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Ivanti Endpoint Manager 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)
Ivanti Endpoint Manager
Ranking in Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
3.4
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (8th)
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 Ivanti Endpoint Manager is 2.7%, up from 1.5% 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.
Chethan Gowda - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient patch and asset management with room for reporting enhancements
One of the best things about Ivanti Endpoint Manager is that the agents it uses are very lightweight, so they don’t slow down our systems. It also gives us great visibility during deployments—we can see exactly what’s happening and collect all the necessary data. The system shows us codes that help us understand what’s going on in each environment. For example, every month we roll out patches, and monitoring is a big part of that. We can check the status of each machine without having to log into them individually. It also helps us troubleshoot issues by showing the exact error codes, which makes fixing problems much easier. Ivanti also lets us organize our servers and devices in a way that makes sense for us—by operating system, group, or IP address. This helps us manage everything more efficiently. Patching is one of our main tasks, and Ivanti gives us detailed information about each patch. Another great part is the training and support Ivanti offers. The training helps us learn how to use all the features, and the support team is always there when we need help. Since we work in a large environment, Ivanti is a great fit—it’s built to handle big setups and makes it easy to group and manage everything. We even use it to deploy our own in-house apps, not just third-party software.
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

"If I assess Intune's user experience, I would say it is perfect and simple."
"We already use a lot of Microsoft products in our company, and therefore, it made sense to also use this product."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"Intune enables us to manage our devices from anywhere."
"If any user tries to access company data, it directly interacts with the conditional access policy. This helps us protect our data and set the criteria for how data can be accessed and shared."
"The security-related tools are excellent; these features allow us to secure devices, lock them down, and ensure compliance."
"Microsoft Intune brings all endpoint and security management tools into one place, and for app discovery, deployment, and automatic updating, it's reliable."
"The Advanced Endpoint Analytics in Microsoft Intune has improved and helps us proactively detect and remediate anomalies in endpoints."
"The most beneficial aspect of Ivanti Endpoint Manager is that it is cost-friendly."
"Ivanti Endpoint Manager has served us well over the years, supporting operating systems from Windows XP to Windows 10."
"Ivanti is a great product from a security perspective."
"The product saves time and money."
"The most beneficial aspect of Ivanti Endpoint Manager is that it is cost-friendly."
"The best features of Ivanti Endpoint Manager are that the agents are very light, and the deployment monitoring is very good."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 tool helped us deploy custom software for specific departments. We also did Windows updates with the product."
"I can reach people now that I couldn't have reached previously. We are saving about 25 percent in time."
"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 service desk can be configured and customized to better serve our environment."
"There is ease of use, and its pricing was a driving factor."
 

Cons

"The documentation about the custom image setup could be better. Although Microsoft provides the steps to configure Intune or set up or deploy Intune, it doesn't have much information related to custom images. If you ask, "how can we deploy the custom image?" There is no information. The steps they mention ask you to connect to your on-premises environment or create your own image on the cloud itself once there is connectivity. But I needed to go to multiple websites to get all this information. I had to figure out how to upload the custom image if you want to use the on-premise custom image for Cloud PC. If you have the proper subscription, you must have the right access, like global admin or owner. Then you can add your custom image to that. There are no steps mentioned over there. Microsoft Intune doesn't have Chrome browser support. I would like to have that support because they will want it if we pitch the product to clients."
"The information we receive at the device level needs improvement."
"The pricing could be improved."
"There are a few security features that are not available in Microsoft Intune, when compared to other products."
"In future releases, I would like to see better integration with Apple products."
"I would like more clarity on how Intune is migrating control from Active Directory group policies, especially as we move over to Windows 11. It seems inefficient to manage some settings in Active Directory and others in Intune."
"Intune's privilege management feature, while beneficial, is less intuitive than other Intune features, making it challenging to use."
"The solution can have some compliance problems in general and the end-point user can bypass easily the company policies in Intune."
"The reporting functionality and user interface could be improved. The options to generate reports should be more dynamic rather than static."
"Setting up the solution on-premises is difficult and needs improvement."
"The product's implementation process is in areas of concern where improvements are required."
"When it comes to the reporting part, it needs to be improved. The executive reports and the deployment reports can be more improvised."
"Ivanti Endpoint Manager is not user-friendly and feels outdated, which affects usability."
"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 initial setup was complex. It is a Linux-based virtual server, where the customer cannot get into the back-end, so you can only follow their prompts. Then, there are specific things that have to be done in their implementation and upgrade phases that have to be done in a certain order or steps. If you don't get those steps right, the system doesn't work. I think that either simplifying that process or providing really good step-by-step documentation would be helpful."
"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."
"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."
"There is always room for improvement. However, the system does most of what we need at this moment."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It comes with the E5 plan. We bought the E5 plan from Microsoft."
"We don't get Intune as a separate module. Most of the time, we use it within an enterprise agreement like E3 or E5. Those licenses are at a good price, but what is annoying is that every single year they go higher."
"While Microsoft charges for actual usage, it lacks discount options."
"Microsoft offers some licensing where it's included at no extra cost when customers are already using the licenses. In such a case, it's a really good value. If you have to buy the licensing for it, it's probably on par with other solutions. It isn't substantially more or less expensive. The great thing is that it is included in some of Microsoft's licensed packages. So, some customers don't have to spend additional money for it. Typically, most providers that support Intune do charge a management fee of some sort or some fee. Certainly, we're no exception."
"We have a limited budget for security investments, so Microsoft should consider reducing pricing in our region. This would make investment more viable, especially since larger businesses in other countries can afford it easily."
"If you ask the accountant or the finance department, they'll tell you that it is way too expensive, but when I look at the cost and compare it with the value you actually get, it's more than fair."
"The pricing is good because customers are not complaining about it."
"The price could be better."
Information not available
"The pricing is fair."
"The pricing and licensing are good. It's worth it."
"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."
"The pricing is great. It's billed annually and it's very reasonable."
"We buy consulting fees from Software Factory, then we pay extra for it."
"The pricing and licensing are absolutely fair."
"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 are also saving on the licensing fee, compared to other endpoint management solutions."
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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
22%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Government
7%
University
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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Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
What needs improvement with Ivanti Endpoint Manager?
While Ivanti Endpoint Manager is robust and reliable, there are areas that could benefit from improvement. The user i...
What is your primary use case for Ivanti Endpoint Manager?
We use Ivanti Endpoint Manager for complete endpoint lifecycle management—asset tracking, software license compliance...
What advice do you have for others considering Ivanti Endpoint Manager?
I would recommend this solution for organizations with a large number of people and devices, but probably not for sta...
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
Ivanti Neurons for UEM
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Information Not Available
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about Ivanti Endpoint Manager vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.