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BigFix vs KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
384
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (3rd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
BigFix
Ranking in Configuration Management
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (21st), Patch Management (7th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (10th), Autonomous Endpoint Management (7th)
KACE Systems Deployment App...
Ranking in Configuration Management
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.2%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 4.6%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) is 1.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.2%
BigFix4.6%
KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA)1.3%
Other89.9%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized device management has automated onboarding and improves remote security compliance
One thing I feel Microsoft Intune could improve is troubleshooting visibility. In many cases, when a policy or application deployment fails, the error messages are a bit generic. So, admins still spend time checking logs manually or testing on devices one by one. Compared to the simplicity of deployment, troubleshooting sometimes feels less mature. I also think reporting and real-time monitoring could be stronger. The dashboard gives useful information, but in large environments, many teams still depend on additional tools or scripts for deeper reporting and analytics. If I had to focus on one area first, I would probably choose troubleshooting and reporting. Deployment through Microsoft Intune is generally straightforward, but when something fails, identifying the exact root cause can still take more time than expected. Error messages are sometimes too generic, and admins often have to dig through logs, sync status, or multiple portals to understand what actually happened. I think user experience and policy management could also improve further. Microsoft Intune has become much better over the years, but sometimes the admin portal still feels fragmented because certain configurations open in different sections or redirect to older interfaces. For new admins, especially, it can take time to understand where everything is located. Another thing is policy conflict handling. In larger organizations, multiple device policies, compliance rules, and configuration profiles can overlap. When conflicts happen, the visibility is not always very clear, so admins spend time figuring out which policy actually won or caused the issue.
InderjeetSingh4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
End-to-end automation has simplified patching and software deployment across thousands of servers
There is one feature in BigFix called the automation patch policy that requires enhancement. When an action is initiated through the patch policy, it appears on the console but arrives in chunks. When targeting hundreds of servers from the patch policy, the actions come in chunks such as ten out of six, ten out of nine, or ten out of fifteen. This fragmented approach creates a significant challenge for the patching team to monitor the action status. I would recommend that the development team provide a single action or one to two actions instead of multiple actions requiring individual monitoring. A broad status update could be provided to the client indicating the overall progress of the patch policy implementation rather than requiring monitoring of every individual action. This would reduce the bandwidth required by the team to track multiple actions on the console.
MH
Server Administrator III at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
User interface and deployment efficiency save time and reduce staff needs
The best features KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) offers include the ease of operation and the ability to create images for deployment. When I say ease of operation, the user interface is easy to create the images, and the people deploying do not have to have access to the appliance in order to deploy images. KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) has positively impacted our organization by allowing us to keep labs with over 300 machines all up to the exact same image for every semester. This has saved our team hundreds of man hours and reduced it down to just a few people doing the deployment compared to how things were done before SDA.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloud control made simple, device secured with ease, and workflow runs smoothly."
"Intune makes our organization more secure and flexible. We can onboard new employees faster and more securely. We are a governmental organization with strict regulations, and Intune helps us comply with those requirements."
"The ability to switch between Affinity and non-Affinity enrollment is great."
"The best thing about Intune for the customers is simply that it's included in the different plans of Microsoft 365."
"Microsoft Intune is very stable due to its cloud-based infrastructure and its reliability in performance."
"Microsoft Intune brings all endpoint and security management tools into one place, and for app discovery, deployment, and automatic updating, it's reliable."
"The many policies available in Microsoft Intune for managing our devices are valuable."
"I like Intune's ability to manage roles, maintenance tasks, compliance settings, and patch development for all endpoints."
"BigFix is incredibly fast and accurate in patching, reporting, and remediation."
"Desktop patching is the most valuable feature, because with servers, we have complete control over them, and we can simply push patches to the servers."
"The most valuable feature is the patching, as it's much more flexible than SCCM with better cross-platform support and more options for what we can do."
"I believe that the agent on the endpoint is very powerful."
"Patch Management for a variety of operating systems makes it valuable as we can rely on a single tool for obtaining patch compliance of the entire compute infrastructure."
"BigFix helped us to identify the compliance of devices and has also improved the way that we manage our software inventory for reporting to vendors."
"The solution has many useful features; its main advantage is simplicity—you can do everything from one console, regardless of the task, and it supports many operating systems and is scalable to up to 250,000 clients."
"The most valuable and essential features of BigFix are all of them, they are needed when serving the purpose of the desktop operation framework. We cannot run operations without patching or without having an appropriate mechanism for deploying software, et cetera. The features all serve their purpose for our use case."
"Its ticketing is pretty good."
"KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) has positively impacted our organization by allowing us to keep labs with over 300 machines all up to the exact same image for every semester, saving our team hundreds of man hours and reducing it down to just a few people doing the deployment compared to how things were done before SDA."
"I'm just an end-user; I'd recommend the solution to others as it has a good balance between pricing and functionality."
 

Cons

"The main differences between Intune and other products are, like I mentioned, in terms of the Mac. If the customers are majorly moving and adopting Mac laptops while they are using the Intune, they are leaving for other platforms, like Workspace ONE and vMOX."
"The scalability could be improved, and like most other MDM products, Intune is good but not 100% there yet."
"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."
"Microsoft Intune could be improved with a more intuitive user interface, simpler policy configuration for complex environments, and faster troubleshooting tools."
"Microsoft Intune could enhance its patch management for various devices, ensuring regular updates and tracking of device privileges."
"There's a significant discrepancy in Intune pricing between tenants."
"Microsoft needs to enhance device-level security, as sometimes when using Microsoft Intune, the device's operating system becomes stuck and requires a full uninstall to remove the Intune bug."
"Manually syncing devices to enforce policies is cumbersome."
"The tool should be more friendly in terms of Web UI and should be having better vulnerability scanning mechanisms so a third-party application is not required to fulfill that aspect."
"I would like to see for it to be a little easier for new users to be able to learn and create relevant statements. In my opinion, that's the hardest part for bringing on new people that haven't had BigFix experience. Being able to have easier ways to build relevance in ActionScript would be the biggest improvement I'd like to see."
"I'd like to see better integration, with the different applications within BigFix. Instead of sometimes feeling like four or five different applications, they need to be integrated a little better within themselves."
"Needs to improve Network Access Protection (NAP) technologies to prevent computers with vulnerabilities from gaining access to networks."
"I deducted two points because BigFix is not a brand that you can just use. It is not very user-friendly."
"Maybe they could introduce a preview of what is going to happen next, because generally what the project is doing is just asking you to execute some actions."
"I would like to see the Self Service section made more user-friendly."
"To make it a ten they should improve the licensing. Second, if they could have one environment for everything it would be nice. For you to install compliance you need to install the server, and then you add the modules. For you to install inventory you install the server and then you add the modules. It's not easy to do. When I was doing it before I learned it, it was not straight forward."
"I have heard feedback that the imaging is slow. It takes somewhere around an hour to image one PC."
"KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) works well, but it would be nice if it were org based like the SMA, allowing one SDA to service several different departments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the price a four out of ten with ten being the most expensive."
"Intune is included with our F3 and E5 licenses."
"I am satisfied with the pricing."
"Most of our clients come to us with licensing already in place. On average, it costs $6 per device per month to add Intune to an Office 365 subscription, but I am not sure."
"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."
"Microsoft Intune is not cost-effective as a standalone product."
"Its price is quite okay. I wish they provide certain additional features with the same license."
"Microsoft Intune is included in the E5 license at no additional cost."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing one out of ten."
"You are charged per server and per workstation when using BigFix. ManageEngine is a lot cheaper than BigFix. There are some additional costs, such as support."
"Its price is very reasonable."
"The price of the solution is high. There are not any additional fees from the standard license."
"You get what we call the Platform Edition, which you get for free. The patch service is maybe $0.50 per workstation per month. Then there's the basic server cost, which is about $1.50 per server per month. You also get into Lifecycle which does power management, OSD remote control, and those types of things, and that might be about 10 times the price - which works out to about $13 per server and, maybe $5 per workstation per month."
"The price is reasonable, but our customers find it expensive."
"It might be about $23 a client."
"The price is very fair."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
6%
University
25%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business195
Midsize Enterprise64
Large Enterprise190
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise68
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigFix?
I rate the price for BigFix as medium, neither low nor high.
What needs improvement with BigFix?
There is one feature in BigFix called the automation patch policy that requires enhancement. When an action is initia...
What is your primary use case for BigFix?
My current use case involves being one of the products and one of the clients implementing this tool.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kace Systems Deployment Appliance?
The pricing for KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) is straightforward, and the setup was easy.
What needs improvement with Kace Systems Deployment Appliance?
KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) works well, but it would be nice if it were org based like the SMA, allowing ...
What is your primary use case for Kace Systems Deployment Appliance?
Our main use case for KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) is to deploy workstations as well as lab machines. We u...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
US Foods, Penn State, St Vincent's Health US Foods, Sabadell Bank, SunTrust, Australia Sydney, Stemac, Capgemini, WNS Global Services, Jebsen & Jessen, CenterBeam, Strauss, Christian Hospital Centre, Brit Insurance, Career Education Corporation
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.