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IBM MaaS360 vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 19, 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 Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
296
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (2nd), Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
IBM MaaS360
Ranking in Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (14th)
KACE Systems Management App...
Ranking in Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
8th
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)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 33.7%, down from 40.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MaaS360 is 5.9%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 1.8%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
 

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Bijay Kumar Swain - PeerSpot reviewer
Ability to segregate data, well-suited for medium enterprises and installation is quick
We have some challenges. If we look at the challenges we face in the market, there are a few products like Sophos, where there are features of MaaS360, and the IBM EDR product, ReaQta. So, there are features from both ReaQta and MaaS360 available in Sophos, as well as a few other products, which we have challenges in replacing. MaaS360 definitely caters to a few of the requirements, but when someone is going for a solution, all the features are not available in MaaS360. It is like a combo, MaaS360, and IBM ReaQta, that is, EDR, ReaQta. Both of them, together as a combo plan, actually offer a very good proposition in terms of market competitors. There are a few products like Sophos and another product which have features from both endpoint detection and response and mobile device management. Because we have two different products with those features, we face challenges in proposing a particular product for the client. It is like a marketing challenge. The way other competitor products are available in the market. So it is better to have a different positive team, but, again, to remain in competition and have better scalability. So, IBM needs to integrate a few features that the competitors have in their products. No doubt, this is a different product, MaaS360. We call it MDM. We call it endpoint mobile device management. Then we call it different names that MaaS360 falls into. But when we are talking about competitor products, to remain in the competition, you need to have features that others provide. IBM surely has those features in other products, but not in MaaS360. The only challenge was replacing already existing competitor products with MaaS360. So, that’s the only area where we struggle because they always come with those requirements that they are already getting in the competitor’s product, which is not available in IBM’s MaaS360. So this product lacks some features, like Unified Endpoint Management.
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

"Intune has significantly benefited our organization by providing comprehensive visibility into our device ecosystem."
"What I like most about Intune is its seamless enrollment process, particularly the Autopilot method."
"It is a helpful tool to manage BYOD policies."
"The performance of Microsoft Intune is good."
"One valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is the enrollment process, which is user-based, making it easier to manage compared to AirWatch."
"The features of Microsoft Intune that I appreciate the most are its user-friendly interface and robust security options."
"Intune is valuable for managing various endpoints and integrating with the Azure cloud, which is essential for our organization."
"I mainly use Microsoft Intune analytics for taking that data that exists and bringing it into Power BI dashboards to make it visible to our clients, showing them all the operating systems in their environment and where the latest patches are, and then from there creating plans."
"It can change policies based on geolocation or schedules."
"MaaS can force people to lock their phones. Not everyone likes having a PIN and other security features on their phones, but this sets a requirement that you can't get your emails unless you have a PIN on your phone. That was a good feature, and we were able to easily increase the PIN from four digits to six digits. Overall, it was pretty user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is that it's comprehensive - it covers mobile devices and laptops in one package."
"The most valuable features of IBM MaaS360 are remote control and setting up a phone."
"We introduced the product as part of the SOC-2 requirement. The tool's most valuable features include keeping the operating system updated, tracking software inventory, controlling computer administrators, and the ability to wipe a computer in case of a security threat. It helps us to be compliant, and it is one of the reasons we implemented it."
"It is a stable solution."
"My customers value the ability to control all their devices from a central point in IBM MaaS360."
"The best feature is the ability to control mobile phones, wipe and containerize the data, and keep employees' work data separate from personal data."
"Using this solution saves us lots of time, especially when it comes to performing updates."
"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."
"The Systems Deployment Appliance is magical when it comes to automating deployment... Not only can we have multiple images, specific to end-users' uses, but we have a plethora of post-installation tasks to install or configure the system, tasks that can be re-used for each system. You just have one basic base image, and then you use the post-install tasks to customize everything else. It is amazing."
"The scripting is a very valuable feature, as it saves us time on pushing certain things out to the users, such as software and patches."
"It also does patch management. At the moment, I'm rolling out a new feature update, 20.8.2, and it's a great challenge because we have to deploy it to 1,200 computers in the home office. We want to do it without interrupting production, but KACE is reliable and it's easy to adapt it to my needs for how and when to deploy the feature update."
"The most valuable feature of KACE is the mass package deployment. There are a lot of endpoint management solutions in the market. The way KACE responds is with the installation management feature, which is done in a very intelligent way, as well as scripting. It's wow. It's really wow. On top of that, there is a mass undeployment feature as well."
"The most valuable feature is the imaging of computers through the SDA... Being able to do that so quickly with the SDA, and to then use the SMA for reinstalling software, has been huge for our productivity."
"The software asset management has been a big help, even when it comes to license true-ups. I can use it to find out how many Tivoli we have, and boom, there's the number... And you can actually click on the information about the software and it shows, for example, that these five servers are where it's being reported. If you really want, you can log in to them and validate."
 

Cons

"The Mac integration has room for improvement."
"Intune should improve its software inventory to provide better metering of which software is used throughout the company. This is especially needed for reporting third-party software solutions."
"Enrollment into the Microsoft Intune service can still get easier, especially for legacy-managed systems, such as how we get it from a GPO or an SCCM configuration into Intune."
"The policies we had in SCCM and AD offered features that are missing from Microsoft Intune."
"The solution requires Mac support."
"Intune's server management could be better. If it could incorporate more features from System Center into Intune's Configuration Manager, it would be beneficial."
"The interface is not as modern as some competitors in terms of single pane of glass visibility across the entire landscape. It has a very Azure vibe and may not be as graphically appealing as other products."
"I want more secure, reliable, and efficient security policies."
"IBM MaaS360’s threat management feature needs improvement. It could identify even more malicious attacks."
"The user interface could definitely use some improvement."
"Can be added process of export/import environment configuration to simplify any migration processes."
"The reporting and alerting could be improved."
"An area for improvement would be handshaking with Microsoft in terms of trying to get a DLP on Microsoft OS."
"It would be ideal to add support for the distribution of windows.exe applications."
"User interface is basic and not very intuitive."
"The price could be lower."
"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."
"The only pain point I have is with their salespeople. They call too often. They're too aggressive in trying to upsell. We know what we need, and we know if we want to expand. I don't mind quarterly calls from them, but sometimes, it is weekly. They need to get their sales team under control. The main goal of their support people and professional services is to make sure they deliver the service, and they deliver it well, whereas their salespeople are so interested in making a sale that they're wasting my time."
"I would sure like them to be able to copy and paste out of OneNote. That drives me nuts. You can't copy from OneNote into KACE."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 university."
"It took a little bit of time to figure out how to use the KACE Service Desk. I like the way that I'm able to customize it. But when it comes to how our techs are able to use it, it's not as functional as our current solution, which is BMC FootPrints Service Desk."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are licenses required for this solution. We enable licenses on the devices we need to manage."
"It is not a cheap solution. The price for a device when you start using it at a large scale can be improved. It is covered under our enterprise agreement. We pay once a year. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"We use Defender ATP and E5 licenses."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"With our standard E5 agreement with Microsoft, there have been no pricing concerns. Introductory professional services, like a fast-track service, were included with our E5 membership, and there have been no additional costs."
"The cost is somewhat on the higher side, particularly when considering certain price points, especially in markets like India."
"We work with the subscription rather than a server license. I think it's economical this way because we don't have to have a server license for that, and I think that works in our favor."
"Microsoft Intune's pricing is reasonable."
"​It requires zero investment in infrastructure since it is 100% cloud.​"
"IBM products are expensive compared to the tools offered by its competitors. IBM MaaS360 is an expensive tool."
"IBM products are a little pricey."
"IBM MaaS360 is cheaper compared to other alternatives. Others are at least three to six times costlier."
"I rate IBM MaaS360’s pricing a six out of ten."
"MaaS360 is priced at a balance. It is not as expensive as AirWatch or Jamf and is not a cheap solution like a few of the local products."
"The solution is expensive."
"There are other solutions cheaper than IBM MaaS360, such as Microsoft Intune."
"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."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"We pay annually for technical support."
"The pricing is great. It's billed annually and it's very reasonable."
"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."
"We are also saving on the licensing fee, compared to other endpoint management solutions."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Construction Company
6%
University
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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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 ...
Microsoft Intune vs IBM MaaS360 - which to choose?
Our organization researched both Microsoft Intune and IBM MaaS360 when considering the type of endpoint security tool...
What do you like most about IBM MaaS360?
We introduced the product as part of the SOC-2 requirement. The tool's most valuable features include keeping the ope...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM MaaS360?
IBM products are a little pricey, so it’s expensive. I would rate the pricing and licensing model a seven out of ten,...
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, hand...
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 ...
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, a...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Fiberlink MaaS360, MaaS360
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Bancroft, Garuda Indonesia
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MaaS360 vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.