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Ivanti Patch for Configuration Manager 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

Ivanti Patch for Configurat...
Ranking in Patch Management
28th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Quest KACE Systems Manageme...
Ranking in Patch Management
10th
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), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of Ivanti Patch for Configuration Manager is 1.1%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 4.4%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management
 

Featured Reviews

Gaurav Chandola - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides detection logic that tells us which customer will record an update and is less expensive than other solutions
I haven't had experience with customer service and support, however, we did have an advisory case with one of their technical support staff. We were publishing and getting the full metadata for the patch. We were getting the full updates for the patch release. There was confusion as to why we were seeing that in the SCCM, instead of in the full metadata patch. The support person was able to help us in understanding what we were doing wrong, highlighting it could be a certificate issue. We generated a new certificate, and after they were applied, the issue was fixed. Overall, I would rate their customer service and support a five out of five.
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 feature of Ivanti Patch for SCCM is the detection logic."
"This solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to have an overview of all devices that are accessing our environment."
"The solution provides us a single pane of glass with everything that we need for endpoint management of all devices. It definitely has made our endpoint management process much easier."
"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."
"You don't have to be an advanced user. Rather, in terms of ease of use, this product is right where it needs to be."
"Using Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), we have been able to manage three times the amount of machines as other groups while having half the staff, which has positively impacted our organization."
"There is one place for a lot of different things. If somebody has a problem with their computer, they will put in a ticket. From there, we will know who it is and the assets assigned to them, because there is one place to go look for what we are talking about and with whom we are talking. Just having one place for everything is really convenient. For example, we are able to deploy software to hundreds of computers. We don't need to go to each individual device."
"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 service desk can be configured and customized to better serve our environment."
 

Cons

"In future releases, I would like to see improvements with the feature upgrade for the SCCM, which Microsoft has already integrated. Currently, Ivanti does not give us information about the enablement package."
"We have some problems with patches not installing successfully."
"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."
"It could be designed a little bit more intuitively in terms of administration."
"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."
"There may be a good reason why some things are not easily able to be done, yet it needs work to compete with some of the other ticketing systems out there now."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Sometimes the information is not as real time as it's supposed to be."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We do not have a license with Ivanti, instead we buy just the plugins for the consoles, making it a much less expensive option versus other solutions."
"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."
"The pricing is fair."
"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."
"Licensing is done on a per device basis, so it's dependent on how many agents you've got installed."
"We buy consulting fees from Software Factory, then we pay extra for it."
"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."
"Its pricing model is good for what it offers. Nobody here gives me a hard time about renewing the contract every year. It might be a little cost prohibitive for a smaller company who has to stand up a virtual environment as well as have virtual environment licensing and the hardware. If you have a smaller environment, it might be cost prohibitive. If you only have a couple of hundred computers, you might be more willing to do those manually. In our environment, the cost savings of having KACE far outweigh the licensing costs. We are okay with its pricing model."
"The product is reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Real Estate/Law Firm
11%
Construction Company
6%
University
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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

Patch for SCCM, Shavlik Patch for SCCM, Ivanti Patch for MEM
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Pittsburgh
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about Ivanti Patch for Configuration Manager vs. Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
863,429 professionals have used our research since 2012.