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Atera 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.4
Atera boosts efficiency and saves costs with remote configurations, fixed fees, automated updates, extended hardware lifespan, and comprehensive features.
Sentiment score
7.3
Quest KACE SMA boosts ROI by enhancing productivity, reducing manual work, and simplifying IT management for rapid adaptation.
The return on investment is seen in the quick access to information, good inventory management, and efficient systems management.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.5
Atera's support is highly rated for being responsive, knowledgeable, proactive, and professional, with frequent updates and effective security measures.
Sentiment score
6.6
Quest KACE provides excellent, responsive customer support with quick solutions, appreciated for multilingual assistance including Spanish, and professional service.
I would rate the customer support for Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) as a 10.
The customer service is very good, providing quick customer support in Spanish.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Atera is a scalable, versatile tool suitable for all company sizes, effectively managing diverse endpoints and clients with ease.
Sentiment score
7.2
Quest KACE SMA efficiently scales across organizational sizes, supporting various networks and expansion needs without sacrificing performance.
We have outgrown the size of one KACE appliance and are now running two.
The product is very scalable as it supports 10,000 thousand endpoints with just one appliance.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Atera is highly stable and reliable with minimal downtime, frequent updates, and rare issues, often external in origin.
Sentiment score
8.1
Quest KACE SMA is stable and reliable, offering quick recovery, responsive support, and effective updates with minimal downtime.
 

Room For Improvement

Atera requires better identity management, integrations, mobile features, network monitoring, automation, interface updates, and enhanced security for a superior user experience.
KACE struggles with scalability, automation, user interface, integration, and support, affecting imaging, patch management, and asset management.
Currently, we have to go into each org to deploy applications when we need them all across the university.
The user interface needs improvement as customers have mentioned they do not like the interface since it is not an SMA-based interface.
 

Setup Cost

Atera's fixed per-technician fee offers predictable, scalable pricing with affordable integrations, making it cost-effective compared to competitors.
Quest KACE SMA offers cost-effective per-device pricing, ideal for large enterprises, though potentially costly for smaller businesses.
The pricing is in the middle range of the market, not too expensive but not the cheapest either.
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.
 

Valuable Features

Atera offers robust PowerShell commands, seamless remote access, effective automation, cross-platform support, intuitive interface, and proactive issue resolution tools.
Quest KACE SMA simplifies IT management with efficient deployment, inventory, automation, and integration, boosting productivity and resource allocation.
Scripting has saved us hundreds of hours over the years when patching these vulnerabilities compared to how we did it before.
The most valuable features include simplicity, which makes systems management easier and faster, especially for device management.
 

Categories and Ranking

Atera
Ranking in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
5th
Ranking in Patch Management
12th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (13th)
Quest KACE Systems Manageme...
Ranking in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
12th
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), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) category, the mindshare of Atera is 7.7%, down from 14.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
 

Featured Reviews

EC
An AI-powered IT management platform that force multiplies IT teams’ brainpower & enables relentless operational excellence for customers
There should be enhancements in network monitoring capabilities beyond just physical devices like computers and servers. It would be beneficial to include better tools for monitoring networking infrastructure such as routers. Additionally, while Atera excels in ticket management, I believe there's room for improvement in user authentication and security features, especially when accessing and managing remote equipment. These updates would contribute to a more robust and secure user experience overall. Atera should include a monitoring tool integrated with Azure or similar cloud platforms. It would be beneficial to have capabilities for monitoring network growth and automatically generating statistics based on system stability and performance metrics. This feature would help us better manage and optimize our equipment and network resources, especially for strategic customer planning and resource allocation.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Retailer
7%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atera?
Pricing is low. It costs around 149 bucks per month.
What needs improvement with Atera?
It should improve its processes.
What is your primary use case for Atera?
Atera is integral to our daily operations. We use it for RMM, PSA, our ticket system, and contact with people. We also integrate it with different products.
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 primary use case for Quest KACE Systems Management?
The main use cases for Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance are touch management, software and hardware inventory, and software delivery.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MSPs, IT consultants, and IT departments worldwide trust and use Atera. 
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about Atera vs. Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.