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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. N-able N-central

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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

    N-able N-central

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AMSPs and IT professionals use N-able™ N-central® to monitor and manage devices and complex networks remotely. N-central provides visibility and efficiency as the user's needs scale. N-central can help users: 1. Proactively monitor everything on a customer network—not just servers and workstations—and troubleshoot. 2. Stay on top of threats with features like MFA, antivirus, integrated endpoint detection and response, data backup, disk encryption, email protection,…N/A
    Pricing
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceN-able N-central
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceN-able N-central
    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 ApplianceN-able N-central
    Considered Both Products
    Quest Software
    No answer on this topic
    N-able
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    80%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    73%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    79%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    80%
    Happy with the feature set
    4 Answers
    80%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    60%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    77%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    Features
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceN-able N-central
    IT Asset Management
    Comparison of IT Asset Management features of KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and N-able N-central
    Feature
    KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
    8.6
    12 Ratings
    11% above category average
    N-able N-central
    -
    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 ApplianceN-able N-central
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Avast CloudCare
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    KACE Asset Management Appliance
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Action1
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Lansweeper
    Score8.7 out of 10
    ManageEngine Endpoint Central
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceN-able N-central
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (12 ratings)
    8.7
    (25 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    8.6
    (3 ratings)
    7.3
    (7 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.5
    (4 ratings)
    1.0
    (8 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    KACE Systems Management ApplianceN-able N-central
    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
    N-able
    N-Able is perfect for an MSP environment. It gives all the standard functionality an IT professional needs out of the box and can be configured to show almost anything required. For example, we have configured a dashboard to show when our backups need attention for each customer. This is achieved by running a small script on repeat via N-Central everyday/evening, and the result gives us information on the dashboard to help us identify exactly what is working and what needs looking into.
    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
    N-able
    • Remote tasks - entry-level techs can run basic tasks without physically touching a piece of equipment.
    • Remote support - remote controlling user devices is easy and saves a lot of time with having to initiate a remote session.
    • Management of devices, particularly patch management and anti-virus management - you can automatically approve and deploy patches and schedule automatic AV scans.
    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
    N-able
    • Customer support just points to online guides and I feel they aren't helpful.
    • During the trial they turn on a lot of features. In my experience, if you play around with the features, they charge you for them. Keep this in mind if you move forward with N-Able - they will charge for "trialed" services.
    • In my experience, some services that you're being charged for can't be disabled or monitored by you or your team. You only see them on the monthly invoice.
    • In my opinion, the "Scripting Automation" doesn't provide value. You're either going to be writing your own batch or Powershell to make scripting work.
    • In my opinion, monitoring software deployments is painful.
    • The default monitoring template can't be duplicated, edited, or referenced. You'll find that the default monitors in an unusual way and will throw needless recurring alerts into your ticketing system. To avoid this, you need to create a template from scratch which takes many hours to set up.
    • In my opinion, they're more concerned about a quick buck than customer service. "Buyer beware" company.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    N-able
    Overall we have liked our solar winds experience, however, as our company has grown to support larger enterprises, this product does not have the functionality that our teams need in order to fully support them. The lack of granularity with backups and lack of ability to support nutanix environments is slowly drawing us into the use of other tools.
    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
    N-able
    The user interface is fairly straight forward, with logic groupings for objects. I did not deploy this software, but am one of the daily administrators. Once you get the correct agent package (Which can be a challenge) the integration into AD is not bad. The UI could be more customized, but that may have been a design choice.
    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
    N-able
    Every time we have reached out to SolarWinds they are quick to respond, even offering support chat 24/7. Their support team is great and works with you to find solutions to issues. They have taken items we had issues with before and used those to create updates so that the issue is handled better in the future.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    N-able
    Make sure if you your using a vm you follow the instructions for provisioning to the letter or it will be starting from square one
    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
    N-able
    Our version of SolarWinds was old and running on old hardware, but it was way easier to setup and do things with. It did not do everything N-able does such as patch management, or at least we didn't have a module to do so if one existed. However it definitely seemed easier to use and possibly more stable.
    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
    N-able
    • We have lost hundreds of hours on the phone/emailing support with no resolution for any of our issues
    • We had to move all of our services away which was very painful
    • Staff satisfaction was low having to deal with this company
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    N-able N-central Screenshots

    Screenshot of N-able N-central DashboardScreenshot of Remote desktop access with Take Control