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KACE Desktop Authority [EOL] vs ManageEngine Endpoint Central comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 26, 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

KACE Desktop Authority [EOL]
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ManageEngine Endpoint Central
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (5th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user1762365 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at ABLE STEEL FABRICATORS
Saves me time and effort when adding and subtracting drives, and Premier Support handles updates
Desktop Authority is nice for us because we can pass out all of our drive mappings and our printers, throughout the office and the shop. Our environment is a very big place because we're a steel fabricator. We don't fabricate steel racks for your kitchen. We're fabricating steel buildings and beams for highrises. We're sitting on a few acres of property, so it's nice to be able to deploy and fix things without always having to walk everywhere or physically go to a machine to map a drive. It's easier to use than doing it in Windows Active Directory, which I never have loved at all. One of the benefits is time savings. If we make a change to a job and I want to pull a drive off of a set of computers, I can do it without having to leave my desk. Before we started using the solution, I would have had to go to every machine. That was a much more cumbersome way of handling it. That is one way it does save me time, probably a few hours every month. I don't have to mess around with something that I can do by opening up Desktop Authority. I can make a few changes, apply those changes, and I'm done in a matter of a few minutes. In the old days, I would have had to go outside, to every machine and every computer. We have jobs that run anywhere from two months to two years. We did a lot of steel for the Rams' stadium, SoFi Stadium in California. That job is still going and it's four years in. But at some point, we're going to want to shut that job down, and we'll shut that particular drive off of the network. And that's the advantage. I can individually go in and say, "Okay, we're done fabricating steel for this job. The shop doesn't need to see this information anymore," and I can pull it away from them really easily with this software. That's one of the things that is a huge benefit for me. That's where it's saving me time.
reviewer1908987 - PeerSpot reviewer
Ict Manager at a transportation company with 201-500 employees
Centralized endpoint management has improved patching, software deployment, and asset control
ManageEngine Endpoint Central is what I am personally working with and using, along with the Service Desk, which is another tool we use. We have been working with ManageEngine Endpoint Central for four years or more. The customizable packages in software deployment are very positive; you can apply different policies for the package that you are going to deploy. This is something we are still using and working with. ManageEngine has a very large portfolio of products. There is some functionality that is not managed from ManageEngine Endpoint Central, but you can find that functionality in another module of ManageEngine's portfolio.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For what I use the solution for, it works really well."
"If we make a change to a job and I want to pull a drive off of a set of computers, I can do it without having to leave my desk. Before we started using the solution, I would have had to go to every machine. That was a much more cumbersome way of handling it."
"The dashboard has been very useful."
"ManageEngine offers a great customer support in the pre-sale phase and even after the sale."
"Everything is easily centralized and managed under this one product."
"What I like best about this product is that I can log on to every PC, very easily, and chat with the user via the chat feature."
"The easy application deployment allows you to use the solution directly, the solution works very well, it offers excellent performance, the initial setup is pretty straightforward, we find the solution to be pretty stable, and the product can scale well if you need it to."
"With all the alerting and everything else that you have to set up with it, it takes a minute to get it up and running and have everything the way you wanted."
"Desktop Central has solved multiple problems for us, including providing patch management so we can get ISO 27001 certification, and it also means that we can deploy to all of our machines at once."
"We have seen a lot of benefits in reporting, we are able to pull a lot of information."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if it were a little easier to maneuver around the patch management. I would like to use that more, but it got very cumbersome and complicated when I tried to use it in the past. I haven't used that much since then."
"Often I had issues with user configurations."
"There are occasional glitches."
"Some times, when adding new programs to Desktop Central, it can be somewhat costly."
"The pricing is lower than other well-respected solutions in this category."
"Its licensing should be improved."
"Sometimes computers fail to receive patches, and we need to investigate why."
"The way patches are pushed out and applied can use a little work as it appears the patches are pushed out and just force applied as a group, as opposed to a specific registry pattern."
"Even when it shows Java as up-to-date, it might not be. So, to make it better, they should improve the accuracy of Java patch reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost was a big factor when we made the decision to go with it. It wasn't very expensive, and it's not even very expensive now. I pay less than $500 a year for it."
"The pricing is average."
"Choose wisely between the Professional and Enterprise editions, based on your needs."
"The product is not expensive."
"There is a freeware version of the solution available as long as you do not breach the number of licenses and users that are dictated."
"Affordable for any customer."
"The price is moderate."
"The product is not costly. The product is properly priced, especially for SMBs."
"We had perpetual licenses. The cost was around 36,000, and then you'd have the yearly maintenance fee of 2,000 or 3,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

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How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine Endpoint Central?
I would rate the pricing as seven; it is quite expensive from my point of view for ManageEngine Endpoint Central.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine Endpoint Central?
It would be great to see some additional options within ManageEngine Endpoint Central. A better monitoring tool to analyze network traffic related to patch management would be something good to see...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ManageEngine Desktop Central, Desktop Central, ManageEngine Desktop Management MSP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elevion
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Strathallan School, BMI Healthcare, Comercial Kywi, First Priority Federal Credit Union, Gerab National Enterprises
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine, Quest Software, Broadcom and others in Client Desktop Management. Updated: October 2026.
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