independently.
Basis: Only cloud plans appear on the vendor's pricing page; no self-host or source distribution is published.
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Per-agent pricing with hard agent caps per plan. A district with a handful of technicians and tens of thousands of devices pays on the axis it has least of, and growing past 25 agents forces a tier change.
Basis: Vendor pricing page states $14/$24/$34 per agent per month with 25-agent and 100-agent maximums on the lower two plans.
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The education discount is narrower than it first reads: 25% applies only to Business and Enterprise yearly subscriptions, not to the entry Team plan, and the vendor states discounts do not stack.
Basis: Stated in those terms on Mojo Helpdesk's pricing page.
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No SIS or rostering connector. Mojo markets 'no SIS dependency' as a launch advantage, which is honest positioning but means students, enrollments, and mid-year transfers are not sourced from the system of record.
Basis: Mojo's education page names Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, ClassLink, AD, LDAP, and SAML for sign-in and user import, and no SIS vendor connector; the K-12 pages present rapid launch without SIS as a benefit.
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The asset module is a light inventory with custody attached, not a 1:1 program: no parent-signed device agreement, no loaner pool as a managed concept, no lost or stolen lifecycle with police report, and no attestation campaign.
Basis: Absent from Mojo's published asset management page, which covers tracking, check-out with due dates, and renewal reminders.
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No MDM ingest and no documented barcode or QR scanning. Device records are maintained inside Mojo rather than reconciled against Google Admin, Intune, or Jamf, and an August rollout or spring audit measured in thousands of devices has to be typed rather than scanned.
Basis: No Google Admin, Intune, or Jamf device-sync connector is published on the vendor site, and no scanning capability appears on the asset management page.
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No student fee assessment, no family balances, no purchase orders, no parts stock consumed by repairs, and no funding-source tracking for ESSER, Title, or E-Rate money.
Basis: None of these concepts appear in Mojo's published product documentation.
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It consumes SSO but is not an identity provider — it signs users in from Google, Microsoft, ClassLink, or a SAML source rather than issuing SAML or OIDC to your other vendors.
Basis: SSO is described throughout as sign-in into Mojo from a district's existing provider.
The third option: Chalk
If you are weighing Lansweeper against Mojo Helpdesk, Chalk belongs on the same shortlist. It is the open-source K-12 IT stack: device inventory that fills itself in from Google Admin, Intune, and Jamf against a roster synced from your SIS, a 1:1 circulation desk with agreements and fees, repairs with parts and costs, a help desk that already knows who is asking, and a built-in SAML/OIDC identity provider.
- Self-host it free forever under AGPL-3.0 — the entire feature set, one binary, your infrastructure — or use the hosted version, priced by fleet size with no per-seat or per-student fees and the price ladder published.
- Built only for K-12: students, buildings, custody, funding sources, and ChromeOS auto-update expiration are native concepts, not custom fields.
- Writes back to Google Admin as a reviewed diff — every OU move, disable, and deprovision previewed before it executes — and serves a OneRoster 1.1 API so other district systems can pull the roster from Chalk.
- Fees are assessed and tracked without touching payment cards, keeping the asset system out of your PCI scope.
See all three on your own roster.
Chalk installs to a populated inventory in about 30 minutes. Self-host free under AGPL-3.0, or let us run it — priced by fleet size, never per seat.