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OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management vs Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 27, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
OpenText ZENworks Configura...
Ranking in Configuration Management
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Quest KACE Systems Manageme...
Ranking in Configuration Management
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Compliance (7th), Patch Management (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2024, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 11.5%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 4.2%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Gaurav Chandola - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 22, 2022
We can manage all aspects of our devices from a single console, easy to scale, and quick to deploy
Intune has many benefits from the Microsoft perspective. This solution can manage Windows 10 devices, app management, and provide security solutions. We don't need to worry about our network connection, and we'll be more secure with regular security patches and compliance. Since everything will be deployed through the internet and users will log in using the internet only, the risks have been mitigated. Security updates, security patching, and the application will be targeted from Intune. The location tracker will be available to track where the device is and the user's location. The user will be restricted from accessing certain applications using compliance policies. Conditional access policies will be based on the reason why the user needs access to the application. Microsoft Intune is one of the best products in the industry for managing Windows devices. The solution has more feature restrictions. The conditional access policies also eliminate the dependency on the on-prem network for the devices. The solution also manages our security settings and a lot of other beneficial features such as Microsoft Purview which gives us the compliance portion. We can manage all aspects of our device from a single console, including M365 services. This allows us to configure data classification types, such as public, private, internal, confidential, and highly confidential.
it_user368043 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 11, 2016
It allows us to deploy applications and primitive desktops globally. The upgrade cycle is very long.
It allows us to deploy applications and primitive desktops globally We use it for managing our desktops. We have 350,000 desktops and it allows us to manage and control them relatively easily. We need product notifications made quickly in the software lifecycle, but it does so unreliably. The…
Fernando Cezario - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 25, 2024
Helpful for IT asset management and offer a good dashboard
I like the KACE software dashboard so much! It's convenient. I don't need to know technical details like file formats (PDF or whatever) for installation, even for applications like Adobe. Here's how I use it: Let's say I have a license for Adobe and I need to install it on a computer named Julian. I simply open a case, enter the name of the application (Adobe), open the dashboard, and search for the computer named Julian. Once I select the computer, it shows up in the dashboard. Now, in the same case, I can open a large batch of software, select the application (Adobe Acrobat again), and choose the computer named Julian. KACE then deploys the application with minimal errors, usually within one or two minutes. Julian even receives a notification on their computer that the installation process has begun. It's fantastic! Moreover, it helped so much streamline our IT asset management and inventory. Sometimes someone changes the computer assigned to someone else. For example, Juliano had a computer, and then Matos changed it to his own use. I wouldn't know about this change if it weren't for KACE. KACE automatically tracks this information and saves it for me, allowing me to call it up on the dashboard. For example, if I need to find Juliano's computer in the system, I don't need to search through endless spreadsheets. I just search for "Juliano" in KACE. KACE also lists other details like the last login user. So, if I see "Juliano" on KACE but a different user is logged in, that tells me something might be wrong. I find this functionality very helpful for IT asset management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can manage and standardize security across your environment, identify problems, receive alerts, and so on. That's its purpose, and that's also why it's so good."
"We are a remote company, and the product helps us manage the global endpoints. It helps us natively manage the endpoints in the cloud from anywhere."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune."
"While I don't think you can ever have full visibility and control, Intune certainly allows us to see the applications being used and tells us if things like Windows patches aren't applied to machines. It does a good job. That visibility makes life a little easier."
"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's normally able to meet 100% expectations of our customers."
"It has helped with compliance. It has helped to ensure that devices comply with the organization's policy. If they are not compliant and secure, they cannot access the resources."
"Our bank's most valuable Intune features are centered around the dedicated device concept."
"The most valuable feature is the impact analysis."
"Helps me perform changes in connected infrastructure thanks to the discovery features."
"I am impressed by the service desk ticketing and asset management."
"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..."
"There is ease of use, and its pricing was a driving factor."
"We have our KACE agent deployed on all of our workstations and servers, and it provides us with reports on the hardware and software inventory for those."
"You don't have to be an advanced user. Rather, in terms of ease of use, this product is right where it needs to be."
"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."
"We use the Systems Deployment appliance. It's our bread and butter. It is every machine that gets imaged here in this building and out through the whole state goes through the SDA. We rely on it completely. There is no manual process of getting a laptop out of a box, plugging it up, turning it on, and waiting for Windows to start. If you were to go to Best Buy and buy a brand new laptop, you spend the next two to three hours just setting it up. We don't do that. We get a laptop, plug it into the network, connect it to the SDA, and within about three clicks, we're done."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to monitor updates—the software versions—on machines so that we can keep everything compliant."
 

Cons

"The mobile management is good for iPhone and iPad, but the Apple Mac management needs improvement. That is probably because Microsoft does not have low-level access to Apple Mac hardware. If you are doing basic things, it is okay, but if you want to image Apple Macs and do things like that, then Jamf is much better."
"We only have major classifications for iOS and Android, but there are different brands that have different cycles of updates. If they can fine-tune it to make it more brand-specific, that would be even better."
"Microsoft Intune is not user-friendly to manage and has room for improvement."
"There are items that require improvements. One is the controls from iOS."
"The pricing could be improved."
"It just doesn't handle software updates well at all by itself. You need to be a scripting wizard to make those happen properly, or you use third-party tools. The Windows feature updates are very difficult to implement. I would like to see a proprietary built-in remote control tool. I know that they have Team Viewer integrated, but it is not seamless. It would be nice if they had a seamless remote desktop capability directly from the Intune console."
"Its configuration is fairly complicated. You have to do quite a bit of discovery to be able to deploy it for a customer. You have to ask them a lot of questions. So, its initial deployment is the biggest challenge. They should make it easier to deploy with the use of Wizards or something else. During the deployment stage, there could be profiles for the customers who are particularly wanting to use certain feature sets of Intune."
"I'd like some more reporting so that I don't have to delve into PowerShell and I can pull more of the local device information such as memory, apps installed, etc. It would be nice to be able to see the apps that are present there but might not be managed. For example, if they installed 7Zip, it could report that back via an installed program or feature to see what was currently installed."
"The native UI should be simplified because it is outdated and a little bit over-complicated."
"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."
"Easier integration would be beneficial."
"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."
"Scalability is my primary concern right now."
"The labeling process should be more streamlined. It should be easier to do. It gets confusing at times."
"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."
"Sometimes the information is not as real time as it's supposed to be."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our enterprise agreement includes Microsoft Intune at no additional cost."
"I recently got to know that the AD P1 license is compulsory to use Intune Autopilot, which was surprising for me. Earlier, this was not the case. It is the wrong thing to do. We now need to purchase AD P1 licenses for us and for our customers. I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing."
"The Intune license model is costly."
"It is reasonable. When you have Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 license, it is already licensed in that license. So, you could say it is free."
"It's monthly for us, but it's built into the license cost that we pay our IT each month. It's maybe 129 Kroner per head, which translates to £10. There are some additional costs. Our IT had to set up and configure their own server, so there is an extra cost for that, but I'm not sure what that costs."
"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."
"It is average. Some of the costs are quite high depending on what the customer currently uses, but overall, it is not bad. I would not say that I would not recommend Intune based on the cost. I definitely would, but they can definitely improve on the cost. So overall, its cost is not bad."
"They have categorized the licenses according to the size of the business. So, if it's a smaller organization, we can choose the license accordingly. If it's a big organization, then we can choose accordingly. Everything is clearly mentioned, and we can decide. It's suitable for all kinds of infrastructure, and that's very goo"
"This is a really good tool for the money."
"We are also saving on the licensing fee, compared to other endpoint management solutions."
"Their pricing is per end-point device. There is an initial cost for the license for the server, which is pretty low, and then there is a per end-point device license, which is also fairly low. So, the pricing is still reasonable."
"The pricing is fair."
"The pricing is great. It's billed annually and it's very reasonable."
"The pricing and licensing are good. It's worth it."
"We buy consulting fees from Software Factory, then we pay extra for it."
"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."
"It may be more expensive, but you get what you pay for."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Government
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
10%
Computer Software Company
13%
University
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Quest KACE Systems Management?
KACE automatically tracks this information and saves it for me, allowing me to call it up on the dashboard. For examp...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest KACE Systems Management?
It is expensive in Brazil. Generally, it's considered expensive, especially compared to solutions like Spiceworks.
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management, HPE CMS, HPE Configuration Management, Micro Focus Configuration Management
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Tech Mahindra, NNIT, ASIC
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management vs. Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,485 professionals have used our research since 2012.