Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs Scalefusion comparison

Quest Software and Scalefusion are both solutions in the Patch Management category. Quest Software is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0, while Scalefusion is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0. Quest Software holds a 5.4% mindshare in PM, compared to Scalefusion’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Quest Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Scalefusion users who would recommend it.

Quest KACE Systems Manageme...

Read 38 Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) reviews

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1,097 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Scalefusion

Read 3 Scalefusion reviews

104 Views
65 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Quest KACE Systems Manageme...

Scalefusion

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance and Scalefusion are competing products in the system management and device policy enforcement category. Quest KACE may have an advantage in comprehensive management capabilities, while Scalefusion excels in cost-effectiveness and streamlined operations, making it suitable for budget-conscious organizations.

Features: Quest KACE SMA provides robust asset management, software distribution, and patch management, offering an extensive range of management features. Scalefusion focuses on mobile device management, with seamless setup and advanced policy management. The two products differ in device and software management scope, with Quest KACE offering broader management solutions and Scalefusion concentrating on mobile-first capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Scalefusion provides a straightforward deployment process, emphasizing simplicity and efficiency with attentive customer support. Quest KACE SMA might present a steeper learning curve due to its broader feature set but offers extensive support resources to aid the process. Deployment experiences vary mainly in complexity and customer assistance, with Scalefusion noted for its ease and support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Quest KACE SMA's setup costs reflect its comprehensive suite, potentially leading to a higher initial investment but promising long-term ROI through full-featured management capabilities. Scalefusion presents a more budget-friendly setup cost, delivering rapid ROI through efficient implementation and lower licensing fees. Pricing differences focus on upfront investment, with Scalefusion as a cost-effective alternative without compromising essential features.

To learn more, read our detailed Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. Scalefusion Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. Scalefusion

April 2025

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Helped 849,190 peers since 2012

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

Quest KACE Systems Manageme...

Ranking in Patch Management

10th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Client Desktop Management (6th), Endpoint Compliance (7th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (15th)

Scalefusion

Ranking in Patch Management

18th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Content Filtering (11th), Mobile Device Management (MDM) (10th), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (11th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 5.4%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Scalefusion is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Patch Management

Featured Reviews

Scott Tweed

Windows Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

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.

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Jijin Joseph

Technical Director at Channelnext

An MDM solution for controlling and restricting data on devices

Everyone is using high-end devices, such as mobile devices. If they lose their devices, how about the data copied to other devices? Once the device is lost, you can remotely delete all of the data and block the device, preventing anyone from using or reusing it. This will keep your devices secure.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"Patching is definitely the most valuable feature. It gives us good, centralized software, which comes in very handy since we are doing 400 servers at a time. It enables us to manage all the servers, and to deal with the application team regarding reboots and scheduling."

"The service desk can be configured and customized to better serve our environment."

"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."

"Asset management is most valuable. It is essential for all customers. The other features are also useful, but asset management is most important."

"The most valuable feature of KACE is the mass package deployment. There are a lot of endpoint management solutions in the market. The way KACE responds is with the installation management feature, which is done in a very intelligent way, as well as scripting. It's wow. It's really wow. On top of that, there is a mass undeployment feature as well."

More Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) pros

"Scalefusion is easy to use, and they have a broad knowledge base, so you can quickly find answers if you're unsure how to do something. The articles on the knowledge base are well-written, with clear steps on what to do for a specific scenario. That part is well documented."

"Its enhanced support for iOS and Windows devices has been particularly beneficial, expanding our service offerings to customers with diverse device environments."

Cons

"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."

"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."

"Sometimes the information is not as real time as it's supposed to be."

"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."

"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."

"The KACE Go Mobile App crashes a lot, and it always has. I would love to see that get fixed because it's very convenient when it does work properly, but most of the time it does not."

"There isn't a lot they need to improve with the solution itself at this point. It is pretty close to providing a single pane of glass for everything that we need for endpoint management specifically on all devices. There is very little that it doesn't provide for us, and for those, we have to go to other methods. There are some of the patching solutions that it doesn't take care of for us. So, we have to do those manually on the devices, and that's really the biggest thing. It doesn't do patching really well for non-Microsoft applications. The major application updates, particularly Windows updates, don't function nearly as well, but, for the vast majority of things, it does just fine. If they could improve in this aspect, that'd be great, but I don't know if they're going to be able to do that."

"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."

More Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) cons

"One area for improvement could be streamlining permissions during initial device setup, especially for corporate-owned devices, to reduce manual user interaction and expedite deployment."

"It could be easier to put devices on the blocklist. I would like the ability to block a device with a click of a button. Currently, we have to sift through different groups to block a device. It would be nice if Scalefusion allowed me to block without moving the device to a different profile. Another helpful feature they could add is the ability to migrate from one MDM to another. I'd also appreciate more extensive cloud storage. They give you 1 GB by default, but sometimes that's not enough."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"It may be more expensive, but you get what you pay for."

"It was a very attractive price. This is a huge feature of this product. If you would "credit score" this product versus others out there on the market, this one has a very attractive price."

"The pricing and licensing are absolutely fair."

"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 product is reasonably priced."

"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."

"We buy consulting fees from Software Factory, then we pay extra for it."

More Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

10%

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

24%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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 way and undertake the Windows deployment. We did the scripted installation. The to...

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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.

See all answers

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 SMA-based interface and lacks a manual configuration option.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Scalefusion?

One area for improvement could be streamlining permissions during initial device setup, especially for corporate-owned devices, to reduce manual user interaction and expedite deployment.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Scalefusion?

Our typical use cases for the product involve auto-enrollment, zero-touch deployment, location tracking, application deployment, auto-installation, and content deployment across various device type...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Scalefusion?

In terms of device management, the platform is particularly effective for managing Android devices, especially Samsung, which are predominant among our customers. Its enhanced support for iOS and W...

See all answers

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BigFix vs Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

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Microsoft Windows Server Update Services vs Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

April 2025

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) report

Download Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) product report

Buyer's Guide

Mobile Device Management (MDM)

March 2025

Download Scalefusion product report

Also Known As

Dell KACE Systems Management

No data available

Overview

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance is a comprehensive tool for managing IT endpoints. It facilitates asset management, software distribution, and endpoint tracking while offering remote access capabilities and a centralized help desk.

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance is designed for organizations that need efficient endpoint management. It offers a range of features like inventory tracking, automated patch management, and ticketing. By integrating with remote access tools such as Bomgar, Quest KACE helps reduce manual tasks involved in managing software updates and system deployments. Although it faces challenges in scalability and requires improvements in integration and reporting, it remains a versatile choice for asset tracking and endpoint administration.

What are Quest KACE SMA's key features?

Asset Management: Streamline the organization and tracking of physical and virtual assets.
Remote Access: Integrates with Bomgar for secure, remote troubleshooting and management.
Software Distribution: Deploy applications across devices efficiently without physical intervention.
Centralized Endpoint Management: Manage endpoints from a centralized console to ensure compliance and optimization.
Automated Patch Management: Schedule and deploy patches to maintain system security and performance.
Help Desk: Integrated ticketing system for tracking and resolving user issues.
Scripting and Reporting: Enhance administrative tasks through automated scripts and detailed reports.

What benefits should users consider?

Improved Productivity: Reduces manual interference with automated deployments and updates.
Labor Savings: Minimizes labor requirements with efficient remote management tools.
Integrated Reporting: Provides actionable insights through comprehensive reports to optimize IT operation.
User-Friendly Interface: Boosts effectiveness due to its intuitive, easy-to-navigate design.

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance is implemented across industries for managing IT assets and endpoints, particularly where remote management and compliance are critical. It's employed in healthcare, education, and government sectors for efficient patch management, inventory control, and software deployment, aiding organizations in managing security accreditations and centralizing help desk operations.

Quest Software

Scalefusion is a leading Mobile Device & Endpoint Management software helping businesses globally to secure and manage their device fleet.

Ambitious companies around the world trust Scalefusion MDM to secure and manage endpoints including smartphones, tablets, laptops, rugged devices, POS, and digital signages. Our mission is to make Device Management simple and effortless along with providing world-class customer support.

Scalefusion

Sample Customers

Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King

Magna, Scania, Darya - Varia, Radisson Blu, Slice, Veezu

Buyer's Guide

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. Scalefusion

April 2025

Free Report: Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. Scalefusion

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