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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. Microsoft System Center

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    KACE Systems Management Appliance

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AQuest 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

    Microsoft System Center

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft System Center is an enterprise-grade IT Operations Management (ITOM) suite designed for the centralized administration of data center infrastructure, virtualized environments, and hybrid cloud workloads. The platform provides unified management across heterogeneous environments, including support for Windows Server, Linux, and Azure Stack HCI. System Center is Microsoft's ITOM stack for organizations that maintain a significant on-premise footprint, vs the company's Azure-based…

    $1,323

    per month

    Pricing
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceMicrosoft System Center
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Standard Edition
    $1323
    Datacenter Edition
    $3607
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceMicrosoft System Center
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceMicrosoft System Center
    Considered Both Products
    Quest Software
    Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
    KACE has been a little bit easier to use and cheaper than when we were looking at Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). We have had much success with KACE as it has extra services such as the license manager and helpdesk ticketing system. Great value for the …
    Incentivized
    Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
    Ease of use and inventory management
    Incentivized
    Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
    Compared to more robust tools like SCCM, KACE delivers 90% of the value for a fraction of the cost. Not only is the initial upfront investment less it requires significantly less care and feeding to ensure you get what you need.
    Incentivized
    Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
    By far it easier to deploy and manage. It makes the process of deployment, software, and patching much easier, and it's an all-in-one solution that is easy to manage and train helpdesk on.
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    80%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    91%
    Would buy again
    31 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    33 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    80%
    Happy with the feature set
    4 Answers
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    31 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    95%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    21 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    28 Answers
    Features
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceMicrosoft System Center
    IT Asset Management
    Comparison of IT Asset Management features of KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and Microsoft System Center
    Feature
    KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
    8.6
    12 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Microsoft System Center
    -
    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 ApplianceMicrosoft System Center
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    KACE Asset Management Appliance
    Score8.9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Lansweeper
    Score8.7 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceMicrosoft System Center
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (12 ratings)
    9.3
    (58 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.6
    (3 ratings)
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.5
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (14 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceMicrosoft System Center
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Quest Software
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    For companies with more than 10 Windows devices and needing to standardize the OS, AV, access, share resources, and install software. SCCM is the way to go. This software is unnecessary if the business is all remote users and not in an office-type setting. There are cloud offerings or none to accomplish what a business needs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Quest Software
    • 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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Allows the grouping of devices by user.
    • Allows controlling updates being deployed to user devices.
    • Allows for the repurposing of machines by being able to load new or updated software on machines that already are in the system.
    • Allows us the ability to wipe a machine clean and restore it back to the configuration that was assigned the machine.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Quest Software
    • 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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The product could improve in the area of having better mechanisms in place with how the SCEP client is deployed/installed from the server on the management side. We have run into this firsthand with the client not installing on an endpoint, and then having to take the time to investigate why it was not installing.
    • A second improvement that can be made is to keep trying to improve the products detection rate for finding malware/viruses. The case can be made that there are some products out there that do a better job at this and have a higher detection rate.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Microsoft System Center Operations Manager is tightly integrated to Microsoft Windows servers os monitoring with great product support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Quest Software
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    It is not user-friendly for the most part. With IT infrastructure, sometimes it cannot handle excess requests. Every few months, you will need an upgrade in terms of server resources to keep up with incoming alerts and requests. This does not happen all of the time, but it does happen when there are too many requests.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Quest Software
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    There is a fair amount of documentation out there to help you when you have questions or run into issues with this product as well as tutorials on some of the more common tasks. Between the documentation and the overall ease of use we haven't had to deal with direct Microsoft support for this product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Easy to install with intuitive interactive interface during the installation process a and integration to MS SQL was smooth
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Quest Software
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We previously used a mix of FOG and Clonezilla to image machines. The biggest issues with these products is that changing one piece of the image required you to rebuild the entire image itself. These pieces of software also did not allow you to manage applications and Windows Updates, causing IT to have to constantly touch machines after they were imaged and update or manage them with a much more hands on approach.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Quest Software
    • 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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • It has allowed the enterprise to standardize on a single platform for monitoring.
    • Easier troubleshooting of issues with Microsoft platforms.
    • Greater visibility of issues across platforms when applications are hosted in a mixed environment.
    • Additional costs for monitoring systems that are not directly supported with additional packs (iSeries, Linux on Power).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots