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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs Matrix42 Unified Endpoint Management comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 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 Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (1st), Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
KACE Systems Management App...
Ranking in Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (2nd), Endpoint Compliance (6th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (11th), Patch Management (11th)
Matrix42 Unified Endpoint M...
Ranking in Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 18.3%, down from 29.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 2.5%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Matrix42 Unified Endpoint Management is 2.4%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune18.3%
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)2.5%
Matrix42 Unified Endpoint Management2.4%
Other76.8%
Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
 

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.
AdityaJain - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Administrator at EbixCash
Centralized software deployment has simplified endpoint control but needs stronger security alerts
What I like best about KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is that it allows pushing custom-made applications to all computers that have KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) endpoint installed. This makes it easier for the organization to push patches and updates. If I need to push EDR updates, I can use KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), as it automatically updates the EDR on that endpoint, and that is a great feature. Overall, KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) helps streamline my processes by allowing me to check the uptime and downtime of machines, whether they are connected to the internet or not, and how long a machine has been switched off. I can also gather hardware details and software inventory from it. I can show a live demonstration if a video conference can be arranged. Incident resolution capabilities with KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) have improved operational efficiency for system administrators, as it makes it easier to track machines with KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), gather their IP addresses, and push several updates, patches, or software deployments at once. I can design compliances as per my requirements, such as ensuring passwords are reset after 45 days.
Sanjay Mukhopadhyay - PeerSpot reviewer
Director - Sales & Operations - India at Intertec Systems
It is a complete and competitive solution with excellent OEM support
Matrix42 is a complete solution in terms of functionality. Still, you need to understand whether it's also capable of managing Kubernetes containers to that extent, and this is not very clear in the product fact sheet. It’s possible with Ivanti MobileIron, though, and Matrix42 seems to be one step behind in this aspect. Likewise, in terms of integration, there is still room for improvement in Matrix42 to integrate with more third-party tools compared to Ivanti, which has a larger number of integrations due to its size. MobileIron is an older product that has evolved over time, offering advantages in terms of readily available third-party APIs and integrations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have one MDM that works with Windows, iOS, and Android."
"The ability to manage devices with different sets of policies is most valuable."
"Microsoft Intune has positively impacted our organization by improving our overall security posture through enforcing compliance policies and reducing access from unmanaged devices."
"The most useful features in Microsoft Intune are the policy enforcement and conditional access. These features make our operations easier from a company perspective."
"It is user-friendly, and the performance is also good. It is a convenient product"
"One valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is the enrollment process, which is user-based, making it easier to manage compared to AirWatch."
"Intune is a very good product and everything is cloud-based, and it provides a very simple unified platform to manage everything from the single management console."
"I would say the biggest benefit is the single-pane view. There's no jumping around multiple UI's to do your overall management."
"I like how when you click on the device, it shows you everything that has changed as well as the software versioning, and I am really enjoying the inventory aspect of it."
"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."
"This product made the job easy to do without having to go put hands on the machines."
"It is a very good solution."
"Every year, the system becomes so much more valuable for us; maybe the quality of our service is much better now, the students at our university can use more software, so the knowledge of students using state-of-the-art software is much better than in the past."
"When vulnerabilities are exploited so much, it is nice to be able to quickly detect or deploy what is needed within our off-work hours or during work hours without a reboot."
"The solution definitely saves us time; we used to have four people putting in 40 hours, and now we have one person doing it in 16 hours."
"We can get the majority of what we need with this product and do not have to spend money on something else."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the ability to assign a package to a user on a system If you have your software packages set up via SCCM. It automates the process, which is very convenient, especially since most of our people are remote. Additionally, the overall functionality is good."
"Matrix42 Enterprise Mobility Management offers on-premises deployment."
 

Cons

"Better reporting capabilities, stronger Mac OS management, faster policy synchronization, and easier troubleshooting are needed."
"In Microsoft Intune, there is significant slowness, and there needs to be more logs when we deploy software, parameters, or scripts to troubleshoot problems and errors in the interface, workstations, and Android devices."
"I personally work in a Samsung Android environment and there's a lot more feature support in other EMMs."
"I would say the interface and dashboard summarizing the devices' status and compliance could be improved."
"With Microsoft technical support, they only fix Teams and when they are open, they're mostly trying to close again at the quickest time."
"We need the capabilities of the Cloud Management Gateway (CMG) to be enhanced through Intune instead of Azure."
"Reporting in Microsoft Intune presents challenges because the built-in reports are often too basic."
"They could also make it easier to use because there are some other products that may be easier to use in terms of the look and feel of the dashboard."
"I would sure like them to be able to copy and paste out of OneNote. That drives me nuts. You can't copy from OneNote into KACE."
"I wish Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) would have a top-down approach since we use orgs; currently, we have to go into each org to deploy applications when we need them all across the university."
"Paying for the product should come with full and extended training anytime it is needed."
"The solution needs to have the ability to push out managed feature updates from Microsoft in a more seamless way."
"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."
"KACE implemented the possibility of reducing the network speed of the KACE agent. You can set it so that it takes whatever network speed you want or you can set it to 5 Mb, to save network speed. You set it for all the computers, but it would be preferable to separate between VPN connections in our home office and the local area. It would be great to be able to set separate speeds for different VLANs."
"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."
"I still need better communication about which processes are really due and which processes are currently being processed."
"In terms of integration, there is still room for improvement in Matrix42."
"Matrix42 Enterprise Mobility Management could improve the user interface, it is not very intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license required to use the solution. If you're core users in Office 365, for example, you have Outlook email and E3 license, this is only email. You have to buy an EMS license to have Microsoft Intune. It is expensive."
"Microsoft Intune is more expensive than other solutions, but it offers a wider range of features and control."
"The Intune license model is costly."
"There is a license needed to use the solution and we are on an annual license."
"The overall pricing of Microsoft Intune is good for companies that have big IT budgets, 3,000 or more users and devices."
"The price is reasonable, but they should lower it a bit to make it more competitive. It's cheaper than AirWatch and other products, but I still feel like Microsoft can make a base version or with Exchange online or a la carte only Intune version which will be useful. A customer who doesn't want to go full-fledged E3 or E5 can take out or consume an Intune solution only for their purpose, and we want to target that customer."
"We don't get Intune as a separate module. Most of the time, we use it within an enterprise agreement like E3 or E5. Those licenses are at a good price, but what is annoying is that every single year they go higher."
"On a scale of one to ten with one being the cheapest, the cost of Microsoft Intune is a five."
"It may be more expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"Licensing is done on a per device basis, so it's dependent on how many agents you've got installed."
"Based on other solutions that we had implemented, its pricing seems to be quite competitive. It is not inexpensive, but it is also not more expensive than any other solution. They have the standard licensing fees and support fees."
"The pricing is fair."
"We pay annually for technical support."
"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 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 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."
"Matrix42 is more affordable than Ivanti."
"I am not sure the price of this solution but I would imagine it is fairly expensive because of the complexity, you would not use it in a small company."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise187
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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 Quest KACE Systems Management?
In terms of cost-effectiveness, considering a situation where I want to deploy KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA...
What needs improvement with Quest KACE Systems Management?
For improvements in KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), I would want to see it become a standalone software agen...
What is your primary use case for Quest KACE Systems Management?
I have deployed KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) around 230 plus PCs, and I use it to push Windows updates and...
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Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Dell KACE Systems Management
Matrix42 Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM), Silverback Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Partou Childcare
Find out what your peers are saying about KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. Matrix42 Unified Endpoint Management and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.