Adaptiva vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) comparison

Adaptiva and Quest Software are both solutions in the Patch Management category. Adaptiva is ranked #26 with an average rating of 8.0, while Quest Software is ranked #9 with an average rating of 10.0. Additionally, 100% of Adaptiva users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

KACE Systems Management Appliance SMA and Adaptiva are competing products in IT systems management. KACE SMA appears favorable due to its pricing and support, while Adaptiva's advanced features justify its higher cost, offering a potential performance edge for large-scale deployments.

Features: KACE Systems Management Appliance SMA is known for strong asset management, patching capabilities, and remote administration tools. Adaptiva stands out with peer-to-peer content distribution optimizing network bandwidth, rapid deployment, and scalability, offering benefits for large-scale implementations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: KACE SMA offers straightforward deployment with comprehensive customer service support, ideal for smooth integration into existing systems. Adaptiva involves a more complex deployment model but effectively addresses enterprise-level needs with advanced support options, providing value for extensive infrastructure integration.

Pricing and ROI: KACE Systems Management Appliance SMA has a competitive setup cost, attracting budget-conscious organizations. Adaptiva, despite its higher initial investment, frequently achieves superior ROI through efficient bandwidth usage and scalability over time, appealing to those evaluating long-term returns.

To learn more, read our detailed Patch Management Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Patch Management

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 885,376 peers since 2012

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

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble

Sr MacOS specialist engineer at Cyber24

Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license

The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.

Read full review

Vikram

Works at Colgate-Palmolive

Really good in terms of content delivery and network bandwidth optimization

Using Adaptiva is really straightforward. Users need to have some end-user computing and networking knowledge to use the solution. The project or implementation team we worked with had good technical knowledge. I really liked the solution's performance. Adaptiva helped us with network bandwidth optimization and content delivery. Overall, I rate the solution eight and a half out of ten.

Read full review

AdityaJain

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It is a very stable and scalable cloud-only solution."

"The most valuable feature of Intune is the ability to reset a lost device and remove all the data."

"The best features in Microsoft Intune that I appreciate most are its centralized features."

"The one feature we find most useful is the Mobile Application Manager; we don't give our users phones, it is their own personal phone, and we need to allow them to have access to the company data on their phone while creating a balance between their own personal data and the company data so that we won't be able to interfere with their own personal data."

"I like the tool's integration with Apple. Anyone who creates an ID in Intune will get an Apple ID."

"Its protection policies are most valuable. It protects mobile devices as well as individual apps. It is pretty scalable, and its documentation is also pretty good. It is also pretty straightforward to deploy."

"When a user receives the machine, sets it up, and turns it on, it connects to the domain and begins installing software, becoming ready within approximately half an hour, which represents a significant time savings for IT departments."

"The most valuable feature is probably mobile device management. Small businesses are coming under greater scrutiny and requirements for compliance as time goes on. We don't have to worry about a VPN because we can manage these devices, control company data, and lock users out. If needed, we can remotely wipe devices and deadman-switch them."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"Adaptiva is really good in terms of content delivery and network bandwidth optimization."

"My company had bought some new machines. We used the tool to do some basic settings to ship every machine the same way and undertake the Windows deployment. We did the scripted installation. The tool helped us deploy custom software for specific departments. We also did Windows updates with the product."

"KACE has made our life much easier since we got off the Microsoft solution."

"When I need to upgrade or install specific software applications, they can be deployed en masse and over a short period of time, saving us a lot of time, which is the biggest help that KACE provides."

"The scripting is a very valuable feature, as it saves us time on pushing certain things out to the users, such as software and patches."

"Managing 3,000+ computers across our campus from one single solution has made our life (and work) so easy."

"KACE’s knowledge-based articles are very good."

"It paid for itself within the first month we had it, so the return on investment was incredible."

"I haven't come up against anything that I can't use it as a solution for, whether it's deploying imaging, managing, upgrading, or reporting."

More KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) pros

Cons

"Sometimes, the process is unsuccessful when we attempt to reset a device and wipe the data using Intune."

"Policy and app deployment should be faster, as it currently takes between minutes to hours to apply, with an average of one hour."

"There are items that require improvements. One is the controls from iOS."

"There should be more support for macOS. Even though macOS is supported by Intune and Microsoft is working very hard to get more features into Intune to manage macOS, that's one thing they can give a lot more attention to."

"While the ability to deploy applications at startup is reliable, the policy-based application deployment method has not reached the same level of consistency."

"The solution could improve by having better integration with Apple."

"Historically, Group Policy has simplified the management of various items, such as printer and drive mappings and while Intune offers workarounds, it lacks native support for these functionalities."

"Manually syncing devices to enforce policies is cumbersome."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"It would be good if Adaptiva had everything on the cloud rather than having one server on-premises."

"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."

"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."

"For the software deployment and scripting, it is more difficult. I only have experienced people on my team do that type of work."

"I've had some issues with patch catalogue."

"It is a little bit difficult to use the license compliances because you need to decide when you are using the software catalog if you are using it with their license compliance or the normal software part. Under the inventory, you can use software as a menu link or software catalog. Most of my specialist software is not in the software catalog. When I try to import them, in my license compliances overview, there are cryptic names for this software that I have to import. That is not very good for the reports that I use. When I take them to my bosses, they see cryptic names of software that they don't understand. It would be much better for me if I could use software and the software catalog as well for the license compliances."

"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."

More KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most of our clients come to us with licensing already in place. On average, it costs $6 per device per month to add Intune to an Office 365 subscription, but I am not sure."

"The Intune license model is costly."

"It is not a cheap solution. The price for a device when you start using it at a large scale can be improved. It is covered under our enterprise agreement. We pay once a year. I am not aware of any additional costs."

"Microsoft offers some licensing where it's included at no extra cost when customers are already using the licenses. In such a case, it's a really good value. If you have to buy the licensing for it, it's probably on par with other solutions. It isn't substantially more or less expensive. The great thing is that it is included in some of Microsoft's licensed packages. So, some customers don't have to spend additional money for it. Typically, most providers that support Intune do charge a management fee of some sort or some fee. Certainly, we're no exception."

"Its price is quite okay. I wish they provide certain additional features with the same license."

"It is reasonable. When you have Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 license, it is already licensed in that license. So, you could say it is free."

"It is reasonable for the features it has."

"I rate Intune an eight out of ten for affordability. It's bundled with the 365 licensing, which is competitive overall."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"The product is reasonably priced."

"We are a university. So, we have a very good price for the system. I think the price for the system is worth it because of the security patch management. The security patch management is very important for us. The price is very good for KACE SMA, the functionality you get, and the patch management."

"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."

"Its pricing model is good for what it offers. Nobody here gives me a hard time about renewing the contract every year. It might be a little cost prohibitive for a smaller company who has to stand up a virtual environment as well as have virtual environment licensing and the hardware. If you have a smaller environment, it might be cost prohibitive. If you only have a couple of hundred computers, you might be more willing to do those manually. In our environment, the cost savings of having KACE far outweigh the licensing costs. We are okay with its pricing model."

"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."

"Licensing is very straightforward. They don't overcomplicate it. This is not a Cisco product where you have to have 30 different licenses just to open the box. It's pretty much set-and-forget. You pay an annual license... The cost is in the mid to upper range, but the ROI exceeds the outside cost, especially once you've had the system for a while."

"We buy consulting fees from Software Factory, then we pay extra for it."

"The pricing and licensing are good. It's worth it."

More KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Patch Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

11%

University

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

University

11%

Non Profit

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	124
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	167

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?

Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Adaptiva?

Adaptiva is really good in terms of content delivery and network bandwidth optimization.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Adaptiva?

We had to install one server in our infrastructure at the data center. It would be good if Adaptiva had everything on...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Adaptiva?

We tested the solution's software delivery capability during POC and got good results. We tested it in collaboration ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest KACE Systems Management?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is that, hand...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Quest KACE Systems Management?

I wish Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) would have a top-down approach since we use orgs; currently, we ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Quest KACE Systems Management?

My main use case for Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is to deploy applications and maintain security, a...

See all answers

Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 10% of the time

IBM MaaS360 vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

Nexthink vs Adaptiva

Compared 27% of the time

Tanium vs Adaptiva

Compared 14% of the time

NinjaOne vs Adaptiva

Compared 10% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Adaptiva

Compared 9% of the time

BigFix vs Adaptiva

Compared 6% of the time

More Adaptiva Competitors

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Compared 13% of the time

Atera vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Compared 7% of the time

BigFix vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Compared 5% of the time

GFI LanGuard vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Compared 4% of the time

More KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

March 2026

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)

March 2026

Download Adaptiva product report

Buyer's Guide

KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

March 2026

KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) report

Download KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

No data available

Dell KACE Systems Management

Overview

Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based service designed for device management, security, and compliance. It supports automation and facilitates endpoint management for Windows, iOS, and Android devices, ensuring data protection and efficient policy enforcement.

Microsoft Intune offers seamless integration with tools like Windows Autopilot to automate device setup and deployment. Integrated with Azure Active Directory, it enhances policy management while providing robust reporting and analytics tools for compliance tracking. Despite its intuitive interface aimed at simplifying navigation and device security management, there are challenges such as compatibility issues with Linux and Mac, limited policy support for Android, and demands for better third-party integration. It's widely used for both corporate-owned devices and BYOD scenarios in dynamic IT environments.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Windows Autopilot: Automates device setup for rapid deployment.
Azure Active Directory Integration: Enhances user policy management.
Reporting and Analytics: Improves compliance visibility.
Mobile Application Management: Ensures app security without compromising personal data.
Cloud-Based Management: Allows management from any location.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Time Efficiency: Automation reduces time in policy enforcement and configuration updates.
Enhanced Security: Ensures data protection across corporate-owned and BYOD devices.
Improved Compliance: Advanced reporting tools enhance compliance visibility.
Flexible Management: Cloud-based nature supports management from any location.

In industries such as finance and healthcare, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure data protection and compliance with regulatory standards. Manufacturing sectors utilize Intune for managing a distributed workforce across global locations, while educational institutions employ it to secure and manage devices in learning environments supporting both students and faculty.

Microsoft

The Fastest, Most Scalable Endpoint Management and Security Platform in the World
On premises or via the cloud – manage your Windows endpoints no matter where they are. With solutions for Microsoft Configuration Manager, Microsoft Intune, and VMware Workspace ONE, Adaptiva solutions scale to hundreds of thousands of endpoints without impacting the network or business traffic.

Adaptiva

KACE Systems Management Appliance offers integration capabilities, efficient image deployment, and comprehensive asset management. It supports centralized management across diverse devices and locations, simplifying IT processes and enhancing security.

KACE Systems Management Appliance provides single-pane visibility for endpoint management, mass software deployment, automated patch management, robust scripting, and detailed inventory tracking. It streamlines IT management and improves cyber-security compliance through remote software updates and centralized IT request handling. Despite struggles with scalability and the need for interface improvements, it enables efficient device imaging, script automation, and network management through detailed reporting. Organizations find it effective for software deployment, asset management, and endpoint monitoring, serving thousands of IoT devices and desktops.

What are the key features of KACE Systems Management Appliance?

Integration capabilities: Seamlessly connects with existing IT systems.
Efficient image deployment: Facilitates quick and effective distribution of system images.
Comprehensive asset management: Provides detailed tracking and management of IT assets.
User-friendly helpdesk: Simplifies handling IT requests and issues.
Automated patch management: Ensures devices are up-to-date with security patches.
Robust scripting: Allows for automation of complex IT tasks.
Detailed inventory tracking: Maintains accurate records of all IT assets.

What benefits should users expect from KACE Systems Management Appliance?

Simplified IT processes: Centralized management enhances operational efficiency.
Improved security: Streamlines cyber-security compliance through automated updates.
Flexibility in customizations: Adapts to specific IT environment needs.
Increased productivity: Efficient ticketing and reporting ease organizational operations.
Remote software updates: Ensures all devices are current, reducing security risks.

In healthcare, KACE Systems Management Appliance is used for maintaining device compliance and security standards. Educational institutions benefit from its capabilities to manage large numbers of endpoints across campuses. In finance, it aids in strict compliance requirements through automated patch management and detailed reporting. Retail sectors leverage its asset management features to streamline operations across numerous locations.

Quest Software

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Information Not Available

Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King

Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys, Microsoft, Vicarius and others in Patch Management. Updated: March 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best Patch Management vendors and best Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) vendors.

We monitor all Patch Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.