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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
384
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (3rd), Remote Access (3rd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
KACE Systems Management App...
Ranking in Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
11th
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) (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 17.8%, down from 29.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 2.5%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Matrix42 Unified Endpoint Management is 2.7%, 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 Intune17.8%
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)2.5%
Matrix42 Unified Endpoint Management2.7%
Other77.0%
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 are a Microsoft 365 E5 customer and the product promises the capabilities that we need and is available without additional cost."
"Using this product has completely stopped DLP, so people cannot take material off of corporate machines or corporate imagines, and that's a huge benefit."
"Microsoft Intune is reliable, scalable, and user-friendly."
"We can manage identity, devices, email security, Exchange security, and data protection all under one umbrella."
"Microsoft Intune is a good solution and it is purely based on Azure cloud, so I can use all the benefits of Azure cloud in Microsoft Intune and several good features in Microsoft Intune to manage devices."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable features are the ones that make sure that the deployment is of a standard operating system and the Zero Touch deployment, which is very useful. This allows users to have an out of box experience."
"This product allows us to restrict users who have access to the system, or to Office 365."
"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."
"KACE’s knowledge-based articles are very good."
"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, just made things so much more convenient for us and so much more efficient than having to go find that machine, pull that machine out, take it back to the shop, and repair it from there."
"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."
"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."
"The single pane of glass for managing devices is helpful because it allows me to perform updates and control things without having to disturb the doctors or nurses."
"Using KACE has definitely increased our overall IT productivity."
"Quest KACE has provided us with a managed environment that surpasses all expectations."
"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

"There is still a gap between SCCM and Intune, especially in the reporting, inventory, and software deployment areas."
"The difficulty of the the roll out is surprisingly difficult considering this product is supposed to be an integrated part of the 365 suite."
"There is room for improvement in server patch management and allowing direct uploads of EXE applications instead of needing to convert them to Intune format, which would save time."
"The technical support could be improved."
"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."
"Policy and app deployment should be faster, as it currently takes between minutes to hours to apply, with an average of one hour."
"Microsoft Intune can be improved with faster policy synchronization, more intuitive troubleshooting tools, enhanced reporting and analytics, and simplified management for complex and hybrid environments, along with better third-party integration support and more granular administrative controls for enterprise-scale deployments."
"Intune should improve its software inventory to provide better metering of which software is used throughout the company. This is especially needed for reporting third-party software solutions."
"I think it should have the ability to have the applications automatically update. It would be really helpful if this would override what the user might choose to do."
"The GUI needs some work. I love all that it can do, however, it can be just be so cluttered at times."
"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."
"I still need better communication about which processes are really due and which processes are currently being processed."
"They could make the booting solution easier for different things, e.g., easier to insert drivers. They could make it easier to create a new image and put it onto the server. Those would be some nice solutions. They could make it so that somebody who has no knowledge at all can do it. That would be really nice. Because every time, until I get it memorized, I still need to go back to the training, the manual, or Google it to figure it out again. If they would make it a lot easier, to where a nine-year-old could do it, that would be really cool. If they made it easier, I could have more people managing the images on the server, instead of just one or two people."
"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."
"In terms of cost-effectiveness, considering a situation where I want to deploy KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) for just pushing updates, it is completely fine; however, apart from that, I do not find it particularly useful for daily scenarios."
"My biggest complaint is that almost every time they send out a new version, it fixes something and breaks another. Something that wasn't working in the last version now works, but something else stops; or they'll remove some dashboard that I really found to be nice and replace it with something totally different that I could care less about."
"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

"While I don't have access to high-level financial information, I believe we have achieved lower costs with this implementation."
"The cost is somewhat on the higher side, particularly when considering certain price points, especially in markets like India."
"Consider the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite rather than choosing specific sub-components, e.g. only Microsoft Intune."
"Microsoft Intune is not cost-effective as a standalone product."
"Intune is moderately expensive. You can get the license bundled with Office 365 E3 or E5 licenses. The E5s are a bit expensive, but you get some cheaper solutions with Intune."
"Microsoft Intune is pretty reasonable. We have difficulty with Azure, which is probably why we have not put many assets in Azure. Everything we put there is very expensive."
"It's bundled with Business Premium and an E3 license, which is beneficial. If you have to pay extra, it's pricey, but with the bundled package, it's acceptable. They recently increased the Business Premium pricing, which we don't appreciate. The price increase and yearly commitment are causing some problems for us."
"Intune is inexpensive. It also comes bundled in some Office 365 licenses, so you can choose to purchase it separately or as a package."
"It may be more expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"The pricing is fair."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"We pay annually for technical support."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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."
"Some of the other solutions were just astronomical in price compared with KACE and didn't necessarily have the ease of use either. So, we chose Quest KACE for its easy-to-use features and cost."
"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
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software 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 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: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.