Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

AWS Systems Manager vs Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
263
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (2nd), Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
AWS Systems Manager
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (5th)
Quest KACE Systems Manageme...
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (12th), Endpoint Compliance (8th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (17th), Patch Management (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Configuration Management
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
Everything has worked better since we started using it
Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.
Ambe Frankline - PeerSpot reviewer
Tracks every action on AWS accounts in a centralized way
Setting up AWS Systems Manager to monitor and control other services is easy. You need to link the services you want to observe and track. The time it takes to deploy depends on factors like connectivity, latency, and the complexity of the services. For example, setting up a simple application is faster than setting up a more complicated three-tier or multi-tier system. Using the solution for batch updates varies depending on the number of servers involved and the commands needed. Personally, when I do small projects at home, deploying a few servers doesn't take long. But at work, where we handle larger deployments with hundreds of servers, it's faster due to better connectivity and resources.
Scott Tweed - PeerSpot reviewer
Low maintenance, reliable, and easy to create packages
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 deployment process for both deploying and creating a package is straightforward. I believe the inventory in KACE is superior to SCCM's. I know with SCCM I could do things like remote console into machines via the agent's remote console, but that is not a feature that is provided in KACE. I know that at least in the Systems Management Appliance, I can't get to it. I'm not sure how distribution works, with distribution points. I'm not sure if KACE has that feature. You could use an SCCM to set up distribution points at remote sites so that they don't have to download patches or software from across the country. If you have a DP or something similar, they could pull it down.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is absolutely a positive investment."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is its scalability."
"I particularly appreciate the administration and security features, which can be deployed easily."
"The insights, even though we're talking about charts and graphs, are super valuable to customers who might not otherwise know what's in their ecosystem or the current state of things within their ecosystem."
"Third party integrations are very convenient to use with Microsoft Intune."
"Microsoft Intune has helped us by improving our security posture, leading to fewer security problems, and helping us understand where we have issues."
"The mobile application management, MAM, is the most useful aspect of the solution."
"Microsoft Intune is far more efficient and faster than MECM."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the change management option. It tracks every action on my AWS accounts in a centralized way, acting like a control tool for me. This is especially useful when working with Kubernetes and AWS ECS services. Additionally, my colleagues and clients often use the application management tools for configuration, parameters, and installations."
"With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems manually."
"AWS Systems Manager's most valuable feature is its ability to dynamically export and import values in various AWS accounts."
"The solution's ability to scale is good."
"AWS Systems Manager's most valuable feature is its ability to dynamically export and import values in various AWS accounts"
"It is beginner-friendly with extensive features that can be learned gradually based on the user's needs and tasks."
"I use AWS Systems Manager primarily for infrastructure management and automation. One of its key benefits is managing patches and updates for our EC2 instances, including both Windows and Linux workloads. It can perform compliance checks on all managed workloads, identifying which systems aren't compliant or haven't been patched."
"AWS provides Auto Scaling groups."
"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 service desk can be configured and customized to better serve our environment."
"Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to monitor updates—the software versions—on machines so that we can keep everything compliant."
"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."
"Asset management is most valuable. It is essential for all customers. The other features are also useful, but asset management is most important."
"My company had bought some new machines. We used the tool to do some basic settings to ship every machine the same way and undertake the Windows deployment. We did the scripted installation. The tool helped us deploy custom software for specific departments. We also did Windows updates with the product."
 

Cons

"The UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."
"Additional application deployment options e.g. MSI deployment with more complex parameters or additional side-by-side files, and non-MSI deployment options."
"The most important thing is reporting. They should improve their reporting. They should give a free hand to users. In SCCM, I can create my own reports. For example, in SCCM, I can create an inventory report for my PC or for all PCs, but in Intune, we don't have an option to create any report. Microsoft claims that Intune is a successor of SCCM, but SCCM is more powerful than Intune. So, they should develop Intune more and make it equivalent to SCCM. Then, their product will be great in the market."
"I want more secure, reliable, and efficient security policies."
"The main disadvantage seen today is regarding Linux clients. We have a lot of development resources that have Linux on their clients, and we can't manage them on the same platform, as we do with other clients such as macOS and Windows. So, it should have support for Linux clients. It should also have better support for macOS."
"Intune should be much more granular in terms of supporting more Android cellular devices."
"We would like to see the ability to use multiple personas on a device, similar to Samsung Knox, included in future updates."
"In an upcoming release, I would like to see some kind of analytics report."
"I'd like to see more automation for monitoring and managing things like AWS CloudWatch and AWS Config. It would be a significant improvement if it could automatically handle these tasks and address issues as they arise."
"Additional features can be added as per customer requirements."
"One area that could be enhanced is dynamic configuration management. Additionally, improving integration with other AWS services like Lambda and CloudFormation would be beneficial."
"We formerly used third-party products to analyze the log, give us information, and find bottlenecks. Systems Manager could provide more tools that conduct this analysis, so we don't have to do it ourselves."
"It could be agentless if there's room for improvement in the AWS Systems Manager. Currently, you have to install agents, although, for most of the latest EC2 images, the agents come preinstalled. If it could be at the level of Ansible, which is agentless, that would be fantastic. When you compare the solution to Ansible, one of the most widely accepted tools, the agentless feature stands out. So, if the AWS Systems Manager could become agentless, that would be a significant improvement."
"The AWS UIs are not the most intuitive. Also, the usability needs room for improvement."
"AWS does not have EKS cluster backup."
"Lacks sufficient integrations."
"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."
"We'd love to see support for larger dependencies in the scripting feature."
"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 user interface needs improvement as customers have mentioned they do not like the interface since it is not an SMA-based interface and lacks a manual configuration option."
"It took a little bit of time to figure out how to use the KACE Service Desk. I like the way that I'm able to customize it. But when it comes to how our techs are able to use it, it's not as functional as our current solution, which is BMC FootPrints Service Desk."
"Scalability is my primary concern right now."
"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."
"Imaging becomes a problem when you start to try to go beyond doing more than thirty or forty machines at a time. We initially tried to do that virtually and it just, it wouldn't work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you're ever going to buy an Office 365 environment, then pricing is reasonable given all that it does, but if you're not, then you might find the pricing expensive."
"Microsoft Intune is pretty reasonable. We have difficulty with Azure, which is probably why we have not put many assets in Azure. Everything we put there is very expensive."
"No one can compete with Microsoft when it comes to price, and the features it is offering."
"It is reasonable for the features it has."
"As a partner, we always look for how we can generate more revenue from a consulting point of view, but I do not see any complaints from the customer side regarding pricing, so they are satisfied with it."
"For organizations that are a Microsoft shop, the pricing is compelling."
"Microsoft Intune is included in the E5 license at no additional cost."
"We don't pay for Intune because it is bundled with the premium subscription to Office 365. It includes Intune and Defender. I don't have to buy two extra products to manage my enterprise."
"An AWS cloud engineer can bring down the costs."
"As we were doing a government project so the government got the project at a very nominal cost."
"The platform provides excellent value for the capabilities it offers when compared to third-party tools for similar tasks."
"Most of the features are free. I'm not entirely certain, but I believe the pricing is generally very low. Some services that are part of Ops Manager might have associated costs."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"We are also saving on the licensing fee, compared to other endpoint management solutions."
"The cost of KACE has been relatively low compared to other systems. Even if those systems have the same cost, they do not do as much of the third-party patching that KACE natively does."
"The pricing is fair."
"Based on other solutions that we had implemented, its pricing seems to be quite competitive. It is not inexpensive, but it is also not more expensive than any other solution. They have the standard licensing fees and support fees."
"It may be more expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"We are a university. So, we have a very good price for the system. I think the price for the system is worth it because of the security patch management. The security patch management is very important for us. The price is very good for KACE SMA, the functionality you get, and the patch management."
"The pricing is great. It's billed annually and it's very reasonable."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Configuration Management solutions are best for your needs.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
What do you like most about AWS Systems Manager?
With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems m...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Systems Manager?
Every AWS service comes with some associated costs. While using AWS Systems Manager, we continually monitor to optimi...
What needs improvement with AWS Systems Manager?
There isn't anything specific I remember at the moment.
What do you like most about Quest KACE Systems Management?
My company had bought some new machines. We used the tool to do some basic settings to ship every machine the same wa...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest KACE Systems Management?
The pricing is in the middle range of the market, not too expensive but not the cheapest either.
What needs improvement with Quest KACE Systems Management?
The user interface needs improvement as customers have mentioned they do not like the interface since it is not an SM...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Amazon Elastic Container Registry
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Systems Manager vs. Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.