NetworkManager is a powerful, open source and highly configurable network management application designed to help system administrators and users manage their networks and servers. It provides a unified framework for managing both local and remote network interfaces, as well as configuring network settings, routing, DNS, DHCP, and more. It also provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for making configuration changes. NetworkManager is capable of managing multiple networks simultaneously and can be used to ensure that multiple servers are configured correctly. It can also be used to monitor traffic and provide detailed reports on network usage. NetworkManager is highly customizable and can be tailored to fit any network infrastructure or security policy.
Wicd is ideal for those who switch networks often (tablets, laptops, etc.) It is an excellent interface for "lower level" tools that perform authentication, etc. ... command line and GUI interfaces and, from my memory, allows configuration of hotspots / hostapd ...