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Ivanti Patch for Endpoint Manager vs KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 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 Endpoint M...
Ranking in Patch Management
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
KACE Systems Management App...
Ranking in Patch Management
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (3rd), Endpoint Compliance (7th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (11th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of Ivanti Patch for Endpoint Manager is 2.5%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 3.7%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)3.7%
Ivanti Patch for Endpoint Manager2.5%
Other93.8%
Patch Management
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Baber - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at Alghanim Industries
Enables organizations to install patches easily, but the UI must be more user-friendly
We can push many things from a centralized endpoint system. If we want to install software on multiple servers, we can do it from the centralized system. We can also run commands and push packages from a centralized location. We can automate things. Images are deployed on our laptops through Ivanti. Whenever a new laptop comes, we connect to the network, and the system gets installed with predefined applications. It happens automatically.
MH
Server Administrator III at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Reliability and adaptability enable efficient application deployment and security management
The best features Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) offers include the scripting function, which stands out to me because I can find specific needs and deploy the applications based on those needs. There was a time when scripting really saved me time by allowing me to find specific registry entries and modify them to patch security vulnerabilities. Scripting has saved us hundreds of hours over the years when patching these vulnerabilities compared to how we did it before. I really enjoy the security features that are enabled to deploy Microsoft and other vendor patches, which stand out to me as key functionalities.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The product is easy to use, easy to implement, and easy to manage."
"When it comes to Ivanti Patch for endpoints, I find peer-to-peer patching valuable. Having a peer-to-peer patching capability is highly beneficial for us."
"Clear visibility regarding the status of the endpoint."
"It's been doing a lot for us, especially with third-party software patching and scheduling. We create multiple projects for monthly patch distribution and manage it all well."
"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 most valuable feature is the ability to have an overview of all devices that are accessing our environment."
"Asset management is most valuable. It is essential for all customers. The other features are also useful, but asset management is most important."
"I am impressed by the service desk ticketing and asset management."
"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."
"We have our KACE agent deployed on all of our workstations and servers, and it provides us with reports on the hardware and software inventory for those."
"We're able to deploy software and push out fixes to endpoints faster than ever."
"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."
 

Cons

"The major challenges are macOS updates, patching, and backups. And for drawbacks, I wish Patch management was cloud-based instead of hosted on our own server."
"Inability to configure a rule-based management."
"The UI must be more user-friendly."
"It would be great to have an easier way to patch Linux machines within the product."
"The GUI needs some work. I love all that it can do, however, it can be just be so cluttered at times."
"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."
"We'd love to see support for larger dependencies in the scripting feature."
"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 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."
"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."
"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 solution needs to have the ability to push out managed feature updates from Microsoft in a more seamless way."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of pricing, it is on the expensive side."
"We pay annually for technical support."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"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."
"We buy consulting fees from Software Factory, then we pay extra for it."
"The pricing and licensing are good. It's worth it."
"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 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."
"Their pricing is per end-point device. There is an initial cost for the license for the server, which is pretty low, and then there is a per end-point device license, which is also fairly low. So, the pricing is still reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
University
7%
University
12%
Non Profit
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Ivanti Patch for Endpoints?
We use the solution to patch Windows and Linux machines. We download the patches and implement them. We get vulnerability reports after patching.
What advice do you have for others considering Ivanti Patch for Endpoints?
We have one technical person. My team handles the patches for Windows and Linux. The product is good for endpoints. I do not recommend the tool for servers. Microsoft's predefined patching solution...
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

Ivanti Patch for Endpoints, Patch for Endpoints, Shavlik Patch for Endpoints
Dell KACE Systems Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

InfoPro Digital, Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Find out what your peers are saying about Ivanti Patch for Endpoint Manager vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,515 professionals have used our research since 2012.