Terramind Reviews

Powerful, All-Inclusive PC & Employee Monitoring Software

Our Teramind review shows that this is more than an employee monitoring and time tracking software — it’s a powerful tool designed to accommodate industries where the protection of information from unauthorized access and disruption is critical. Many of the software’s features, such as user behavior analytics, insider threat detection, forensics, and data loss prevention, might just make it the ultimate employee surveillance platform. 

Teramind Features Breakdown

The mastermind of this solution is the Teramind Agent which is classified as a spyware module present as “hidden” or “revealed” on every monitored computer, depending on the admin’s preference. Once the module is installed, all the tracking features become available. Also, data generated by the Agent can have multiple locations. 

To avoid being classified as malware, Teramind has registered the spyware’s code with major antivirus vendors. Teramind reviews further point to the Monitoring Tab as the place where users can find a list of reports along with all the data about their staff’s actions. 

Live View, Screenshots, and Optical Character Recognition

The Teramind employee monitoring software is powered by real-time streaming of user activity, meaning admins get to record everything and search and retrieve history logs. But who has time to watch endless hours of work, right? Thankfully, the snapshots taken every 10 minutes, as Teramind customer reviews observe, offer a simplified version of the live view feature. This saves time and still provides admins with a 10-minute screenshot-compilation video as part of an employee’s profile while the live video recordings are kept for more in-depth analysis if and when needed.  

Optical character recognition (OCR) as the tool of the data loss prevention (DLP) strategy is what differentiates Teramind from other employee monitoring software. This is a high-end security feature that recognizes on-screen text and lets you set up keyword alerts in multiple languages and alphabets (including Cyrillic and Hebrew). Based on the tests we ran for our Teramind review, we can confirm that this particular feature would be an ideal fit for organizations looking for air-tight security and all-round control.

App and URL Monitoring

Teramind not only enables archiving of all the URLs employees open but also records the duration of their visits, including app or webpage title. Compared to what the Teramind competitors offer, this software steps up the game — it records a video segment of what users are accessing which administrators can watch just by clicking the video icon.

A simple Teramind vs ActivTrak comparison meanwhile reveals that both platforms are similar with admins getting alerts when staff spends too much of their time unproductively. Although some Teramind reviews condemn these alerts, at the end of the day, businesses find them helpful because admins get to block unproductive activity.

Instant Messaging, Social Media, and Email Monitoring

One of the leading causes of low productivity levels is employees chatting with friends. Chats are also considered risky as employees might get tricked into sharing confidential information. Teramind’s solution is more than simple monitoring. The platform can also block chats, report to and alert admins about any conversation across Facebook, Skype, Google Hangouts, WhatsApp, and Slack.

Teramind customer reviews further indicate that the software can capture the content of the messages, date and time of the act included, and persons involved. For this particular feature, our Teramind vs Hubstaff comparison shows that while the latter also has screenshots, they are unlikely to be as efficient in catching an employee in the act. 

While having access to employees’ incoming and outgoing emails might sound a bit extreme to some, that is not the case if you’re in the finance or legal industry where information protection is a top priority. As opposed to standard email encryption software, Teramind acts proactively by getting staff who share sensitive information locked out of their accounts via the remote desktop control tool. 

Teramind reviews further confirm that this feature helps admins build a clear image of how employees communicate, identify poor working relations or communication issues, and most importantly, see if they act accordingly when vital emails are received. This is also how businesses secure their staff’s compliance with company standards and procedures which is an option very few Teramind alternatives offer. 

File Transfers and Printed Document Tracking

From document creation, to access to sensitive data to file transfer and deletion, the Teramind employee monitoring software can track it all, including uploads to file storage and sync services such as Dropbox or Google Drive. Conveniently enough, all file-related activities are time-stamped and video recorded. 

However, we did come across a Teramind user review stating this feature does not do as well on Mac as it does on Windows, though the vendor seems to have launched a beta version to improve usability. In terms of removable device alerts, our Teramind vs ActivTrak comparison concludes the two are almost on par.

We also tested the printed document tracking feature that allows admins to see every user-initiated printer request and to have a record of scanned copies of all printed documents. The interesting thing is that printing a large document is embedded in the default rules set up in the Teramind Risk dashboard which once again shows how much emphasis the vendor places on automation.

On the same note, our Teramind vs Veriato 360 evaluation shows that although both platforms strive for this, Teramind’s automated policy and alert triggers are simply more advanced. 

Keystroke Logger

There isn’t a single Teramind review that does not highlight the immense benefit of the keystroke logger which records and stores everything a user types. It further integrates seamlessly with other Teramind features. Unlike Teramind competitors that mainly focus on time tracking, this software not just tracks but also captures, records, and logs all keyboard activity per employee while they’re on the clock. 

If you’re an employee reading this, we hear you, recording all that is typed during working hours sounds a bit extreme, if not downright creepy. But, if you are working with sensitive data or huge investments, it’s perfectly reasonable.

Teramind reviews meanwhile note that although this feature might appear legally questionable, settings allow keystroke recording to be stopped when a user checks their personal bank account to avoid privacy invasion from becoming an issue.

In addition to the keystroke logger, Teramind also has the microphone and headphone recording feature which companies such as call centers and other related industries find convenient. 

Employee Productivity Analysis & User and Entity Behaviour Analytics (UEBA)

Based on the data gathered by Teramind’s key monitoring features, the software prepares rich reports analyzing an employee’s productivity level and information on how to increase their workplace effectiveness. Numerous Teramind reviews commend the creators for this feature because based on these customizable reports they can evaluate whether and to what extent their employees engage in unproductive and inefficient practices. 

Aside from the productivity reports, other popular Teramind features are the user and entity behavior analytics capabilities that notify the client if the software identifies anomalous behavior. This goes for both employees and machines which makes the ROI for organizations almost instant as they are able to control the most uncertain resource in their organization - the human.

Teramind Integrations

The Teramind website states the software supports integration with most of the commonly used management tools like JIRA, Trello, Basecamp, Redmine, etc. Teramind reviews meanwhile observe that this product integrates with a solid 5% of the most popular apps. 

Our testing concludes the Teramind built-in system successfully integrates with many security information and event management-SIEM solutions, log analytics, as well as project management tools.

We did come across some user reviews referring to minor hiccups with deployment (employees logging from different computers were considered “new employees”) but the vendor states they have resolved this issue with the Active Directory Teramind integration.

Teramind Deployment & Interface

This activity monitoring suite is easy and simple to set up. The research we did for this Teramind review shows that their developers have done an excellent job of using screen space wisely. Our deployment experience was smooth; we got the verification email that took us to the setup page upon which we received a second email with instructions and videos for installing the agent.

We found the Teramind demo dashboard extremely useful in this undertaking. The upside of Teramind’s interface is that it has no problem with long employee lists or presenting piles of extra data that admins can drill down through.

We also came across a Teramind user review describing the interface as intuitive and easy to navigate without any requirement for any special training. But there are some reviews reporting compatibility issues (it only works on Mac and Windows) and manual settings that make the Teramind Agent installation a major hassle. 

Teramind Pricing Breakdown

Teramind has three pricing plans with cloud and on-premise versions which can accommodate both SME and enterprises. The vendor offers two months free of charge for customers who will opt for the annual billing and a 14-day free trial for all who wish to test it first. Our Teramind review also uncovered that the vendor offers scaled pricing where users are under the required minimum and volume discounts for the cloud editions.

With the Teramind Starter plan, customers get features like screen recording, live view, URL and app tracking with limited access to user behavior analytics, as well as policy management tools. The Starter cloud service requires at least five users and costs $60/month for those interested in the annual plan. The Teramind cost for the on-premise Starter plan requiring a minimum of 10 endpoints costs $60/month with an option to add terminal servers for $180 each.

Companies interested in the Teramind User Activity Monitoring plan get all the features from the Starter plan plus the email and file transfer monitoring, keylogging, and OCR, as well as the printed document tracking feature. The UAM cloud-based plan starts at $125/month for a minimum of five users. The vendor requests at least 10 endpoints for the on-premise UAM plan, which comes in at $125/month with an added cost per server of $375. 

The Teramind Data Loss Protection plan has all the above-mentioned features but is powered up by the DLP suite tools which are a guarantee that your company’s sensitive data is safeguarded at all times. The cloud DLP plan comes in at $150/month for a minimum of five users, while the on-premise DLP version starts at $150/month for 10 tracking endpoints (adding an extra server costs $450). And finally, in response to many Teramind customer reviews and related queries, the vendor informs that the DLP edition complies with relevant data protection regulations. 

Teramind Support & Customer Service

When it comes to support materials, the list of Teramind competitors that offer such an extensive fund of resources is very small. On the software’s website, under the Resource Tab, users can find practically everything; from how-to tutorials to help center, product videos, and blog, to deployment and user guides. There is even a white paper representing best practices and approaches to software surveillance to provide users with a better understanding of what Teramind stands for. 

Our Teramind review further reveals users can reach the support team via email, phone, or chat by clicking the 24/7 chat support button. When a user buys any of the three plans, the support team becomes instantly available to offer implementation assistance. For cloud users, the Teramind customer service is exclusively available via ticket. Our overall impression is that the support offered by the vendor is stellar, although we did find one Teramind user review referring to their support team as slow and lacking. 

Bottom Line

Teramind is an incredibly effective product ranked by many as the number one employee and PC monitoring tool. Omnipotent as it may be, it is not without its faults; one of it being that it’s designed to work on Mac and Windows only. And although it performs perfectly for desktops and servers, it has no option for mobile employee monitoring. There is also the issue of the potential legal traps companies might fall into, or at least these are the major concerns expressed in the Teramind reviews we combed through. So, the question employers should be asking is whether the data security their company needs justifies the adoption of a “highly trained watchdog”.