We performed a comparison between Quest KACE Systems Management and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Configuration Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The security-related tools are excellent; these features allow us to secure devices, lock them down, and ensure compliance."
"It's easy to manage."
"It's not working perfectly, but Microsoft's Autopilot offers great visibility into automated deployment solutions."
"The solution appears to be stable and scalable."
"It's normally able to meet 100% expectations of our customers."
"There are so many features, but Windows Autopilot is one of the features that are very valuable for most customers."
"We have one MDM that works with Windows, iOS, and Android."
"I like that we can implement conditional access."
"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 solution provides us a single pane of glass with everything that we need for endpoint management of all devices. It definitely has made our endpoint management process much easier."
"This product made the job easy to do without having to go put hands on the machines."
"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."
"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 information available via KACE is up to date, critical to our normal operations, and has become the go-to tool of our IT teams for extended support."
"The ability to build scripts right on the deployment center itself, as well as building groups that take those scripts/task chains has been absolutely invaluable and one of the most important parts of my whole environment."
"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's perfect for network configuration management. It's easy to use."
"SolarWinds NCM provides updates on the status of your network infrastructure. If any issues arise, such as a link failure or a device going offline, you will receive notifications and alerts. Additionally, if someone unplugs a cable, SolarWinds NCM will detect it. It also features a Topology Mapper that displays the connectivity of your network devices, giving you a visual representation of the network's structure. With SolarWinds NCM, you have a clear understanding of what's happening within your network and can generate comprehensive reports."
"The features we find most valuable is the configuration backup automation, the configuration compliance, the security vulnerability detection and upgrading devices."
"It allows us to manage backups in big companies. It is also useful in managing the configuration changes."
"Its main functionality is highly beneficial as it centralizes the management of configuration items across the network."
"The most valuable features the solution offers are compliance, reliability, and information about reliability."
"The feature that I really enjoy is the ability to script changes across all of your devices."
"It is pretty straightforward to set up."
"The reporting could be improved, as it's pretty poor compared to other products of this type."
"The UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."
"Microsoft Intune needs to improve the initial login process."
"One area for improvement is app deployment. Another is the Windows update rollout. If you're rolling out an object to a device that's offline, Intune stops trying to reach this device after it sits idle for a bit. We are forced to find a workaround that could help manage that."
"There can be delays in the deployment of new policies."
"Microsoft needs to enhance device-level security, as sometimes when using Microsoft Intune, the device's operating system becomes stuck and requires a full uninstall to remove the Intune bug."
"I would like some integration with the Microsoft reporting platform Power BI."
"I have a lot of Apple products in my environment. It would be nice to have an improved integration of Apple products with Microsoft Intune without Jam."
"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."
"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 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 hiccups we had were some power issues, where the box was a little under-powered early on."
"There isn't a lot they need to improve with the solution itself at this point. It is pretty close to providing a single pane of glass for everything that we need for endpoint management specifically on all devices. There is very little that it doesn't provide for us, and for those, we have to go to other methods. 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. It doesn't do patching really well for non-Microsoft applications. The major application updates, particularly Windows updates, don't function nearly as well, but, for the vast majority of things, it does just fine. If they could improve in this aspect, that'd be great, but I don't know if they're going to be able to do that."
"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."
"The GUI needs some work. I love all that it can do, however, it can be just be so cluttered at times."
"The solution needs to have the ability to push out managed feature updates from Microsoft in a more seamless way."
"The third-party plugins available in the solution could improve. I have received some issues with the templates."
"Improvements are needed in the automatic network mapping function."
"The only thing that requires some experience, and training doesn't fix, is how to set up your custom policy-based reports to check compliance."
"The interface of solar winds could be improved."
"When it comes to the way of managing the network devices, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager should provide the simplest way that devices can relate to the server. For example, when we want to get the devices on board, we go by SSH to make the SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager create the connectivity with the device. After that, we pull the configuration. It would be helpful if they could combine both so that everything will be done in one step."
"The solution could have better integration."
"The network flow is a problem for this solution."
"Its look and feel can be improved. They can also put in more effort into building the THWACK community and use the information about various customer issues and requests to build the new releases."
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Quest KACE Systems Management is ranked 10th in Configuration Management with 38 reviews while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is ranked 11th in Configuration Management with 22 reviews. Quest KACE Systems Management is rated 8.8, while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Quest KACE Systems Management writes "Easy to use, saves us time, and increases IT productivity". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager writes "Streamlines network configuration and compliance processes through its centralized dashboard, although its compatibility with multi-vendor devices may present limitations". Quest KACE Systems Management is most compared with Microsoft Configuration Manager, Microsoft Windows Server Update Services, BigFix, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Automox, whereas SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, Cisco Prime, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, OpenText Network Node Manager i and VMware NSX. See our Quest KACE Systems Management vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager report.
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