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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."
"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."
"We can get the majority of what we need with this product and do not have to spend money on something else."
"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."
"I can reach people now that I couldn't have reached previously. We are saving about 25 percent in time."
"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."
"With KACE, we were able to have a simplification of the software deployment management with more granularity and flexibility."
"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."
"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

"It would be great to have an easier way to patch Linux machines within the product."
"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."
"The UI must be more user-friendly."
"Inability to configure a rule-based management."
"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 KACE Go Mobile App crashes a lot, and it always has. I would love to see that get fixed because it's very convenient when it does work properly, but most of the time it does not."
"I would like them to implement VBScript language in KACE Systems Management. Currently, we can only use PowerShell."
"I think it should have the ability to have the applications automatically update. It would be really helpful if this would override what the user might choose to do."
"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."
"Sometimes the information is not as real time as it's supposed to be."
"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."
"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

"In terms of pricing, it is on the expensive side."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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 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."
"We are also saving on the licensing fee, compared to other endpoint management solutions."
"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."
"We need it, so we have to pay the price. It is what it is. If you need a gallon of milk, then you have to pay the price for it. You don't want to buy the cheap stuff. You want to buy the stuff that is organic and good for your body, which doesn't have all this other junk in it. You want it clean for your body. Quest has done that for our deployment and management systems."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
University
7%
University
11%
Non Profit
10%
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: February 2026.
882,594 professionals have used our research since 2012.