We performed a comparison between Automox and Quest KACE Systems Management based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Patch Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The fact that it's just one product that can patch multiple operating systems is really great."
"The biggest improvement to our organization involves the reduction in its man hours... We've probably saved hundreds of hours."
"It's super easy to use and we haven't found anything easier."
"Coming from prior solutions that were a lot more effort, Automox's patch management abilities are transformational. When I took over patching at my company, they were using on-premise architecture to patch. As the workforce shifted from being in the office into their home offices, I was able to lift and shift with no effort other than deploying the new agent out into the environment."
"Among the most valuable features are its ease of use and the Worklets. Both of them are time-savers. Worklets enable us to customize things for a given environment. It's something like when Apple lets other people create applications. Other peoples' Worklets can be used in our environment and in our customers' environments. That saves a lot of time, and it's really cool."
"It's easy to deploy agents to endpoints."
"They've been adding some new features lately, which I'm not nearly as familiar with, but the ability to just deploy patches and exempt certain machines from certain patches is helpful. For instance, for our servers, we may not want to roll out zero-day patches. We are able to exempt those and make sure that they don't get those policies. We've got certain servers that have to run a particular version of Java, and being able to exempt those servers from receiving Java updates is pretty fantastic."
"The flexibility in creating tools to make changes on remote machines is most valuable to me. The reporting feature is also fantastic because on any given day I can bring up a list of machines that don't have patches, for example. Or I can bring up a list of machines that are in my environment on a certain day. The solution helps me with not only my own role, and what I look for internally myself, but it also helps during audits. I can go in and look at the number of machines in there, and their owners and timelines. It certainly helps tell a story for anything that IT requires."
"With KACE, we were able to have a simplification of the software deployment management with more granularity and flexibility."
"Using this solution saves us lots of time, especially when it comes to performing updates."
"The most valuable feature is the imaging of computers through the SDA... Being able to do that so quickly with the SDA, and to then use the SMA for reinstalling software, has been huge for our productivity."
"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."
"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."
"The scripting part increases IT productivity because of the specialized software in our environments for students' courses. You need to use software which is not programmed by developers. A lot of software for building houses or other things is developed by normal guys, who do not have much skill in programming. When you need to install this type of software, it is very difficult. You have to install registry keys, etc. For that, it is very good to use the scripting part of this solution. So, you can automate this part as well."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of KACE is the mass package deployment. There are a lot of endpoint management solutions in the market. The way KACE responds is with the installation management feature, which is done in a very intelligent way, as well as scripting. It's wow. It's really wow. On top of that, there is a mass undeployment feature as well."
"As concerns the patching concepts, there's a bit of a learning curve in terms of working out how Automox wants you to work within the console, not only splitting up everything into groups, but then having the various policies assigned."
"When we bring on a new client, we need to go into that client and manually set up my account, my chief engineer's account, three technicians' accounts, and a billing person's account all over again, which is annoying. We have probably up to 15 or 16 of our clients on Automox now. For every single one of those, we have had to go in and set this up. Then, if anything changes, we have to remember to go to Automox and change it 15 or 16 times. So, we just want inheritable permissions, and that is it. We have talked to them about this, and they are like, "Yeah, we hear a lot of complaints about it." I am thinking, "Guys, I have been complaining about this for a year and a half. When are you going to do it?" It must be some tricky thing or not an easy fix, because I can only assume if it were easy, then they would have done it by now."
"The only thing that we've ever truly wanted is an onsite repository. Currently, all updates are provided directly from the internet. So, if you have 1,000 devices, all 1,000 devices go directly out to the internet. We would love the option of being able to put the updates on local storage so that we're not consuming as much bandwidth. That is literally the only thing that we've ever wanted."
"We would like to see additional detailed reporting for Service providers like us. We had to build our own reports via their APIs to meet our needs."
"The biggest area they need to fix, without a doubt, is the ability to copy and sync profiles and worklets between all of the organizations you manage, and the ability to have top-level user access control across all of the companies that you manage."
"The stability has come a long way from what it was like when it started and now it's really good."
"There should be better inventory capabilities. Right now, they only allow you to have insight into software out-of-the-box. It would be nice to also extend that into custom inventory that can be modified and managed by the practitioner."
"It should have integrated workstation access. So, there should be a remote desktop feature."
"There is always room for improvement. However, the system does most of what we need at this moment."
"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've had some issues with patch catalogue."
"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."
"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."
"I would like them to implement VBScript language in KACE Systems Management. Currently, we can only use PowerShell."
"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."
"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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Automox is ranked 11th in Patch Management with 10 reviews while Quest KACE Systems Management is ranked 6th in Patch Management with 38 reviews. Automox is rated 8.8, while Quest KACE Systems Management is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Automox writes "Monitors our devices irrespective of the location and the environment, allows us to exempt certain machines from certain patches, and has perfect patch management abilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Quest KACE Systems Management writes "Easy to use, saves us time, and increases IT productivity". Automox is most compared with Microsoft Intune, BigFix, Microsoft Configuration Manager, NinjaOne and Microsoft Windows Server Update Services, whereas Quest KACE Systems Management is most compared with Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Configuration Manager, Microsoft Windows Server Update Services, BigFix and Ivanti Neurons Patch for Intune. See our Automox vs. Quest KACE Systems Management report.
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