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Ivanti Patch for Linux, UNIX, Mac vs Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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

Ivanti Patch for Linux, UNI...
Ranking in Patch Management
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Quest KACE Systems Manageme...
Ranking in Patch Management
10th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (3rd), Endpoint Compliance (8th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (12th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of Ivanti Patch for Linux, UNIX, Mac is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 4.4%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management
 

Featured Reviews

David-Henderson - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to ensure that everything is up to date
Ivanti Patch for Linux, UNIX, and Mac helps to ensure that everything is up to date.  I have been working with the product for 30 years.  The solution is stable.  My company has 12 users.  The tool's deployment is straightforward and can be done in hours.  The tool's deployment can be done…
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

"The tool is a stable product."
"Ivanti Patch for Linux, UNIX, and Mac helps to ensure that everything is up to date."
"The website development section is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"The solution is easy to implement."
"KACE has made our life much easier since we got off the Microsoft solution. The Microsoft solution was a lot harder to image over different ports and stuff. They would only have this one place where we could do all the imaging. Now, we have a whole building where we can image from. This means that we can image from our storage area, where we have a place to do our imaging. We can also image right at our desks, which is a lot easier."
"The software asset management has been a big help, even when it comes to license true-ups. I can use it to find out how many Tivoli we have, and boom, there's the number... And you can actually click on the information about the software and it shows, for example, that these five servers are where it's being reported. If you really want, you can log in to them and validate."
"Using Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), we have been able to manage three times the amount of machines as other groups while having half the staff, which has positively impacted our organization."
"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 initial setup is relatively easy."
"Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten."
"Using this solution saves us lots of time, especially when it comes to performing updates."
"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."
 

Cons

"The better way to improve the solution is by working on an area where it lacks, which includes the migration part."
"The tool needs to improve its visual system."
"The solution can be quite expensive, compared to other options on the market."
"There is always room for improvement. However, the system does most of what we need at this moment."
"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."
"Its dashboard needs improvement. Currently, there is no way to modify the dashboard. There should be more flexibility so that we can create views according to our use case."
"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."
"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."
"I still need better communication about which processes are really due and which processes are currently being processed. According to the initial setup service provider, there is still no real management or overview on KACE where you can really see 100 percent of what is going on as well as what is going to be processed next and whether I can influence the overall process. It could really help me if I knew, e.g. exactly in 10 minutes my colleague will be supplied with this or that software. I haven't found this yet. If they could add this, that would be cool. It is still missing and I haven't yet found something like this."
"We'd love to see support for larger dependencies in the scripting feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open-source, so we do not need any licensing."
"Licensing is very straightforward. They don't overcomplicate it. This is not a Cisco product where you have to have 30 different licenses just to open the box. It's pretty much set-and-forget. You pay an annual license... The cost is in the mid to upper range, but the ROI exceeds the outside cost, especially once you've had the system for a while."
"We pay annually for technical support."
"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."
"Some of the other solutions were just astronomical in price compared with KACE and didn't necessarily have the ease of use either. So, we chose Quest KACE for its easy-to-use features and cost."
"The pricing and licensing are good. It's worth it."
"We need it, so we have to pay the price. It is what it is. If you need a gallon of milk, then you have to pay the price for it. You don't want to buy the cheap stuff. You want to buy the stuff that is organic and good for your body, which doesn't have all this other junk in it. You want it clean for your body. Quest has done that for our deployment and management systems."
"Its pricing model is good for what it offers. Nobody here gives me a hard time about renewing the contract every year. It might be a little cost prohibitive for a smaller company who has to stand up a virtual environment as well as have virtual environment licensing and the hardware. If you have a smaller environment, it might be cost prohibitive. If you only have a couple of hundred computers, you might be more willing to do those manually. In our environment, the cost savings of having KACE far outweigh the licensing costs. We are okay with its pricing model."
"n terms of pricing and licensing, my advice is that you need to assess what you need and then look at what they offer. It's easy to get caught up in the things that you want, but don't really need."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
University
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Ivanti Patch for Linux, UNIX, Mac?
Ivanti Patch for Linux, UNIX, and Mac helps to ensure that everything is up to date.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Ivanti Patch for Linux, UNIX, Mac?
The solution is not expensive. It is cheaper than other solutions. The solution is open-source, so we do not need any licensing.
What needs improvement with Ivanti Patch for Linux, UNIX, Mac?
The better way to improve the solution is by working on an area where it lacks, which includes the migration part. Currently, on Amazon AWS, we have hosted all the websites. It is fine to migrate f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest KACE Systems Management?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is that, hands down, it beat all of the others in simplicity and pricing.
What needs improvement with Quest KACE Systems Management?
I wish Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) would have a top-down approach since we use orgs; currently, we have to go into each org to deploy applications when we need them all across the...
What is your primary use case for Quest KACE Systems Management?
My main use case for Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is to deploy applications and maintain security, and we use it day-to-day to handle those tasks. With Quest KACE Systems Managemen...
 

Also Known As

HEAT Patch, PatchLink
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about Ivanti Patch for Linux, UNIX, Mac vs. Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.