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Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs Vicarius vRx comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 27, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Quest KACE Systems Manageme...
Ranking in Patch Management
10th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (14th), Endpoint Compliance (7th)
Vicarius vRx
Ranking in Patch Management
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (15th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Fernando Cezario - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Navdeep Saini - PeerSpot reviewer
It protects applications against zero-day threats
Vicarius vRx helps consolidate multiple tools for patching and remediation. It's critical that Vicarius combines vulnerability discovery, prioritization, and remediation in a single platform. We selected it for that reason. It protects us well. We use other tools, but we always go back to Vicarius to ensure everything's in line. It reduces the time needed to detect and remediate threats by about an hour. I would estimate it saves us about 20 hours each month that we can allocate to something else.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten."
"We're able to deploy software and push out fixes to endpoints faster than ever."
"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."
"The ability to push an image to a machine, wake that image up, and just blast a new image to a computer without even having to touch it, and then push the software to that machine. This just made things so much more convenient for us and so much more efficient."
"It is excellent in terms of updating and configuring everything the way we need. For anything more complex, we do professional service engagements, and they're exceptional. For anything less complex, we just need to ask questions. Their support division is extremely good too."
"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."
"The most valuable features of vRx would be virtualized patching and severity prioritization."
"Vicarius vRx offers several advantages, especially for organizations with diverse operating systems and applications requiring frequent patching."
"Vicarius vRx's automation feature is its most valuable, allowing us to automate manual tasks, receive automated reports, and easily check device update status."
"While other vulnerability scanners overwhelm us with a huge list of problems after a scan, Vicarius vRx goes beyond that."
"I also like how easy it is to use. We instructed some companies on how to use it, provided them with an account, and gave them the ability to deploy and patch. They could quickly figure it out. We can spend an hour in the office showing someone how everything works, and they're good to go. It's the same with our customers."
"Vicarius vRx's ability to patch third-party software is particularly valuable for us."
"We can easily deploy patches for third-party applications. It automatically downloads the patches for you. You do not have to download them, upload them to the solution, and configure your own scripts or anything like that. It is all automatic."
"Vicarius vRx's primary strength is its user-friendly interface."
 

Cons

"The only pain point I have is with their salespeople. They call too often. They're too aggressive in trying to upsell. We know what we need, and we know if we want to expand. I don't mind quarterly calls from them, but sometimes, it is weekly. They need to get their sales team under control. The main goal of their support people and professional services is to make sure they deliver the service, and they deliver it well, whereas their salespeople are so interested in making a sale that they're wasting my time."
"The initial setup was complex. It is a Linux-based virtual server, where the customer cannot get into the back-end, so you can only follow their prompts. Then, there are specific things that have to be done in their implementation and upgrade phases that have to be done in a certain order or steps. If you don't get those steps right, the system doesn't work. I think that either simplifying that process or providing really good step-by-step documentation would be helpful."
"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."
"It could be designed a little bit more intuitively in terms of administration."
"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."
"We'd love to see support for larger dependencies in the scripting feature."
"I have complaints about smart label adaptation and because of this, I recommend a 24 to 48 hour bake-in period."
"There may be a good reason why some things are not easily able to be done, yet it needs work to compete with some of the other ticketing systems out there now."
"Areas that need improvement include the CPU usage and the delay between sending updates and receiving feedback on their status."
"I would like to see a way to build a virtual environment where we can test patches in real-time before we deploy."
"There can be more scripting capability and more filtering capability. We should be able to filter more granular details in the operating system such as whether it is a service, application, executable, or something like that. For the most part, we are satisfied with what we are able to filter."
"The patchless protection feature is currently difficult to understand and could be made more user-friendly."
"Another complaint we've gotten is that the portal doesn't remember your username and password. You tell them your email, and it sends an invitation. You need to click that, and it takes you to a new portal, where you can finally log in. Maybe it's a security precaution, but it seems like a lot of extra steps to log in."
"It would be good if there were more login options. At the moment, it sends you an email to verify your email address, and then you can log in. It would be beneficial to have other options for signing in, like MFA or maybe security keys, especially since it is a security product."
"The multi-tenant portal has room for improvement."
"The patchless protection feature is currently difficult to understand and could be made more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing are good. It's worth it."
"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 fair."
"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."
"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."
"We pay annually for technical support."
"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."
"It is expensive in Brazil."
"Vicarius vRx offers a competitive price point for the features it provides."
"From a pricing perspective, Vicarius was cheaper compared to other competitors."
"I am not sure how much it costs, but it would have saved us some costs."
"The pricing was very reasonable and fair compared to other products. I liked that there was no tiered system. One price gave access to everything, which is nice. It is not something you get too often with enterprise IT."
"Vicarius vRx's per-asset pricing makes it easy for me to market to clients as it scales with their needs."
"The pricing is fair."
"Vicarius' pricing was reasonable compared to the other systems we evaluated."
"In the past, Vicarius vRx was cheap, but now they have adjusted their pricing policy, resulting in higher renewal costs. We have had some conversations with them regarding a smaller jump in the renewal cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
University
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
17%
Media Company
15%
Non Profit
13%
Insurance Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 example, if I need to find Juliano's computer in the system, I don't need to search t...
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 SMA-based interface and lacks a manual configuration option.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vicarius vRx?
Vicarius vRx is priced competitively within the market.
What needs improvement with Vicarius vRx?
The patchless protection feature is currently difficult to understand and could be made more user-friendly.
What is your primary use case for Vicarius vRx?
I use Vicarius vRx to deploy software and Windows updates on endpoints and servers. It is also my preferred solution for deploying new software to specific departments or groups of computers. We im...
 

Also Known As

Dell KACE Systems Management
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. Vicarius vRx and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
825,399 professionals have used our research since 2012.