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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)2.6%
NinjaOne9.8%
Kaseya VSA9.7%
Other77.9%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management1.7%
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform9.9%
HashiCorp Terraform7.8%
Other80.6%
Configuration Management
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform9.9%
HashiCorp Terraform7.8%
Microsoft Configuration Manager7.5%
Other74.8%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

AdityaJain - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Administrator at EbixCash
Centralized software deployment has simplified endpoint control but needs stronger security alerts
What I like best about KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is that it allows pushing custom-made applications to all computers that have KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) endpoint installed. This makes it easier for the organization to push patches and updates. If I need to push EDR updates, I can use KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), as it automatically updates the EDR on that endpoint, and that is a great feature. Overall, KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) helps streamline my processes by allowing me to check the uptime and downtime of machines, whether they are connected to the internet or not, and how long a machine has been switched off. I can also gather hardware details and software inventory from it. I can show a live demonstration if a video conference can be arranged. Incident resolution capabilities with KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) have improved operational efficiency for system administrators, as it makes it easier to track machines with KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), gather their IP addresses, and push several updates, patches, or software deployments at once. I can design compliances as per my requirements, such as ensuring passwords are reset after 45 days.
it_user1272306 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at DoITWise
Helpful impact analysis and the discovery capability is quite good
This tool works hand-in-hand with RPA technology. RPA will allow you to control your servers by deploying the server automation agent. You don't have the discovery, but then you can deploy the policies that maintain the authorized versus current state. On top of that, you can use server automation to deploy patches or remediate configuration issues on the operating system. My advice to anybody who is implementing this solution is to ensure that the process is set up properly, first. Once the process is set up, the tool will do the rest for you. Overall, this is a comprehensive tool that works well, and I wouldn't touch it other than to enhance the UI and make containerization work without the CDF. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Manas Kashyap - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Dev Ops Engineer at 11 East Capital
Automation has transformed server patching and has reduced months of work to minutes
The best features that Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers is that it does not require any additional resources inside the servers. Python is the only requirement, and since Python is already present inside the servers, we can run it from our location and it automatically deploys things and does the work for us. The minimal requirements and easy deployment have definitely impacted my daily work and my team's efficiency. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is one of the best features that we depend on. We have evaluated other options, but Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was the best choice because it has saved us a tremendous amount of time. We do not need to manually intervene in the servers or install third-party software to maintain these things. It is very easy to write playbooks for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Ansible Galaxy contains many playbooks that are readily available and ready to be used. It is highly configurable with Jinja templating, making it easy to maintain. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform has positively impacted my organization. Previously, we needed to go into the servers and maintain them manually, which used to take a lot of time. For 200 to 300 servers, the maintenance took about one to two months. New patches would arrive and we would have to repeat the process. Now, it is a one-night work or a 10 to 15 minutes task. We write a playbook, maintain an inventory, and roll out the updates and it starts working for us. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform uses conditional clauses and has rollback options, functioning like a standard coding language that is simple to use. There is definitely a reduction in errors with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform because we have playbooks written with all the necessary clauses and rollback options. Manual work automatically creates more errors, whereas in automation, we have written sets that we do not forget every time we run it. We have protected written sets that we execute consistently.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"From using KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), the main benefits I have seen are that if my organization has a thousand users and I plan to distribute software such as Adobe to all endpoints, by simply launching a script in KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), I can provide that software effectively."
"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 most valuable feature is the ability to have an overview of all devices that are accessing our environment."
"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."
"K1000 just works - plain and simple."
"Overall, this is a good solution that saves us time and effort."
"Without this solution, we would be dead in the water."
"The most valuable feature is the impact analysis."
"Automatic Spiral Discovery: This feature enables deep and dynamic configuration and change management."
"We use it for managing our desktops; we have 350,000 desktops and it allows us to manage and control them relatively easily."
"Overall, this is a comprehensive tool that works well, and I wouldn't touch it other than to enhance the UI and make containerization work without the CDF."
"Helps me perform changes in connected infrastructure thanks to the discovery features."
"The reason I like Ansible is, first, the coding of it is very straightforward, it's very human-readable."
"The playbooks and the code the solution uses are quite useful."
"To me, a great thing about Ansible is that it can do everything: cloud, on-prem, Windows, Linux, networking, and I've not seen any other orchestration tool able to do that as easily."
"It saves time when it comes to service deployment, moves, or updates."
"The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don’t need an agent for it to work."
"Its checking and validating ensures our packages are properly patched."
"I like Ansible because it is: Easy to use, easy to read, easy to maintain, easy to support, and it works without an agent."
 

Cons

"I still need better communication about which processes are really due and which processes are currently being processed."
"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."
"With KACE, you have to use smart labels and groups, and it can be annoying."
"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."
"On the patching, the Systems Management appliance, I noticed whenever there is something new that the vendor has to do, he always has to call KACE for help with it."
"The labeling process should be more streamlined. It should be easier to do. It gets confusing at times."
"Paying for the product should come with full and extended training anytime it is needed."
"The user interface needs improvement as customers have mentioned they do not like the interface since it is not an SMA-based interface and lacks a manual configuration option."
"The infrastructure itself is stable, but the agent has a lot of problems."
"The native UI should be simplified because it is outdated and a little bit over-complicated."
"It needs dashboards."
"It is a little slow on the network side because every time you call a module, it's initiating an SSH or an API call to a network device, and it just slows things down."
"In modern infrastructure, there are more than just servers. The initial server-centric approach in Ansible is a bit strange."
"The product could do a better job at building infrastructure."
"There were a few scalability issues. I had no problems as long as the number of servers was less than 500."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is not the best at server provisioning. Terraform is better."
"Ansible could use more public relations and marketing."
"The solution requires some Linux knowledge."
"We'll probably use it in conjunction with Puppet, because Puppet is more a solution where every 30 minutes it's going to check, whereas Ansible doesn't do that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 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."
"The pricing is fair."
"Licensing is very straightforward. They don't overcomplicate it. This is not a Cisco product where you have to have 30 different licenses just to open the box. It's pretty much set-and-forget. You pay an annual license... The cost is in the mid to upper range, but the ROI exceeds the outside cost, especially once you've had the system for a while."
"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."
"This is a really good tool for the money."
"It’s an open-source tool."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"You don't need to buy agents on servers or deploy expense management when using the solution, which affected our decision to go with it."
"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."
"Ansible is a lot more competitive than any of the others. Its setup was also straightforward. In fact, we just implemented Ansible on OpenShift, so that is how we are running the Ansible Automation Platform now."
"I am using the community edition of the solution which is free."
"If you only need to use Ansible, it's free for any end-user, but when you require Ansible Tower, you need to pay per Ansible Tower server."
"I don't see the pricing or licensing features, but from what I understand, it is fairly reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
University
31%
Construction Company
9%
Government
8%
Transportation Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise16
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise52
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest KACE Systems Management?
In terms of cost-effectiveness, considering a situation where I want to deploy KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA...
What needs improvement with Quest KACE Systems Management?
For improvements in KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA), I would want to see it become a standalone software agen...
What is your primary use case for Quest KACE Systems Management?
I have deployed KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) around 230 plus PCs, and I use it to push Windows updates and...
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What is the difference between Red Hat Satellite and Ansible?
Red Hat Satellite has proven to be a worthwhile investment for me. Both its patch management and license management h...
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was very simple. There ...
 

Also Known As

Dell KACE Systems Management
Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management, HPE CMS, HPE Configuration Management, Micro Focus Configuration Management
Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Tech Mahindra, NNIT, ASIC
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about NinjaOne, Kaseya, TeamViewer and others in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM). Updated: September 2026.
916,240 professionals have used our research since 2012.