We performed a comparison between Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager and Quest KACE Systems Management based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Because users of Microsoft Endpoint do not mention a clear and proven ROI, Quest KACE Systems Management comes out on top in this comparison.
"It helps implement conditional access policies to restrict mobile users from accessing potentially dangerous emails."
"It's not working perfectly, but Microsoft's Autopilot offers great visibility into automated deployment solutions."
"The biggest benefits of Intune are the ability to push changes and the added security. When we moved forward with Defender, we onboarded all those machines automatically. That helps dramatically. For a while, we were left with machines that weren't protected. We could see where people had done things they shouldn't have done, and Defender saved our skins a few times. It didn't happen a lot, but it happened enough that it made us glad we made that decision."
"One of the main features of the solution is it allows the management of many devices in different ways."
"Microsoft's cloud comes with a lot of extra features that are free of charge."
"The security-related tools are excellent; these features allow us to secure devices, lock them down, and ensure compliance."
"The most important thing for me is the autopilot feature."
"Intune's unified endpoint management platform is invaluable."
"The most valuable feature is the graphical-based reports of software updates that have been successful, the ones that have failed, and a summary of where the failures are what security breaches may occur."
"I like a lot of the reporting capabilities and baseline configurations."
"We're a Microsoft-centric organization, so we are happy with the integration between products."
"It is a very good solution. It has a good interface and is easy to use. On top of that, it is very reliable in terms of distribution as well as getting the report."
"You can remote control or RDP. That has been the most valuable because we can go into one console and can get to anything we want. Instead of going to all these different consoles, we centralized everything."
"The major features of this product are the reporting tools. The most valuable features are package deployment and application deployment. Security management is also good because any vulnerability will be identified, and you can fix it. It's the best tool because you never know what kind of client you will have. For example, you may have your offices in low bandwidth remote areas. But it's achievable because it accommodates the bandwidth that you have available. Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is an excellent reporting tool for your environment. If you want to know the details about the hardware configuration, software configuration, what is causing a problem, or when a new feature update comes in for Windows, even that goes on SCCM itself. A lot of deployment stuff."
"I like its ease of use. It does what you need it to do, and it's a one-stop-shop for the company and for all your deployments. If you incorporate Intune into it, you can have both. You can bring your own devices and corporate devices, and everything runs out of SCCM and Intune."
"Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is valuable in keeping our systems updated. We are able to send updates to all the systems. Additionally, the Intune integration is helpful."
"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."
"KACE automatically tracks this information and saves it for me, allowing me to call it up on the dashboard. For example, if I need to find Juliano's computer in the system, I don't need to search through endless spreadsheets. I just search for "Juliano" in KACE. KACE also lists other details like the last login user."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to have an overview of all devices that are accessing our environment."
"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."
"There is one place for a lot of different things. If somebody has a problem with their computer, they will put in a ticket. From there, we will know who it is and the assets assigned to them, because there is one place to go look for what we are talking about and with whom we are talking. Just having one place for everything is really convenient. For example, we are able to deploy software to hundreds of computers. We don't need to go to each individual device."
"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."
"This product made the job easy to do without having to go put hands on the machines."
"The Systems Deployment Appliance is magical when it comes to automating deployment... Not only can we have multiple images, specific to end-users' uses, but we have a plethora of post-installation tasks to install or configure the system, tasks that can be re-used for each system. You just have one basic base image, and then you use the post-install tasks to customize everything else. It is amazing."
"The installation is very easy. However, to be able to configure it you will need special knowledge, such as training or self-studies to have a proper level of security. There are many settings one has to understand before being able to implement Microsoft Intune."
"Regarding mobile devices, Intune is good, but there are other services that I would say are ahead of Intune from an administration and reporting point of view."
"The documentation about the custom image setup could be better. Although Microsoft provides the steps to configure Intune or set up or deploy Intune, it doesn't have much information related to custom images. If you ask, "how can we deploy the custom image?" There is no information. The steps they mention ask you to connect to your on-premises environment or create your own image on the cloud itself once there is connectivity. But I needed to go to multiple websites to get all this information. I had to figure out how to upload the custom image if you want to use the on-premise custom image for Cloud PC. If you have the proper subscription, you must have the right access, like global admin or owner. Then you can add your custom image to that. There are no steps mentioned over there. Microsoft Intune doesn't have Chrome browser support. I would like to have that support because they will want it if we pitch the product to clients."
"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."
"The initial setup is a little bit complex."
"It would be better if I could integrate it with my core group policy. I would like to have a group policy in my current environment, which has strict control, but those things are still missing. Although it has maximum compliance and security, it's not available on-premise."
"Could benefit from user having more control over devices."
"It should be simplified. I've worked with many different mobile device management solutions, and Intune is one of the more complex ones. It could be more simplified, and some of it is related to the wording that is being used, such as a configuration profile versus a policy. They really should have had different names to make it less confusing."
"Microsoft should extend support for additional platforms."
"The availability of technical support could improve."
"The tool's deployment is difficult. Microsoft needs to improve documentation with videos."
"The ability to integrate MDM would be great."
"There should probably be better remote support. They should also continue to improve on patch management, patching, and creating or turning products in software into deployable apps."
"Based on my experience with SCCM 2016, the main, big issue is not having a good user-friendly environment. It needs much better GUI."
"SCCM does not scale well, which is one of the reasons we are not going to continue to use it."
"It would be of benefit if Configuration Manager could be connected/integrated with multiple Microsoft Intune subscriptions rather than just one (the current limit)."
"It could be designed a little bit more intuitively in terms of administration."
"It took a little bit of time to figure out how to use the KACE Service Desk. I like the way that I'm able to customize it. But when it comes to how our techs are able to use it, it's not as functional as our current solution, which is BMC FootPrints Service Desk."
"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."
"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."
"The customization of the interface needs improvement for things like end user tickets. While the functionality is good, some of that UI stuff does need improvement."
"Its dashboard needs improvement. Currently, there is no way to modify the dashboard. There should be more flexibility so that we can create views according to our use case."
"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."
"The problem is that it's harder to directly emulate a lot of the stuff that the group policies do, using the KACE solution. With regular group policies, you just specify the various settings you want to change on the workstations, and then you specify the workstations and—while it's kind of an ugly mess—it does it. Whereas on KACE, you really have to know what you're doing with scripting to effectively script those exact same changes."
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Microsoft Configuration Manager is ranked 2nd in Configuration Management with 78 reviews while Quest KACE Systems Management is ranked 9th in Configuration Management with 38 reviews. Microsoft Configuration Manager is rated 8.2, while Quest KACE Systems Management is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Microsoft Configuration Manager writes "Affordable, easy to use, and easy to understand". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Quest KACE Systems Management writes "Easy to use, saves us time, and increases IT productivity". Microsoft Configuration Manager is most compared with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, ManageEngine Endpoint Central, BigFix, Tanium and ServiceNow Discovery, whereas Quest KACE Systems Management is most compared with Microsoft Windows Server Update Services, BigFix, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Automox and ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus. See our Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Quest KACE Systems Management report.
See our list of best Configuration Management vendors and best Patch Management vendors.
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