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Automox vs Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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

Automox
Ranking in Patch Management
18th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (50th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (60th), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (20th)
Quest KACE Systems Manageme...
Ranking in Patch Management
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (12th), Endpoint Compliance (8th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (17th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of Automox is 3.3%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 5.0%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management
 

Featured Reviews

Jack Leung - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use and deploy agents but needs more stability
We just need to deploy the agent to the endpoints. We don't need to set up anything. For a single agent, it takes one or two minutes. However, we deployed globally, and you need to take into consideration the time it will take to deploy across each endpoint. It's very simple to deploy. We had three or four engineers take care of the implementation.
Scott Tweed - PeerSpot reviewer
Low maintenance, reliable, and easy to create packages
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. The deployment process for both deploying and creating a package is straightforward. I believe the inventory in KACE is superior to SCCM's. I know with SCCM I could do things like remote console into machines via the agent's remote console, but that is not a feature that is provided in KACE. I know that at least in the Systems Management Appliance, I can't get to it. I'm not sure how distribution works, with distribution points. I'm not sure if KACE has that feature. You could use an SCCM to set up distribution points at remote sites so that they don't have to download patches or software from across the country. If you have a DP or something similar, they could pull it down.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The biggest improvement to our organization involves the reduction in its man hours... We've probably saved hundreds of hours."
"The fact that it's just one product that can patch multiple operating systems is really great."
"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."
"Previously, we would run a report, scan it, and compare it. We were spending 15 to 30 minutes a month on each machine on this stuff because you would find stuff that wasn't up to date, then you had to fix it. This solution takes that time down to minutes. Automox saves us easily many hours a month."
"Its flexibility is most valuable."
"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."
"It's easy to deploy agents to endpoints."
"It's super easy to use and we haven't found anything easier."
"Using this solution saves us lots of time, especially when it comes to performing updates."
"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."
"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."
"KACE’s knowledge-based articles are very good."
"When vulnerabilities are exploited so much, it is nice to be able to quickly detect or deploy what is needed within our off-work hours or during work hours without a reboot."
"Asset management is most valuable. It is essential for all customers. The other features are also useful, but asset management is most important."
"I can reach people now that I couldn't have reached previously. We are saving about 25 percent in time."
"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."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"They need to improve the automation features."
"Asset management would be a great feature to add to Automox. We would run easier scripts or more out of the box scripts that would help us in audits. \"
"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."
"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."
"My biggest complaint is that almost every time they send out a new version, it fixes something and breaks another. Something that wasn't working in the last version now works, but something else stops; or they'll remove some dashboard that I really found to be nice and replace it with something totally different that I could care less about."
"I would like them to implement VBScript language in KACE Systems Management. Currently, we can only use PowerShell."
"Imaging becomes a problem when you start to try to go beyond doing more than thirty or forty machines at a time. We initially tried to do that virtually and it just, it wouldn't work."
"Scalability is my primary concern right now."
"The only hiccups we had were some power issues, where the box was a little under-powered early on."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no additional costs in addition to the extended licensing fees with Automox. You get your support and your per endpoint license with what you purchased."
"We're doing it annually directly through Automox. It is per endpoint. It is $2 and some change per endpoint, but I believe the cost is right around $28,000. Everything is covered in this fee."
"Automox just charges us a set amount per user, per month, for using the product. That is very important to us. Because it's a cloud-native solution, you're saving on the cost of hosting an on-premises solution on your servers."
"For all these software tools, it is usually a subscription model. There is a monthly charge that we need to pass along to our clients because we are doing all this for their benefit. It is only a couple of bucks a month per computer, and that is a low enough price point where our clients, without exception, have accepted it, and said, "This is great. We will pay that. It sounds like a worthwhile thing.""
"We are on the premium licensing, which is the one that has the API capability that we use."
"The product is a great value."
"The pricing and licensing costs have been great for us... My advice to others who are evaluating or thinking of implementing Automox is to give it a shot. If a free trial is still available, definitely use it, because it makes life a lot easier."
"Its licensing for a year was nine grand. There was no additional fee."
"The pricing is great. It's billed annually and it's very reasonable."
"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."
"It may be more expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"We buy consulting fees from Software Factory, then we pay extra for it."
"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."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"We are also saving on the licensing fee, compared to other endpoint management solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest KACE Systems Management?
The pricing is in the middle range of the market, not too expensive but not the cheapest either.
What needs improvement with Quest KACE Systems Management?
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.
What is your primary use case for Quest KACE Systems Management?
The main use cases for Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance are touch management, software and hardware inventory, and software delivery.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about Automox vs. Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.