We performed a comparison between Quest KACE Systems Management and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Configuration Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most valuable feature is the policy CSPs."
"At the moment, Autopilot is the most valuable feature."
"I would say the biggest benefit is the single-pane view. There's no jumping around multiple UI's to do your overall management."
"I can reach devices or computers over the internet. I don't need to worry about the network connectivity between the offices. I can manage any device. That is the most important part."
"The solution is stable."
"The ability to send configurations to our systems is valuable, particularly as we don't have a regular Windows AD server. Our current environment doesn't have a Windows AD, which limits our ability to push GPOs. However, this is where the solution can step in and help us push policies."
"Among the most valuable features are the Company Portal that is built into Intune, and the update rings so that we can manage what types of future updates the devices get."
"Great for software update needs, operating system version updates, and security policy enforcement."
"The information available via KACE is up to date, critical to our normal operations, and has become the go-to tool of our IT teams for extended support."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to monitor updates—the software versions—on machines so that we can keep everything compliant."
"The scripting is a very valuable feature, as it saves us time on pushing certain things out to the users, such as software and patches."
"KACE’s knowledge-based articles are very good."
"I am impressed by the service desk ticketing and asset management."
"It is excellent in terms of updating and configuring everything the way we need. For anything more complex, we do professional service engagements, and they're exceptional. For anything less complex, we just need to ask questions. Their support division is extremely good too."
"The scripting part increases IT productivity because of the specialized software in our environments for students' courses. You need to use software which is not programmed by developers. A lot of software for building houses or other things is developed by normal guys, who do not have much skill in programming. When you need to install this type of software, it is very difficult. You have to install registry keys, etc. For that, it is very good to use the scripting part of this solution. So, you can automate this part as well."
"When vulnerabilities are exploited so much, it is nice to be able to quickly detect or deploy what is needed within our off-work hours or during work hours without a reboot."
"The feature that I really enjoy is the ability to script changes across all of your devices."
"Configuration refers to the specific settings and options that determine how a device or system behaves. It can include things, such as network settings, security settings, and other options that are specific to the device or system in question. One of the most valuable features of the solution was its ability to track and monitor changes to the configuration of devices on a network. This can be useful for troubleshooting and identifying potential issues. By keeping track of who made changes to the configuration and when it can be easier to determine the cause of any problems that may arise."
"It's perfect for network configuration management. It's easy to use."
"The scanning features have proven to be highly valuable, particularly due to the comprehensive information they provide."
"What's nice with NCM is you can set up policies that you can then check against the configs to ensure that your device configs adhere to a baseline or standard that you've set in place."
"The most valuable features the solution offers are compliance, reliability, and information about reliability."
"Compared to other vendors, like NetBrain, managing the solution is easy. They made it very user-friendly."
"I use it for monitoring the entire network for the company. We oversee nodes down, we oversee devices heading up to crossing the threshold for CPU usage. We oversee power so power backups on the switches, we oversee if they're down or if they're failing. We oversee any node down or any router from any vendor."
"The synchronization could be improved."
"There are a lot of small use cases where we realized that some technical solution was missing in Microsoft in comparison to other products. For example, it lacks something similar to sensing or location-based rules and configurations."
"An issue we have run into with Microsoft Endpoint Manager is that we cannot patch third-party products like Adobe and Chrome with it."
"In the past, I raised some tickets for the enhancement feature, which was missing in Intune."
"Intune should be much more granular in terms of supporting more Android cellular devices."
"There are some issues using the solution with macOS and iOS, and it offers limited granular control with them. Intune works better on Windows and Android."
"From a new user's perspective, it may be a little overwhelming because there are quite a few things to look at in the console, however, once you are sort of acclimated and are familiar with your core functions, it's fairly simple and straightforward."
"Lacking ability to leverage more iOS device management internally."
"KACE implemented the possibility of reducing the network speed of the KACE agent. You can set it so that it takes whatever network speed you want or you can set it to 5 Mb, to save network speed. You set it for all the computers, but it would be preferable to separate between VPN connections in our home office and the local area. It would be great to be able to set separate speeds for different VLANs."
"What could be improved is the possibility to use replicas in a secure way outside our network in order to maintain the machines that never connect to our corporate network."
"One of the complications is that they don't have 24/7 support, and they're also not in our time zone... Sometimes, no matter how critical my application is, if my production server is down I won't be able to connect with anybody till 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time."
"There isn't a lot they need to improve with the solution itself at this point. It is pretty close to providing a single pane of glass for everything that we need for endpoint management specifically on all devices. There is very little that it doesn't provide for us, and for those, we have to go to other methods. There are some of the patching solutions that it doesn't take care of for us. So, we have to do those manually on the devices, and that's really the biggest thing. It doesn't do patching really well for non-Microsoft applications. The major application updates, particularly Windows updates, don't function nearly as well, but, for the vast majority of things, it does just fine. If they could improve in this aspect, that'd be great, but I don't know if they're going to be able to do that."
"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."
"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."
"There is always room for improvement. However, the system does most of what we need at this moment."
"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."
"I would like to see more integration tools. Something like dialysis, for example."
"When we run the SolarWinds NCM jobs at the cellular line, it runs in the morning. They're just not finishing. We're getting false processing."
"The third-party plugins available in the solution could improve. I have received some issues with the templates."
"Improvements are needed in the automatic network mapping function."
"The solution could improve by being more secure."
"The solution could have better integration."
"The Network Configuration Manager needs to improve the access control list compliance."
"Its customer service response could be faster."
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Quest KACE Systems Management is ranked 10th in Configuration Management with 38 reviews while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is ranked 11th in Configuration Management with 22 reviews. Quest KACE Systems Management is rated 8.8, while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Quest KACE Systems Management writes "Easy to use, saves us time, and increases IT productivity". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager writes "Streamlines network configuration and compliance processes through its centralized dashboard, although its compatibility with multi-vendor devices may present limitations". Quest KACE Systems Management is most compared with Microsoft Configuration Manager, Microsoft Windows Server Update Services, BigFix, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Automox, whereas SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, Cisco Prime, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, OpenText Network Node Manager i and DataMiner. See our Quest KACE Systems Management vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager report.
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