Picture a two-person IT team running four RD Session Hosts for about 150 users, plus a file server and a couple of line-of-business app servers. Their daily chores fall into two groups. One is session work: who is on which host, which disconnected sessions are holding profiles, and which user needs a message before a reboot. The other is server work: services, event logs, updates, a stuck process, a certificate about to expire. LizardSystems Terminal Services Manager is built for the first group. Microsoft’s Windows Admin Center is built for the second. Admins often compare them because both can end processes and both touch Remote Desktop, but they cover different jobs.
Use only on systems you administer and with your organisation’s authorization. Session tools exist to keep hosts healthy, not to watch people.
At a glance
| Terminal Services Manager | Windows Admin Center | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | LizardSystems | Microsoft |
| What it is | Windows desktop console for RDS/RDP sessions | Browser-based server management gateway |
| Cost (at time of writing) | Free for personal, non-commercial use; Business US$299.95 per machine; Corporate US$5,999.95 unlimited | No extra cost |
| Current version | v26.04.3 (April 2026) | 2606 GA |
| Runs on | Windows 10/11, Server 2016–2025 | Gateway on Windows Server or Windows client; used from a browser |
| Multi-host session list | Yes, the core feature | No built-in session list |
| Log off / disconnect / reset / message | Yes, including idle thresholds | Not as an RDS session tool |
| Shadow a session | Yes (RDP, TCP 3389) | No; its Remote Desktop tool opens your own session |
| Processes | View and end, per session | View, start, end, dump, find handles |
| Services, events, registry, updates, storage | No | Yes |
| Transport to targets | SMB 445 + RPC 135/dynamic | WinRM / PowerShell remoting |
| Rights | Administrator on each host | Admin, or WAC role-based access on the target |
| Agent on targets | None | None beyond WinRM |
Prices change, so check each vendor’s current pricing page before you buy.
The real differences
Scope: a farm view versus a server view
Terminal Services Manager opens on a list of hosts and the sessions on each. You can sort by state or idle time across the whole farm, pick the disconnected ones older than a threshold, and log them off in one pass. LizardSystems also lists per-session network diagnostics (packet loss, retransmissions, skipped frames). These help when a user says “the terminal server is slow” and the fault turns out to be their Wi-Fi.
Windows Admin Center works one server at a time. Microsoft’s own overview says it “is designed for managing a single server or cluster”. Its toolset is broad: Events, Services, Processes, Registry, Firewall, Updates, Storage, Certificates, a PowerShell console and more. Its Remote Desktop tool, though, opens your interactive session to the server in the browser. It doesn’t list or manage other users’ sessions. For that, you’d go back to quser and logoff, or the RemoteDesktop PowerShell module.
Network paths and firewall work
The two tools reach hosts differently. Terminal Services Manager, per its FAQ, uses SMB (TCP 445) for session data and counters, and RPC (TCP 135 plus the dynamic range) for performance data and event logs. It needs TCP 3389 only for shadowing. On a domain, the built-in Remote Administration and WMI firewall rule groups usually cover this. Windows Admin Center talks to targets over WinRM, the same path as PowerShell remoting. So you publish one gateway to admins over HTTPS, and the gateway reaches servers over 5985/5986. If your security team has closed SMB and RPC between the admin VLAN and servers but allows WinRM, that alone may decide it.
Rights and delegation
Terminal Services Manager expects administrator rights on the machine it runs on and on every host it manages. Windows Admin Center can use role-based access control, with roles such as Administrators, Hyper-V Administrators and Readers. A junior tech can then look at event logs without being a full admin. For session work specifically, Microsoft still requires Full Control on the RDP listener to log off another user, so neither tool gets around that.
Audit trail
With Terminal Services Manager, your actions happen over the admin’s own network logon to each host, so they show up in that host’s Security log as your account. The vendor also lists its own tracking of logon, logoff, disconnect and reconnect events, and failed logons. Windows Admin Center actions are PowerShell remoting under your identity. The gateway also writes its own event log, which Microsoft documents under “Logging”. Both leave a trail you can tie to a named admin. Neither is a substitute for a real change-auditing system.
Cost and licensing
Windows Admin Center adds no licence cost on top of your Windows Server licensing. Terminal Services Manager is free only for personal, non-commercial use. Business use needs a paid per-machine licence, meaning per admin workstation where it’s installed, not per managed host. A small team with two consoles would need two Business licences. Larger teams may find the Corporate licence simpler.
Pick Terminal Services Manager if…
- Your recurring pain is sessions: stuck profiles, idle users holding licences, users who need a message before maintenance.
- You run several session hosts and want one sortable view of all of them.
- You need to shadow a user’s session on request to help them.
- SMB and RPC from your admin workstation to the hosts are already allowed.
Pick Windows Admin Center if…
- Your recurring work is general server upkeep: services, event logs, updates, certificates, storage, Hyper-V.
- You want a single gateway with role-based access instead of admin rights for everyone.
- Your network standard is WinRM-only between admin and server segments.
- Budget is zero, and you’re happy to handle session clean-up with
quser,logoffand Group Policy time limits.
Plenty of teams end up running both: WAC for the servers, and a session console on the one or two workstations that do RDS triage. That split costs very little and keeps each tool doing what it’s good at.
Where to go next
Read the full reviews of Terminal Services Manager and Windows Admin Center. For a command-line walk-through of the session chore, see who is logged on to your RDS hosts. Other options are listed in RDS & Session Management, and where to get covers how to obtain each tool from its vendor.