Automox vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Automox is well-suited for managing workstations but lacks flexibility for server environments.
It excels in scenarios where systems may not regularly connect to the corporate network but have internet access, ensuring devices can still check in and receive timely patches. This provides organizations with confidence in maintaining patch compliance across remote endpoints.
However, effective use of Automox requires staff who are proficient in PowerShell scripting. The platform has limited native support for third-party applications, often requiring custom worklets to manage software updates. It performs best in environments that primarily rely on widely used, off-the-shelf software.

Incentivized

I think it has added value for any organization. It reduced our Tech Support cost by: -Supporting users anywhere -Reducing users downtime as well keep them informed with the status of their tickets -Managing software and hardware actively -Processing automation -deploy mass software installs, patching or updates - Provide approved software's to users to install without IT help

Incentivized

• Shows applications installed on a specific asset
• Able to push policies and updates remotely , creating policies is easy.
• Keep track of compliant devices and when is the last time they have connected to the servers
• All the great information provided within one single device

Incentivized

• Inventory: KACE provides a ton of hardware and software inventory information that is easy to search, filter, and export. This is critical when we need to find the answers to questions about how many of such and such we have in our fleet.
• Patch Management: We were using WSUS before and it was altogether too cumbersome. KACE has given us the power, flexibility, and verification we need to feel comfortable our patches are up-to-date.
• Service Queue: We made KACE our help desk system and it does everything we need it to do. Great improvement over our old system.

Incentivized

• There exists an issue where you register some Amazon AMIs, which in even samples of 4 or 5, sometimes contain a duplicate identifier. Automox has provided a fix document, but it requires manual intervention and digging to discover this. I think they should identify a better way to assign UUIDs to machines, as sometimes registering too many VMs makes others "fall off"
• Allow for multiple global admins

Incentivized

• The KACE SMA needs a better way to handle different roles in the software so certain users can access or administrate certain parts of the software, but not the entire software installation.
• The KACE SMA could improve the ticketing process of projects. The aspects of the title and some information do not always flow down from the parent ticket to its child tickets.
• The KACE SMA could improve the UI of the software with the addition of different CSS color schemes.

Incentivized

It's been a great tool for me. It has helped me become more efficient in my job and securing our network and machine footprint.

Incentivized

It's so simple, well laid out and does not crowd me with too much information or info that I don't want to see. Very impressed with the product design. I wish all of my dashboards and portals were as basic. Sometimes, I don't need to see everything all at once, and only critical or high level data is necessary... then I can click to drill down as needed on the targeted endpoints.

Incentivized

Overall, the software is simple to understand and use. That said, most vendors have been slowly updating their user interfaces to HTML5 so that they have a clean updated look and feel. This is where KACE falls short in that the UI is great for a packaged software 10 years ago. This isn't a major limitation as the software is really meant primarily for technology users.

Incentivized

In my experience, they were responsive but the fixes were more like bandaids than a fix for the underlying problems which they admitted were on their end.

Incentivized

KACE does exactly what you need it to do, it maintains your computer environment. You can set patch schedules, inventory computers, setup software catalogs; basically everything you need to ensure the computers on your network are being actively managed. This is all with little need for constant configuration or updating the setup.

Incentivized

i was able to implement automox with the help from their support to push it out via our MDM of maas360

Incentivized

Previously, we used WSUS to manage our Windows Updates. WSUS was needed to be managed in-house and any issues would need to be fixed by us. This would cause us to lose hours needing to troubleshoot unexpected issues that arise and take away time from other tasks. Automox has regular maintenance they do on their end. They are also very responsive when responding to tickets and issues that arise. They have always been happy to work with us when we put in support requests for any issues that may come up or even for any questions we have.

Incentivized

We have selected this software because it rolls several different systems into one. We have a helpdesk system with this and an asset and inventory management system as well. We pay one price for the whole system instead of paying multiple companies different amounts that would have totaled more than we pay for the single system.

Incentivized

• Patches are now fully up to date and we have no longer been dinged for it from our pen testing partners.
• Reduced man hours spent on maintaining an update server and the hours spent looking at each machine to ensure it patched all software both windows and third party.
• Allows for us to provide a vendor with a means to connect to our systems without the use of a VPN.

Incentivized

• KACE has saved us from having to spend several days of employee hours in crafting DVDs and duplicating them (100+ DVDs)
• KACE has saved us on the postage required to send out those DVDs for every update (monthly) to all of our customers electronically

Incentivized