We performed a comparison between AWS CloudFormation and Quest KACE Systems Management 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."I like that we can implement conditional access."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is having all our devices compliant with our policies."
"The Autopilot feature is fantastic. It is a Microsoft product, so it deals best with Microsoft operating systems, but it can integrate with iOS, Mac OS, Linux, and Android."
"The aspects I find most valuable are the managing the data and applications. I can also restrict the users to install any applications. I can also wipe the data if the phone was missplaced or stolen. These are the basics for me."
"It works pretty well for us."
"Conditional access helps me control uncontrolled access."
"With on-premises Active Directory, the main challenge was that we had no control when a user was working from home. We didn't know what exactly a user was doing and whether the AV was up to date or not. Intune provides better control of their machines."
"There is a single pane of glass for user access and a single sign-on facility for the user. If you have already logged in to Microsoft Azure or on-premises, you can redirect directly to Microsoft Endpoint Manager, monitor all your security threats, and analyze the data associated with the application in a single, unified way."
"There is a cost-benefit to using CloudFormation that comes about because of the automation that it provides."
"Versioning makes our work easy."
"The solution has helped with automation. I don't have to worry about provisioning machines and ensuring everything is set up. AWS CloudFormation takes care of the entire infrastructure for me."
"The most beneficial aspect lies in its capability to handle input acquisition and assessment."
"Automations make it pretty easy to provision AWS, development, or deployment environments."
"The reusability of the solution is valuable."
"The most valuable feature of AWS CloudFormation is the simple tracking of infrastructure."
"The nested stacks would be one of the more valuable features."
"The big pros of Quest KACE Systems Management are its simple interface, and simple, direct management. It's very easy to maintain and manage the device, and it's easy to get it up and running. You can have it up and running in an hour..."
"The Systems Deployment Appliance is magical when it comes to automating deployment... Not only can we have multiple images, specific to end-users' uses, but we have a plethora of post-installation tasks to install or configure the system, tasks that can be re-used for each system. You just have one basic base image, and then you use the post-install tasks to customize everything else. It is amazing."
"I am impressed by the service desk ticketing and asset management."
"We're able to deploy software and push out fixes to endpoints faster than ever."
"Using this solution saves us lots of time, especially when it comes to performing updates."
"This solution makes it easy to control assets and upgrade all types of software."
"There is ease of use, and its pricing was a driving factor."
"There is one place for a lot of different things. If somebody has a problem with their computer, they will put in a ticket. From there, we will know who it is and the assets assigned to them, because there is one place to go look for what we are talking about and with whom we are talking. Just having one place for everything is really convenient. For example, we are able to deploy software to hundreds of computers. We don't need to go to each individual device."
"It would be helpful if there was proactive remediation."
"The reporting could be improved, as it's pretty poor compared to other products of this type."
"There are a few security features that are not available in Microsoft Intune, when compared to other products."
"Additional application deployment options e.g. MSI deployment with more complex parameters or additional side-by-side files, and non-MSI deployment options."
"Intune lags all of its competitors in terms of report generation."
"The installation could be improved to be simplified."
"The solution could be improved by the opportunity to connect third-party application databases, such as Chocolatey or another setup store, to Intune."
"The reports aren't complete, and it's not easy to build custom reports. For example, Windows Autopilot isn't working well in cases where the computers don't have a good internet connection. Then the option is not good enough."
"This tool is not intuitive and there are others that are easier to understand."
"As soon as they manage to parametrize the whole thing and to implement parameters at all levels, it will become automatically a lot more flexible."
"The conditions that can be added in AWS CloudFormation are not as powerful as any programming language."
"Error-handling features can be improved."
"If you are a developer or a more technical person, it's very difficult to learn the complete syntax or because CloudFormation includes a new way to write infrastructure code."
"The product should be made cloud-agnostic, allowing users to deploy the same environment with minimal tweaks across different cloud platforms, similar to Terraform. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have the ability to manage templates outside of the AWS environment."
"CloudFormation is not particularly good at handling cross-account dynamic references. If you try to refer to an object that CloudFormation has created in a separate AWS account, it tends to fall apart. That's because it is a byproduct of the multi-tenant configuration. This is the most glaring shortcoming in my perspective because you can't dynamically reference objects in other accounts that CloudFormation has created, but it is not a shortcoming that you can't overcome. This is the only pain point that I've come across that didn't have a workaround natively. Sometimes the confirmation is slow, and it could be faster. The downside to CloudFormation when you're fully embracing it is that the AWS services do not get released immediately fully CloudFormation enabled. If you need to use the latest AWS service that just got announced or reinvented, you're not going to be able to continue with CloudFormation for the first X number of months. This is because they develop the products separately, and then they hand it to the CloudFormation team, which later on develops a CloudFormation integration. So, if you need to be on the newest thing AWS has, CloudFormation is often going to be a constraint that prevents you from doing that."
"Including certain examples of templates would be advantageous."
"I've had some issues with patch catalogue."
"Paying for the product should come with full and extended training anytime it is needed."
"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."
"The customization of the interface needs improvement for things like end user tickets. While the functionality is good, some of that UI stuff does need improvement."
"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."
"The software asset management functionality is an area that needs to be improved. It could be more automated because when connections need to be made, such as when I connected Adobe and my malware removed, the process was pretty much manual."
"The problem is that it's harder to directly emulate a lot of the stuff that the group policies do, using the KACE solution. With regular group policies, you just specify the various settings you want to change on the workstations, and then you specify the workstations and—while it's kind of an ugly mess—it does it. Whereas on KACE, you really have to know what you're doing with scripting to effectively script those exact same changes."
"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."
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AWS CloudFormation is ranked 9th in Configuration Management with 23 reviews while Quest KACE Systems Management is ranked 8th in Configuration Management with 38 reviews. AWS CloudFormation is rated 8.2, while Quest KACE Systems Management is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of AWS CloudFormation writes "Pretty easy setup with great automations for provisioning that save time and money". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Quest KACE Systems Management writes "Easy to use, saves us time, and increases IT productivity". AWS CloudFormation is most compared with AWS Systems Manager, Spring Cloud, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Red Hat Satellite and Chef, whereas Quest KACE Systems Management is most compared with Microsoft Configuration Manager, Microsoft Windows Server Update Services, BigFix, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Ivanti Neurons Patch for Intune. See our AWS CloudFormation vs. Quest KACE Systems Management report.
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