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BigFix vs KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 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

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
308
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
BigFix
Ranking in Configuration Management
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (35th), Patch Management (6th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (9th)
KACE Systems Deployment App...
Ranking in Configuration Management
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 8.2%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 7.0%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Intune8.2%
BigFix7.0%
KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA)0.7%
Other84.1%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
JC
Technical Director at SYSTEX
Comprehensive client management and software distribution made efficient
Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution to clients if there are too many. Building a management console is quick and simple, taking only one to two hours for setup. However, a demo or trial may take over a week or two for completion.
MH
Server Administrator III at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
User interface and deployment efficiency save time and reduce staff needs
The best features KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) offers include the ease of operation and the ability to create images for deployment. When I say ease of operation, the user interface is easy to create the images, and the people deploying do not have to have access to the appliance in order to deploy images. KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) has positively impacted our organization by allowing us to keep labs with over 300 machines all up to the exact same image for every semester. This has saved our team hundreds of man hours and reduced it down to just a few people doing the deployment compared to how things were done before SDA.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Compliance and the policies that can be set are the most valuable features."
"The system itself is great."
"Intune's most valuable feature is its centralized management capability."
"Microsoft's cloud comes with a lot of extra features that are free of charge."
"The performance of Microsoft Intune is good."
"The mobile device management is very useful."
"Once it is well integrated with the rest of the environment, it makes everything easy."
"Mobile device management is most valuable."
"It's good for reporting hardware and software."
"The most valuable and essential features of BigFix are all of them, they are needed when serving the purpose of the desktop operation framework. We cannot run operations without patching or without having an appropriate mechanism for deploying software, et cetera. The features all serve their purpose for our use case."
"Almost every feature is wonderful in BigFix. It is very stable, and we can rely on it. It is an awesome tool."
"It has improved reliability upon delivery of software and has also helped reduce software expenses. The extensibility of BigFix helps to create custom solutions where we may have considered purchasing something instead."
"Patch management, because it very much improved the patch compliance and has the capability to manage Windows and non-Windows clients."
"Being able to intelligently create reports, gather data, export CSVs and give that to the leadership of some of the client groups that my team supports has helped my organization."
"BigFix has always been easier to use when managing servers, especially when you deal with so many servers. We have 7,000. That's a lot of services to manage, and it's convenient to patch them all at once."
"I would advise someone considering this product to go for it. It's easy to use, cheaper than the value, and there is tons and tons of support from the BigFix community. With almost every challenge we have someone who has encountered it, and you will have a solution right away."
"KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) has positively impacted our organization by allowing us to keep labs with over 300 machines all up to the exact same image for every semester, saving our team hundreds of man hours and reducing it down to just a few people doing the deployment compared to how things were done before SDA."
"Its ticketing is pretty good."
 

Cons

"It would be beneficial to have a more straightforward understanding of Intune's capabilities, presented in a simplified manner."
"I assess the stability of the product as low. I have faced downtime crashes and performance issues with Microsoft Intune."
"There is improvement needed in integrating with the installed Office solutions versions, such as Office 2019. The Office 365 integrates without a problem."
"We would like to see support for Chrome and/or devices for Chromebooks."
"Sometimes, updating a client policy is very difficult. This needs to be improved."
"Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect."
"There can be delays in the deployment of new policies."
"An issue we have run into with Microsoft Endpoint Manager is that we cannot patch third-party products like Adobe and Chrome with it."
"BigFix should improve its compatibility with other platforms, such as Linux."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"While performing integration, we face many issues with IBM solution. We need detailed information about those issues that can help users to mitigate them."
"The product is quite buggy and complicated to use."
"I would like the dashboard to be improved to show the problematic machines and good machines."
"I would like to see SDK for Web UI included in the next release."
"I'd like to see better API integration with BigFix. We have some tremendous API capability inside of CyFIR and the ability to take textual search results, for example, and bring that back into the BigFix dashboard. This would be of extreme interest to us and our customers."
"The self-service application seems to need some work to replace the client UI. There are a lot of pop-ups if you use a baseline as the object that you're setting to a workstation. Unless you're using web UI, the message is not customizable in the user notification."
"I have heard feedback that the imaging is slow. It takes somewhere around an hour to image one PC."
"KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) works well, but it would be nice if it were org based like the SMA, allowing one SDA to service several different departments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for Intune and the competitor products are all within the same range, there is no true advantage when it comes to cost."
"The cost is somewhat on the higher side, particularly when considering certain price points, especially in markets like India."
"The licensing costs we leave up to the customer and these vary from one to another."
"Microsoft licenses are costly."
"Microsoft Intune has been incorporated into our Microsoft E5 licenses."
"Intune is included in the Microsoft 365 licensing package that we have."
"On a scale of one to ten with one being the cheapest, the cost of Microsoft Intune is a five."
"Its pricing seems reasonable."
"The product is less costly when compared to other solutions, and this is a good solid solution for what we have paid."
"I can estimate the reduced cost of servers maintenance to approximatively $500,000."
"You get what we call the Platform Edition, which you get for free. The patch service is maybe $0.50 per workstation per month. Then there's the basic server cost, which is about $1.50 per server per month. You also get into Lifecycle which does power management, OSD remote control, and those types of things, and that might be about 10 times the price - which works out to about $13 per server and, maybe $5 per workstation per month."
"So, the pricing is slightly more expensive than the others. I have to keep buying licenses every time I add a new device."
"I would stay with the Managed Virtual Server license model, which is a 1-to-1 license per OS whether it is virtual or physical."
"There's not much big cost. We only have to pay the agents' cost for the server, and for the systems."
"The price of BigFix could be lower. However, I am always seeking a lower price."
"The cost is slightly high."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business119
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise153
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise66
No data available
 

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 ...
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...
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 ...
What do you like most about BigFix?
The most valuable features of the solution are Windows patching and the hardware and software inventory.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigFix?
The pricing is pretty good and now follows a subscription model similar to other major software solutions, making it ...
What needs improvement with BigFix?
The reporting still needs improvement since customers want specific reporting, such as N-1 month patching reports. In...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kace Systems Deployment Appliance?
The pricing for KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) is straightforward, and the setup was easy.
What needs improvement with Kace Systems Deployment Appliance?
KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) works well, but it would be nice if it were org based like the SMA, allowing ...
What is your primary use case for Kace Systems Deployment Appliance?
Our main use case for KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) is to deploy workstations as well as lab machines. We u...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
US Foods, Penn State, St Vincent's Health US Foods, Sabadell Bank, SunTrust, Australia Sydney, Stemac, Capgemini, WNS Global Services, Jebsen & Jessen, CenterBeam, Strauss, Christian Hospital Centre, Brit Insurance, Career Education Corporation
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.