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ESET Cloud Apps Protection 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

ESET Cloud Apps Protection
Ranking in Patch Management
24th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (29th), Vulnerability Management (40th)
Quest KACE Systems Manageme...
Ranking in Patch Management
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
39
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 ESET Cloud Apps Protection is 0.3%, up from 0.1% 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

LA
Great protection, good privacy, and helpful support
The only thing I would like is a way to open the email that is going to quarantine. Based on the level of security, they cannot open the email to check the message. Even for the administrator, you have to create a security copy to be sent, which will lock the log support. It's not easy for an admin to check and decide if the email is good or not. That is the only thing that I'm seeing could be improved. Basically, ESET doesn't have the ability to let the administrator release an email showing the message on the email. It's not possible. If you want to have an email review, you have to select an option to send a copy. In the way that they designed the system, for security, they are not letting anyone even have the admin privileges to make this happen. Privacy is at a really high level.
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 most valuable features are the precision of detection and the level of customization of the policy."
"We are close to having 99% or 98% detection."
"It is excellent in terms of updating and configuring everything the way we need. For anything more complex, we do professional service engagements, and they're exceptional. For anything less complex, we just need to ask questions. Their support division is extremely good too."
"Asset management is most valuable. It is essential for all customers. The other features are also useful, but asset management is most important."
"Pretty much all of the features are valuable. The inventory is very helpful to be able to keep track of our devices. The deployments make it easy to deploy new software packages or upgrade packages. The help desk is also a great tool for tracking problems and problem tickets."
"KACE’s knowledge-based articles are very good."
"The ability to build scripts right on the deployment center itself, as well as building groups that take those scripts/task chains has been absolutely invaluable and one of the most important parts of my whole environment."
"Patching is definitely the most valuable feature. It gives us good, centralized software, which comes in very handy since we are doing 400 servers at a time. It enables us to manage all the servers, and to deal with the application team regarding reboots and scheduling."
"This solution makes it easy to control assets and upgrade all types of software."
"The scripting part increases IT productivity because of the specialized software in our environments for students' courses. You need to use software which is not programmed by developers. A lot of software for building houses or other things is developed by normal guys, who do not have much skill in programming. When you need to install this type of software, it is very difficult. You have to install registry keys, etc. For that, it is very good to use the scripting part of this solution. So, you can automate this part as well."
 

Cons

"It's not easy for an admin to check and decide if the email is good or not."
"The specific domain file for Apache needs to be well-defined."
"It is a little bit difficult to use the license compliances because you need to decide when you are using the software catalog if you are using it with their license compliance or the normal software part. Under the inventory, you can use software as a menu link or software catalog. Most of my specialist software is not in the software catalog. When I try to import them, in my license compliances overview, there are cryptic names for this software that I have to import. That is not very good for the reports that I use. When I take them to my bosses, they see cryptic names of software that they don't understand. It would be much better for me if I could use software and the software catalog as well for the license compliances."
"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."
"There is always room for improvement. However, the system does most of what we need at this moment."
"Sometimes the information is not as real time as it's supposed to be."
"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."
"The customization of the interface needs improvement for things like end user tickets. While the functionality is good, some of that UI stuff does need improvement."
"One of the complications is that they don't have 24/7 support, and they're also not in our time zone... Sometimes, no matter how critical my application is, if my production server is down I won't be able to connect with anybody till 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time."
"What could be improved is the possibility to use replicas in a secure way outside our network in order to maintain the machines that never connect to our corporate network."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution provides affordable pricing for medium sized industries."
"The cost of KACE has been relatively low compared to other systems. Even if those systems have the same cost, they do not do as much of the third-party patching that KACE natively does."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The pricing is fair."
"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."
"We pay annually for technical support."
"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."
"Licensing is done on a per device basis, so it's dependent on how many agents you've got installed."
"n terms of pricing and licensing, my advice is that you need to assess what you need and then look at what they offer. It's easy to get caught up in the things that you want, but don't really need."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Media Company
7%
Wholesaler/Distributor
6%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ESET Mail Security?
The most valuable features are the precision of detection and the level of customization of the policy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ESET Mail Security?
The solution provides affordable pricing for medium sized industries.
What needs improvement with ESET Mail Security?
The specific domain file for Apache needs to be well-defined.
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

ESET Mail Security
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 ESET Cloud Apps Protection vs. Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.