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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) pros and cons

Vendor: Quest Software

4.4 out of 5

40 reviews
95% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) streamlines IT operations by providing a unified interface for device management and efficient endpoint management. Asset management features ensure inventory and compliance tracking, while automated deployments save time. Mass software deployment enhances consistency across devices. However, SMA faces scalability issues, limited customization, and challenges with Microsoft updates. Support inconsistencies and a frequently crashing mobile app further impact its effectiveness for larger organizations.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

KACE Systems Management Appliance provides a single pane of glass for managing devices, making endpoint management more efficient.

Asset management is highly valued, offering crucial tools for inventory and compliance tracking.

KACE Systems Management Appliance increases productivity by automating deployments and updates, minimizing manual efforts and saving time.

The service desk and asset management features are impressive, contributing to streamlined IT operations and enhanced user support.

KACE Systems Management Appliance facilitates mass software deployment, ensuring consistency and efficiency across all devices.

CONS

KACE Systems Management Appliance needs better scalability as the current setup allows rebuilding only 10 machines at a time.

Issues with KACE Systems Management Appliance's support include inconsistencies in response time and language preferences are not fully accommodated.

Microsoft and Windows updates management in KACE Systems Management Appliance are granular and lack the control comparable to Windows Server Update Services.

The KACE Go Mobile App frequently crashes, leading to inconvenience despite its potential usefulness.

Customization in KACE Systems Management Appliance is limited, causing challenges when deploying applications across organizations.

KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) Pros review quotes

Security Administrator at EbixCash

Mar 27, 2026

From using KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), the main benefits I have seen are that if my organization has a thousand users and I plan to distribute software such as Adobe to all endpoints, by simply launching a script in KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), I can provide that software effectively.

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MH

Michael Huffman

Server Administrator III at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 20, 2025

Using Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), we have been able to manage three times the amount of machines as other groups while having half the staff, which has positively impacted our organization.

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RG

Avocat at Star Boxes India Pvt Ltd

Dec 10, 2024

The initial setup is relatively easy.

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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

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Systems Administrator at Custom Truck One Source

Dec 9, 2021

You don't have to be an advanced user. Rather, in terms of ease of use, this product is right where it needs to be.

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reviewer1938906

System Administrator - Desktop Operations at Manhattan College

Aug 11, 2022

We're able to deploy software and push out fixes to endpoints faster than ever.

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IT Infrastructure Manager at Magellan Aerospace

Jun 3, 2022

There is ease of use, and its pricing was a driving factor.

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SN

Sr. Systems Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 5, 2022

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.

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Help Desk Technician at a hospitality company with 51-200 employees

Sep 22, 2021

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.

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Database Administrator at Department of National Defence - Canada

May 18, 2021

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.

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CB

Carsten Buscher

IT Systems Administrator at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 1, 2021

It also does patch management. At the moment, I'm rolling out a new feature update, 20.8.2, and it's a great challenge because we have to deploy it to 1,200 computers in the home office. We want to do it without interrupting production, but KACE is reliable and it's easy to adapt it to my needs for how and when to deploy the feature update.

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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) Cons review quotes

Security Administrator at EbixCash

Mar 27, 2026

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.

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MH

Michael Huffman

Server Administrator III at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 20, 2025

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.

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RG

Avocat at Star Boxes India Pvt Ltd

Dec 10, 2024

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.

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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Free Report: KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.

893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Systems Administrator at Custom Truck One Source

Dec 9, 2021

I have complaints about smart label adaptation and because of this, I recommend a 24 to 48 hour bake-in period.

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reviewer1938906

System Administrator - Desktop Operations at Manhattan College

Aug 11, 2022

We'd love to see support for larger dependencies in the scripting feature.

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IT Infrastructure Manager at Magellan Aerospace

Jun 3, 2022

Sometimes the information is not as real time as it's supposed to be.

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SN

Sr. Systems Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 5, 2022

One of the complications is that they don't have 24/7 support, and they're also not in our time zone... Sometimes, no matter how critical my application is, if my production server is down I won't be able to connect with anybody till 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time.

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Help Desk Technician at a hospitality company with 51-200 employees

Sep 22, 2021

When we have to do a rebuild on these machines, although it is rare, I would like to be able to do more than 10 at a time. With the current limit, it slows me down because I have to set up 10, then the next 10, and so forth.

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Database Administrator at Department of National Defence - Canada

May 18, 2021

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.

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CB

Carsten Buscher

IT Systems Administrator at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 1, 2021

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.

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)

Client Desktop Management

Endpoint Compliance

Patch Management

Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)

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See all alternatives

Product Categories

Product Categories

Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)

Client Desktop Management

Endpoint Compliance

Patch Management

Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Microsoft Intune vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

NinjaOne vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Fortinet FortiClient vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

BigFix vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Kaspersky Next XDR Optimum vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

TrendAI Vision One – Endpoint Security vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Forescout Platform vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Atera vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Kaseya VSA vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

ConnectWise RMM vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Automox vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Vicarius vRx vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

See all alternatives

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