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Clarity CA vs ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

Client Desktop Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Clarity CA11.1%
ManageEngine Endpoint Central19.1%
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)12.5%
Other57.3%
Client Desktop Management
Client Desktop Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ManageEngine Endpoint Central19.1%
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)12.5%
Symantec Client Management Suite11.9%
Other56.5%
Client Desktop Management
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Configuration Manager4.0%
Zabbix13.4%
Checkmk6.6%
Other76.0%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

TN
Solution center consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Multipurpose and useful for managing projects and resources; easy to integrate with other systems, and has a knowledgeable technical support team
I support Clarity CA, but I'm on the administrator side rather than the end-user side. My company has a partnership with Clarity CA. Clarity CA is deployed on-premises in my company, but I have a customer who deployed the solution on the cloud. Deploying the solution requires two or three resources. For ongoing support, it depends on how many people use Clarity CA. A minimum of three or four resources would be enough to support the solution, particularly two LIFF developers and one administrator. My advice to people looking into implementing Clarity CA is to make sure there's a team who'll support it, otherwise, you have to look into a Broadcom partner that can provide you with a service support deal. This way, you don't have to deal with the many administrative and maintenance responsibilities that go with Clarity CA as that could be a hassle. You have to be ready by having a team who will support the solution. My rating for Clarity CA is nine out of ten. Its interface is getting better. It has everything you need in terms of program or project management. The solution works for any organization. It's stable, flexible, and has been around for a long time. You can do a lot with Clarity CA, and that gives you a little bit of power.
MS
Solutions Consultant at Team Computers
Experience improves with intuitive setup and comprehensive features but needs enhancements for Apple integration
From a ManageEngine perspective, there is room for improvement regarding the Platform SSO technology introduced by Apple, which allows you to integrate your hardware with your identity providers. It used to be only a few selected ones via OIDC protocols or some other protocols, which are not necessary anymore. If a customer is already using Microsoft 365, they can integrate with any MDM for Platform SSO, which essentially hardens their device identity with the person logging in for the first time. It also helps automate enrollment and provide a zero-touch experience. Currently, while some MDM tools InTune and Jamf support this feature, ManageEngine still does not fully support Platform SSO via Microsoft or Google. I have customers using ManageEngine who are looking forward to this solution, and if ManageEngine can provide it, it would enhance the overall product value. For enterprise users, the solution needs improvement. For SMB, it is straightforward; if it is a small company of 100 to 500 users, anything below 1,000, they do not have much of a compliance or security requirement—they just want to manage their devices and push applications. Simple tasks are easier to accomplish. However, when it comes to enterprise-grade deployment, many complex configurations need to be considered, such as Wi-Fi configurations, network configurations, VPN configurations, and advanced certification deployment, such as ACME certification deployment practice introduced by Apple. These are a few things that can be improved on that side, but from a basic user perspective, if someone is in the SMB market or a company just starting off pre-IPO, without going into compliance, they typically find Zoho and ManageEngine to fit their needs. For enterprise-grade deployments, it is more than enough for Windows, but for Apple, it is still in development and not up to the mark.
NS
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Centralized endpoint control has streamlined deployments and improved security compliance
In my experience, the best features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are software deployments and updates, OSD, hardware and software inventory, compliance and configuration baseline, reporting and monitoring, and integration with Intune hybrid management. These features make endpoint management efficient and scalable. The feature I rely on the most day-to-day is software deployment and patch management. It keeps endpoints updated and secure with minimal manual effort. Inventory and compliance monitoring are also important, but daily deployments are critical. Microsoft Configuration Manager has had a significant positive impact on our organization in several ways: improved efficiency, enhanced security and compliance, standardization, scalability, and visibility reporting. Overall, Microsoft Configuration Manager has helped us save time, reduce risk, improve operational efficiency, and maintain strong control over our endpoints. One of the biggest impacts Microsoft Configuration Manager has had on efficiency is the reduced manual work for software deployment and patching. For example, deploying a new application or security updates to hundreds or thousands of devices previously required several days of manual effort, including running scripts, checking devices individually, and validating installation. With Microsoft Configuration Manager, these tasks are automated and managed, allowing deployments to complete in hours rather than days. We also have automated reporting for deployment success and compliance which saved the IT team significant time that used to be spent gathering and reconciling inventory data from multiple tools.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is also really easy to use; you just schedule a job and create a package of software, and everything just works."
"My organization has benefited from Clarity CA because everyone can do project staffing through it, people in the organization can staff projects by looking at the resources and skills before staffing, change requests can also be done in Clarity CA, and through it you can have an overall view of each project and how a project is doing, so it helped improve my organization."
"To me, the most valuable feature of Clarity CA is the timesheet. It's the only feature I use because I just support the tool, and I just enter time on it. Others use Clarity CA for other purposes, such as resource management, project management, scheduling, and financials. The tool also has a fairly simple integration with other systems, so at the moment, it's working fine. I also like that you can write your own code in Clarity CA, and you can make changes to it based on your needs."
"DC9 is a simple, cheap and complete software distribution tool, also to configure all necessary options to control all kinds of OS options on the workstations like in Microsoft Group Policy Editor."
"Has good functionality and is user-friendly."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"With all the alerting and everything else that you have to set up with it, it takes a minute to get it up and running and have everything the way you wanted."
"The reporting tool is very good."
"We have seen a lot of benefits in reporting, we are able to pull a lot of information."
"The solution is time-saving and resource-saving."
"The patch management aspect of the solution is the most valuable part for us."
"The scalability to deploy the package."
"I would tell potential users that for 15,000 or 30,000 machines, you must go with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager as it's the best tool."
"In general, I would recommend the solution to other organizations and companies."
"It gives us the ability to set up schedules, according to what our security requirements are, to automate the patching of our servers and desktops."
"Offers good patching."
"The patch management is great."
"It is a scalable product and we have 1,000 users in our organization with plans to continue using this solution."
"The product is suitable for our size, handling 800 devices."
 

Cons

"The software also has too many functions, so it would be good if the functions or features could be split up, rather than needing to buy the whole Clarity CA package, when you'll only use a few of its functions."
"Technical support is good, when they get back to you. I usually have to use Google, though, because sometimes we have to meet deadlines and don't have the time to wait for them to get back to us."
"What could be improved in Clarity CA is its UI, but I know the Clarity team is working on a new UI, so I'm expecting its UI to get better. The software also has too many functions, so it would be good if the functions or features could be split up, rather than needing to buy the whole Clarity CA package, when you'll only use a few of its functions. This increases the cost of the software, so that's another area for improvement. How Clarity CA is marketed could also be improved."
"Its licensing should be improved."
"ManageEngine Desktop Central is very limited."
"At one time, they delivered an agent that ate up your CPU and your memory."
"Management of Mac OS X, Linux OS, and encryption. We would like this to be on par with how Windows OS is managed."
"The reporting analytics could improve in ManageEngine Desktop Central. However, there are some third-party add-ins or modules you can purchase to do reporting analytics."
"The performance sometimes lags a bit because the solution is demanding on system resources."
"Desktop Central has very good information, however, you can't customize the dashboards."
"The only problem with it is that the setup isn't very intuitive. I know that they just upgraded the product to make it a little bit easier to use, but compared to some of the other platforms, it is not easy to configure it, set it up, and get it running. However, once you have set it up and got it running, it runs great."
"The main thing is that SCCM has to become an appliance instead of a server. When I say appliance, it has to come preconfigured so that it is drop-shipped into the enterprise and then you activate the feature sets that you want. It should pull down all the latest binaries. Once that is all there, it should have a discovery tool which goes out and discovers the assets within an enterprise. If the server, workstation, and applications are all coming from the same vendor, why not have the vendor do this work for us and automate it as much as it possibly can?"
"The TSM component could be improved."
"Its dashboard can be improved and made a little bit better."
"There are also some limitations of Intune, such as the inability to deploy operating systems the traditional way via task sequences, making it such that we have to use Autopilot to deploy operating systems."
"Our company would prefer not rebooting computers while people are using them. There seems to be no strategy behind it."
"In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long."
"It would be better if reporting were more user-friendly."
"This solution should be simpler, and more consistent across modules/sections."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's fairly expensive to use Clarity CA. There's a yearly license fee for the solution based on the users, and there's a one-time implementation fee as well."
"The price is moderate."
"There is a freeware version of the solution available as long as you do not breach the number of licenses and users that are dictated."
"The product is not expensive."
"The pricing is average."
"Choose wisely between the Professional and Enterprise editions, based on your needs."
"The licensing is very easy to understand and pricing is right for what you get."
"The pricing is very low, compared to other products. Compared to Intune or SCCM, it's much less. I can say it's a good product for less of a price."
"Compared to other products, ManageEngine Endpoint Central is a very cheap solution."
"Presently, I am using a free trial version."
"Pricing and licensing are horrible. You have to not look at dollar value to use SCCM. It's super-duper expensive but it works. The acquisition cost is expensive, it's labor-intensive. But it works."
"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."
"Overall, I think it's fine. It's pretty much in-line because there are ways to offset it with the Office 365 licensing."
"The price model is different for every client."
"Pricing is negotiable with Microsoft, depending upon which of their packages you choose."
"The solution is expensive. Microsoft Configuration Manager would likely be considered high-priced for small businesses because they may not fully utilize all of its features and capabilities."
"The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better. There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise35
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise66
 

Questions from the Community

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How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. Wh...
What do you like most about ManageEngine Endpoint Central?
Well, what we like is that it catch actually a lot of features constantly upgrading. So all the three maybe there the...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine Endpoint Central?
I would rate the pricing as seven; it is quite expensive from my point of view for ManageEngine Endpoint Central.
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...
What do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages effi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCCM?
The setup cost is considered sufficient. It is not significant enough for us to consider a change at the moment.
 

Also Known As

Client Automation, CA Client Manager, CA Client Automation
ManageEngine Desktop Central, Desktop Central, ManageEngine Desktop Management MSP
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

First Horizon National Corporation, Olympus, Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago LimitedŒ _Petrotrinî, Racing and Wagering Western Australia
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Strathallan School, BMI Healthcare, Comercial Kywi, First Priority Federal Credit Union, Gerab National Enterprises
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine, Broadcom, Quest Software and others in Client Desktop Management. Updated: March 2026.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.