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ConnectWise RMM vs Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

ConnectWise RMM
Ranking in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Quest KACE Systems Manageme...
Ranking in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
15th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (6th), Endpoint Compliance (7th), Patch Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) category, the mindshare of ConnectWise RMM is 6.1%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
 

Featured Reviews

JonMcWilliams - PeerSpot reviewer
An agent-based solution that monitors and manages various networks but lacks support
Once you've established the client in the RMM tool, you create the site. Setting up the site can be a bit onerous because of the recent changes, which we need to learn. However, once it's set up, deploying the agent is extremely simple and straightforward. It's as easy as using a URL that people can visit, which will automatically determine the environment and download the necessary components. The initial setup can be somewhat challenging. If it's a new site, it'll probably take me about an hour to set it up. It's a matter of getting familiar with the process. As far as deploying the agents to the individual endpoints is concerned, that's literally minutes. Customers can do that themselves. A few of us can do set up the initial site. Anyone can handle the agents deployment. In our case, it's quite doable even by sending the URL to the customer.
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 user interface is the first valuable feature. The integration is the second valuable feature. The integration that you are doing with the products needs to be very certain. There shouldn't be any glitches. There are different software out there that will give you an option called scripting and ask you to do a hundred different things to set up a script for a particular customer. With Continuum, everything is done a single way. You just select the clients, script, and machine, and then you just go and deploy. The best part of Continuum is that it is not just a software company. It is a pure services company. It is an RMM software; it isn't used as a PSA. The software is just a part of the service offering. This is the difference between all other service providers out there and Continuum. Continuum is basically providing services. Continuum doesn't sell the software."
"The most valuable features are RMM and patch management. However, the main reason we have been using this solution is that they are the only provider of RMM that has an outsourced NOC and help desk. This has been very useful."
"It enables us to respond to issues quickly and efficiently."
"The most valuable feature is the patching solution."
"The service desk can be configured and customized to better serve our environment."
"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 information available via KACE is up to date, critical to our normal operations, and has become the go-to tool of our IT teams for extended support."
"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."
"The initial setup is relatively easy."
"KACE has made our life much easier since we got off the Microsoft solution. The Microsoft solution was a lot harder to image over different ports and stuff. They would only have this one place where we could do all the imaging. Now, we have a whole building where we can image from. This means that we can image from our storage area, where we have a place to do our imaging. We can also image right at our desks, which is a lot easier."
"With KACE, we were able to have a simplification of the software deployment management with more granularity and flexibility."
"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."
 

Cons

"It's a legacy tool with many outdated approaches. It is managed offshore which affects everyone because it seems the developers don't fully understand our needs."
"They can include support for vaulting, where you can actually document the entire infrastructure, including servers, desktops, networks, passwords, maps, diagrams, and customer information. Continuum has integrated everything, and you have to use a PSA. Continuum has a ticketing system and an RMM. They could integrate the functionality for IT documentation. An MSP would want everything into one tool."
"The solution could improve by offering better overall management and dashboards."
"If a computer hasn't been turned on for a long time and the client software is installed, it may not reconnect to the dashboard once it's powered up."
"I would like to see the incorporation of the dashboards for other products that they work with into the main dashboard."
"The GUI needs some work. I love all that it can do, however, it can be just be so cluttered at times."
"The K1000 doesn't communicate well with some clients without SMB. There are some issues with getting things to image correctly because they rely on SMB, and SMB is a protocol that is being removed due to security reasons. Organizations are trying to rely less and less on SMB. I know Quest is aware of it. They've talked about having a new version that wouldn't rely on SMB for connection to the clients, but they haven't gotten there yet."
"The software asset management functionality is an area that needs to be improved. It could be more automated because when connections need to be made, such as when I connected Adobe and my malware removed, the process was pretty much manual."
"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."
"They could make the booting solution easier for different things, e.g., easier to insert drivers. They could make it easier to create a new image and put it onto the server. Those would be some nice solutions. They could make it so that somebody who has no knowledge at all can do it. That would be really nice. Because every time, until I get it memorized, I still need to go back to the training, the manual, or Google it to figure it out again. If they would make it a lot easier, to where a nine-year-old could do it, that would be really cool. If they made it easier, I could have more people managing the images on the server, instead of just one or two people."
"I still need better communication about which processes are really due and which processes are currently being processed. According to the initial setup service provider, there is still no real management or overview on KACE where you can really see 100 percent of what is going on as well as what is going to be processed next and whether I can influence the overall process. It could really help me if I knew, e.g. exactly in 10 minutes my colleague will be supplied with this or that software. I haven't found this yet. If they could add this, that would be cool. It is still missing and I haven't yet found something like this."
"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."
"Its dashboard needs improvement. Currently, there is no way to modify the dashboard. There should be more flexibility so that we can create views according to our use case."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a pay-as-you-go model. They don't have any minimum, maximum, or such sorts of commitments with any of their partners or customers. I don't believe they have any restrictions about using a specific number of agents. You don't have to use 100 agents or 200 agents to work with this. They have a lock-in period of three months, during which you cannot switch a service plan, which is fine."
"Continuum Command price is more expensive than competitors, it is three times the price of the next lowest and costs approximately $25 an endpoint. However, when you take that into account you receive the help desk and outsource NOC included it has a lot more value because competitors do not provide the outsourced NOC and help desk."
"The licensing works such that the more you add, the more it costs, but for the most part, the price starts at about $5 USD per client."
"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."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The pricing and licensing are good. It's worth it."
"We are also saving on the licensing fee, compared to other endpoint management solutions."
"We buy consulting fees from Software Factory, then we pay extra for it."
"Based on other solutions that we had implemented, its pricing seems to be quite competitive. It is not inexpensive, but it is also not more expensive than any other solution. They have the standard licensing fees and support fees."
"It was a very attractive price. This is a huge feature of this product. If you would "credit score" this product versus others out there on the market, this one has a very attractive price."
"We pay annually for technical support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Wholesaler/Distributor
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Continuum Command?
There are different subscriptions available for ConnectWise RMM that you can choose from. Essentially, our endpoint costs around two dollars and fifty cents per endpoint per month. If we opt for a ...
What needs improvement with Continuum Command?
If a computer hasn't been turned on for a long time and the client software is installed, it may not reconnect to the dashboard once it's powered up. In such cases, you might need to uninstall and ...
What is your primary use case for Continuum Command?
It enables us to respond to issues quickly and efficiently. Before using this technology, a customer would call our shop and have to wait for someone to be scheduled to address their issue. When we...
What do you like most about Quest KACE Systems Management?
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 to...
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.
 

Also Known As

Continuum Command, Continuum RMM
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Frontier Business Products, Itek Systems Management, ZLan, Karpel, MySherpa, Arvig, CCSI, Leap Managed IT, eProsper, Pensar, Gordon Flesch, LeadingEdge, NSI, Server Sentry, Computer Consultants, Keystone IT Consulting, Ekaru, Epic Technologies, Rouse Consulting, Empower Information Systems, Computer Solutions Group, The Critical Update, Voice Smart Networks, CMIT Solutions, Preferred Communication Systems, G2 Tech Group, Pulse Business Solutions, Greystone Technology Group, Clare Computer Solutions, Evolve IT Australia
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about ConnectWise RMM vs. Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.