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CloudBees vs 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
CloudBees enhances DevOps processes with significant ROI through automation, support, and reduced manual efforts, outweighing its costs.
Sentiment score
7.3
KACE SMA increases efficiency and productivity, offering rapid ROI by streamlining operations and reducing time, costs, and staffing needs.
The return on investment is seen in the quick access to information, good inventory management, and efficient systems management.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
CloudBees support is responsive and efficient, though some encounter plugin issues and delays; CloudBees University aids with technical help.
Sentiment score
6.6
KACE SMA support is praised for its expertise and 24/7 availability, with occasional room for flexibility improvement.
I would rate the customer support for Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) as a 10.
The customer service is very good, providing quick customer support in Spanish.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
CloudBees is praised for its scalability, flexibility, and efficient scaling across diverse infrastructures, despite some concerns about resource consumption.
Sentiment score
7.2
KACE Systems Management Appliance efficiently supports various organization sizes, excelling in integration, scalability, and comprehensive network management.
We have outgrown the size of one KACE appliance and are now running two.
The product is very scalable as it supports 10,000 thousand endpoints with just one appliance.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
CloudBees is stable overall but has upgrade and performance challenges, needing careful configuration and technical support.
Sentiment score
8.1
KACE Systems Management Appliance is praised for its stability, reliability, and efficient performance, with swift recovery during incidents.
 

Room For Improvement

CloudBees faces challenges with user interface, performance, and compatibility, needing improvements in GUI, AI integration, and pipeline management.
KACE Systems Management Appliance struggles with scalability, usability, customization, integration, image deployment, and technical support responsiveness.
Currently, we have to go into each org to deploy applications when we need them all across the university.
The user interface needs improvement as customers have mentioned they do not like the interface since it is not an SMA-based interface.
 

Setup Cost

CloudBees is seen as expensive but offers value through extensive features, with costs often handled by dedicated teams.
KACE Systems Management Appliance offers cost-effective enterprise solutions, although potentially expensive for small businesses, with no additional feature costs.
The pricing is in the middle range of the market, not too expensive but not the cheapest either.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is that, hands down, it beat all of the others in simplicity and pricing.
 

Valuable Features

CloudBees provides scalable, secure CI/CD processes with seamless integrations and automation, favored for its flexibility and extensive support.
KACE SMA offers integrated, centralized IT management for efficient software deployment, asset management, and security with customizable inventories.
Scripting has saved us hundreds of hours over the years when patching these vulnerabilities compared to how we did it before.
The most valuable features include simplicity, which makes systems management easier and faster, especially for device management.
 

Categories and Ranking

CloudBees
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (6th), Configuration Management (11th), Value Stream Management Software (2nd), DevSecOps (4th)
KACE Systems Management App...
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (3rd), Endpoint Compliance (8th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (12th), Patch Management (10th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Lifecycle Management solutions, they serve different purposes. CloudBees is designed for DevSecOps and holds a mindshare of 2.7%, up 0.3% compared to last year.
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), on the other hand, focuses on Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), holds 1.0% mindshare, up 0.8% since last year.
DevSecOps Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
CloudBees2.7%
Snyk23.5%
Checkmarx One15.5%
Other58.3%
DevSecOps
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)1.0%
Kaseya VSA18.2%
NinjaOne13.7%
Other67.1%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
 

Featured Reviews

YashBrahmani - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a clear visualization and overview of workflows and helpful in managing CI/CD processes
Improvement in the sense that they can do better in terms of management of logs and stuff like that because the console logs are very extensive, and that causes a lot of storage issues. That is one of the things which is there. Also, with respect to the traditional platform and the modern platform, many things have upgraded, and it has quite improved. But when we talk about the performance of the agents, it’s still very crucial because it’s not up to par. It takes a lot of time to provision the agent and to finish the build because of the SSH connection and the JNLP connection. Due to that, sometimes the agent doesn’t get provisioned. Those are some of the blockers that meet up the time in terms of administering the instance.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Legal Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
12%
Government
10%
Non Profit
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with CloudBees?
There are connection issues with CloudBees, specifically between Sybase and CloudBees. We often encounter connection problems, and there are issues with the pipelines.
What is your primary use case for CloudBees?
We use CloudBees for deploying the code in higher environments, such as QA, C2, staging, and production.
What advice do you have for others considering CloudBees?
I would recommend CloudBees to others because building jobs is much easier than with other solutions.
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, hands down, it beat all of the others in simplicity and pricing.
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 have to go into each org to deploy applications when we need them all across the...
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, and we use it day-to-day to handle those tasks. With Quest KACE Systems Managemen...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Capital One, PEGA, vistaprint, HSBC, BOSCH, Starbucks Coffee
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about CloudBees vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.