KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. Kandji

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
KACE Systems Management Appliance
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Quest now offers the KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) as an IT Asset tracking and management appliance (also available as a virtual deployment if hardware requirements are met). Beyond discovery, inventory tracking and license management, KACE emphasizes automating software upgrade distribution with minimal end-user disruption, featuring remote replication for multi-site upgrades and rollouts. KACE SMA may be bundled with KACE Cloud Mobile Device Management (MDM) to form a complete UEM…N/A
Kandji
Score 7.8 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Kandji is an Apple device management software solution for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS, from the company of the same name in San Diego.N/A
Pricing
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)Kandji
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
KACE Systems Management ApplianceKandji
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details—All plans billed annually.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)Kandji
Features
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)Kandji
IT Asset Management
Comparison of IT Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
8.6
12 Ratings
9% above category average
Kandji
-
Ratings
Software and hardware inventory tracking10.012 Ratings00 Ratings
License management9.011 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset lifecycle monitoring8.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract management6.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset relationship management10.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)Kandji
Small Businesses
Atera
Atera
Score 8.7 out of 10
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.3 out of 10
Cisco Meraki SM
Cisco Meraki SM
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.3 out of 10
Cisco Meraki SM
Cisco Meraki SM
Score 9.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)Kandji
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(12 ratings)
1.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(3 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.5
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)Kandji
Likelihood to Recommend
Quest
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
Read full review
Kandji
We switched to Kandji for SOC2 compliance and, specifically, to help prevent laptop password issues. However, the opposite happened. There were so many "password sync issues" and people getting locked out of their laptops altogether. We had to factory reset several devices because Kandji just couldn't fix what was going on. It was absolutely ridiculous in my opinion.
Read full review
Pros
Quest
  • 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.
Read full review
Kandji
  • Their pricing wasn't high per device count. However, they ultimately only add device licenses in bucket of FIFTY.
Read full review
Cons
Quest
  • 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.
Read full review
Kandji
  • Problem after problem after problem with employees getting locked out of their laptops, (which was the whole reason we switched to Kandji - to prevent that from happening), employees ultimately having to factory reset their laptops to get back in, pop-ups that never go away, and continuous password sync issues.
Read full review
Usability
Quest
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.
Read full review
Kandji
Switching from our old MDM to Kandji: "We'll set you right up with an integration specialist" and it'll be "so easy." Greatly incorrect. The change took months and was a disaster at best. So many things I had to figure out that they never mentioned, or I had to keep going back to them to get more information. "Oh, we forgot to mention that!" - said about a dozen times. Also, I had to go to our former MDM to ask them how to do it because "Kandji can only help on the Kandji side of things - not the other MDM side." Well yes, but then don't make it sound like you can and will do that part in the first place!
Read full review
Support Rating
Quest
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.
Read full review
Kandji
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Quest
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.
Read full review
Kandji
Both MDMs have issues with employee's laptop passwords and being able to reset those password. We switched to Kandji because laptop PWs were connected to Gmail PWs. However, there were continous "password sync" errors that it ended up being a huge headache for everyone
Read full review
Return on Investment
Quest
  • 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
Read full review
Kandji
  • They promised us we could add devices as needed. I even had that written in an email. However, they rescinded that promise and required us to add devices in buckets of 50. That means, since we had 55 users, we had to pay for 100 licenses.
  • Password issues were made much worse by using Kandji instead of our old MDM (Hexnode).
  • Overall, Kandji created major headaches with laptop instead of improving.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Kandji Screenshots

Screenshot of Zero-Touch DeploymentScreenshot of Automated patch managementScreenshot of One-Click Compliance TemplatesScreenshot of Streamlined User Interface