Group Policy Management Comparison Matrix

Product Feature Active Administrator 5.0 GPMC
OS Support
Windows versions supported for GPO management

Windows 2000
Windows 2003
Windows Server 2008

Windows 2000
Windows 2003
Windows Server 2008

Windows versions supported for RSoP

Windows 2000
Windows 2003
Windows Server 2008

Windows 2003
Windows Server 2008

MMC Snap-In  
Standalone Management Application
 
Group Policy Management
Provides GPO settings, Security Group Filters, Security Delegation, WMI Filter and Link information
Has Built-in Reporting
Reporting Formats RTF, PDF, HTML, XLS, TIF, RDF, Text HTML, XML
Differentiates Unlinked GPOs
Manage WMI Filters
Backup and Restore GPO Settings
View all backed up GPOs as a GPO History
Edit backed up GPOs within GPO History
View version changes of backed up GPOs
Report on Settings in backed up GPOs
Resultant Set of Policies
Group Policy Results (viewing current settings)
Group Policy Modeling (viewing "what-if" scenarios)
Modeling supports WMI Filtering
Modeling can report on GPO Deltas only
Modeling can report against Offline Repository
Reporting Formats RTF, PDF, HTML, XLS, TIF, RDF, Text HTML, XML
Offline GPO Repository
Utilizes Offline GPO Repository
Check Out/Check In Offline GPOs to Edit
Edit Offline GPOs
Reporting on Offline GPO Settings
Compare Offline to Live GPO Settings
Export Offline GPO to Live AD GPO
GPO Auditing
Centralized auditing of all Live GPO administration
Client Side Troubleshooting
Centralized enabling of GPO Logging to Event Log
Centralized filtered viewing of GPO-related client-side events
Additional Capabilities
AD Permissions Management
Active Template permissions with Self-Healing capabilities
Centralized auditing of and reporting on all AD administration
Object-Level Restores of AD Objects