We performed a comparison between Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager and Quest KACE Systems Management based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Because users of Microsoft Endpoint do not mention a clear and proven ROI, Quest KACE Systems Management comes out on top in this comparison.
"One of the main features of the solution is it allows the management of many devices in different ways."
"The tool's most valuable feature is Autopilot."
"There are so many features, but Windows Autopilot is one of the features that are very valuable for most customers."
"The key benefit of Intune is its integration with the Microsoft ecosystem."
"It helps implement conditional access policies to restrict mobile users from accessing potentially dangerous emails."
"I would say the biggest benefit is the single-pane view. There's no jumping around multiple UI's to do your overall management."
"Its protection policies are most valuable. It protects mobile devices as well as individual apps. It is pretty scalable, and its documentation is also pretty good. It is also pretty straightforward to deploy."
"I like that we can implement conditional access."
"The initial setup is straightforward and not too complicated."
"The most valuable features are Remote Connect, SUP, Cloud functionality, Report, Query, and third-party patching."
"The solution is stable."
"Valuable features include configurations enforcement, compliance data gathering, and deployment of a standardized OS."
"The solution has a very good set of features."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward."
"Provides great insight into the functionalities of the data scope."
"One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined process has significantly improved our software distribution workflows."
"KACE’s knowledge-based articles are very good."
"The solution provides us a single pane of glass with everything that we need for endpoint management of all devices. It definitely has made our endpoint management process much easier."
"We're able to deploy software and push out fixes to endpoints faster than ever."
"With KACE, we were able to have a simplification of the software deployment management with more granularity and flexibility."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to have an overview of all devices that are accessing our environment."
"Asset management is most valuable. It is essential for all customers. The other features are also useful, but asset management is most important."
"The ability to build scripts right on the deployment center itself, as well as building groups that take those scripts/task chains has been absolutely invaluable and one of the most important parts of my whole environment."
"I like how when you click on the device, it shows you everything that has changed as well as the software versioning. I am really enjoying the inventory aspect of it."
"The technical support could be improved."
"Reporting and troubleshooting for the application deployment could be better. It's very difficult to understand."
"It would be great to see on-premises mailboxes and for the solution to have geofencing capabilities."
"The installation could be improved to be simplified."
"Microsoft Intune could improve by being more user-friendly and having it geared toward device management. The graphic interface is not very good."
"I'd suggest adding more features for macOS in Intune. There should be more functionality for managing macOS. There should be a better capability for pushing things down on macOS. Currently, Intune is not capable of managing macOS at the same level as Windows."
"We need the capabilities of the Cloud Management Gateway (CMG) to be enhanced through Intune instead of Azure."
"I know that their AI pieces are at the infancy stage, but allowing users to do more tagging for information would be an interesting thing because Intune also directly integrates with Azure. Because a lot of the devices are hosted with that, you also get a lot of tagging of user data and other things like that."
"SCCM should strive to enhance the accuracy of its reporting functions in order to avoid any issues with incorrect or inaccurate data."
"The downside of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is it's an on-premise-based solution. With the pandemic coming on board the need to support users across the globe has increased. For a while, we would use the in-built Microsoft Teams screen sharing feature but the disadvantage of that is you cannot perform privileged access. Microsoft does not give you access to that. That's where you need cloud-based tools, such as BeyondTrust or Freshservice."
"The tool's deployment can be cumbersome."
"They should improve their anti-malware policies like the SCEP policies. For instance, you can't have different policies for different servers, there is only one policy in all the servers, and everything is covered under that. For example, say you want to scan one group of servers on Saturday, and then you want to scan another group of servers on Sunday, you can't do that. You have to scan all your servers, a regular scan or a full scan, on the same day and at the same time. That's definitely one thing they need to resolve. In the next release, it would actually be nice if they included Apple products. It will also help if you can use Intune again. Their compliance reporting feature could also be better. They can maybe work a bit on that for patching now. It would be better if SCCM came with the functions of Right Click Tools built-in. If SCCM would have all those functions already built-in, we won't have to go and spend $5,000, just as an add-in from another company to get those functions."
"Marketing: Our management doesn't understand that there is a piece of software which helps them automate and manage the entire network, as far as operating systems on computers."
"I would like to see some improvements in WSUS and control of other, non-Microsoft, product updates."
"It would be better if reporting were more user-friendly. I would like to see an upgrade in the reporting structure in the next release. At the moment, you have to use an SQL query or configure it to pull reports through the graphical user interface. Their updates could be more regular. I think Mircosoft updates it every six months. They are also moving many things to Intune, and Microsoft decided to move the deployment solution there. I think SCCM is getting old, and Intune is new."
"The solution is a bit heavy on the sources such as RAM or CPU and the software needs to be a bit lighter."
"It could be designed a little bit more intuitively in terms of administration."
"They could make the booting solution easier for different things, e.g., easier to insert drivers. They could make it easier to create a new image and put it onto the server. Those would be some nice solutions. They could make it so that somebody who has no knowledge at all can do it. That would be really nice. Because every time, until I get it memorized, I still need to go back to the training, the manual, or Google it to figure it out again. If they would make it a lot easier, to where a nine-year-old could do it, that would be really cool. If they made it easier, I could have more people managing the images on the server, instead of just one or two people."
"I would sure like them to be able to copy and paste out of OneNote. That drives me nuts. You can't copy from OneNote into KACE."
"The K1000 doesn't communicate well with some clients without SMB. There are some issues with getting things to image correctly because they rely on SMB, and SMB is a protocol that is being removed due to security reasons. Organizations are trying to rely less and less on SMB. I know Quest is aware of it. They've talked about having a new version that wouldn't rely on SMB for connection to the clients, but they haven't gotten there yet."
"I would like for there to be improvement when it comes to Microsoft and Windows updates. It has the ability to do it but the control of it is not there like I have in the Windows Server Update Services. The way KACE does it is still very granular. You don't really see the process like it is in the Windows Server Update Services. I think that would be one of the biggest things that I would like to see KACE really put some work into and really make that a big enhancement."
"When we have to do a rebuild on these machines, although it is rare, I would like to be able to do more than 10 at a time. With the current limit, it slows me down because I have to set up 10, then the next 10, and so forth."
"The only hiccups we had were some power issues, where the box was a little under-powered early on."
"The initial setup was complex. It is a Linux-based virtual server, where the customer cannot get into the back-end, so you can only follow their prompts. Then, there are specific things that have to be done in their implementation and upgrade phases that have to be done in a certain order or steps. If you don't get those steps right, the system doesn't work. I think that either simplifying that process or providing really good step-by-step documentation would be helpful."
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Microsoft Configuration Manager is ranked 2nd in Configuration Management with 78 reviews while Quest KACE Systems Management is ranked 10th in Configuration Management with 38 reviews. Microsoft Configuration Manager is rated 8.2, while Quest KACE Systems Management is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Microsoft Configuration Manager writes "Seamless system updates, useful integration, and reliable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Quest KACE Systems Management writes "Easy to use, saves us time, and increases IT productivity". Microsoft Configuration Manager is most compared with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, ManageEngine Endpoint Central, BigFix, Tanium and ServiceNow Discovery, whereas Quest KACE Systems Management is most compared with Microsoft Windows Server Update Services, BigFix, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Automox and Ivanti Neurons Patch for Intune. See our Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Quest KACE Systems Management report.
See our list of best Configuration Management vendors and best Patch Management vendors.
We monitor all Configuration Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
