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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs Scalefusion comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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
6.7
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (1st), Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
KACE Systems Management App...
Ranking in Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (2nd), Endpoint Compliance (6th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (11th), Patch Management (11th)
Scalefusion
Ranking in Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
19th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Filtering (13th), Mobile Device Management (MDM) (12th), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (17th), Patch Management (25th)
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized device management has automated onboarding and improves remote security compliance
One thing I feel Microsoft Intune could improve is troubleshooting visibility. In many cases, when a policy or application deployment fails, the error messages are a bit generic. So, admins still spend time checking logs manually or testing on devices one by one. Compared to the simplicity of deployment, troubleshooting sometimes feels less mature. I also think reporting and real-time monitoring could be stronger. The dashboard gives useful information, but in large environments, many teams still depend on additional tools or scripts for deeper reporting and analytics. If I had to focus on one area first, I would probably choose troubleshooting and reporting. Deployment through Microsoft Intune is generally straightforward, but when something fails, identifying the exact root cause can still take more time than expected. Error messages are sometimes too generic, and admins often have to dig through logs, sync status, or multiple portals to understand what actually happened. I think user experience and policy management could also improve further. Microsoft Intune has become much better over the years, but sometimes the admin portal still feels fragmented because certain configurations open in different sections or redirect to older interfaces. For new admins, especially, it can take time to understand where everything is located. Another thing is policy conflict handling. In larger organizations, multiple device policies, compliance rules, and configuration profiles can overlap. When conflicts happen, the visibility is not always very clear, so admins spend time figuring out which policy actually won or caused the issue.
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.
Jijin Joseph - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Director at Channelnext
An MDM solution for controlling and restricting data on devices
Everyone is using high-end devices, such as mobile devices. If they lose their devices, how about the data copied to other devices? Once the device is lost, you can remotely delete all of the data and block the device, preventing anyone from using or reusing it. This will keep your devices secure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have seen a return on investment right from the start of the tool's usage."
"Overall, the stability is good."
"With these improvements, I estimate we've reduced our patching costs by over $100,000 a month, as the MSP previously had to troubleshoot various issues manually."
"My favorite feature about Microsoft Intune is that I have good logging capabilities; I can effectively troubleshoot, though I'm also missing some aspects."
"The integration with conditional access is great."
"Since implementing this solution, our company has grown substantially, and our talent pool has significantly expanded."
"Microsoft Tech Support is good, providing solid support."
"If they have Office 365 or Azure, Intune is by far the best choice."
"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."
"In terms of the amount of time KACE saves us, it's weeks of work on a monthly basis, and we're able to do things in a day that used to take us about a month to do."
"KACE has made our life much easier since we got off the Microsoft solution. The Microsoft solution was a lot harder to image over different ports and stuff. They would only have this one place where we could do all the imaging. Now, we have a whole building where we can image from. This means that we can image from our storage area, where we have a place to do our imaging. We can also image right at our desks, which is a lot easier."
"The ability to push an image to a machine, wake that image up, and just blast a new image to a computer without even having to touch it, and then push the software to that machine, just made things so much more convenient for us and so much more efficient than having to go find that machine, pull that machine out, take it back to the shop, and repair it from there."
"It is easy to use and pretty intuitive, and because it has a graphical user interface and is easy to use, it really decreases the training time and increases our efficiency in implementing things."
"We use the Systems Deployment appliance. It's our bread and butter. It is every machine that gets imaged here in this building and out through the whole state goes through the SDA. We rely on it completely. There is no manual process of getting a laptop out of a box, plugging it up, turning it on, and waiting for Windows to start. If you were to go to Best Buy and buy a brand new laptop, you spend the next two to three hours just setting it up. We don't do that. We get a laptop, plug it into the network, connect it to the SDA, and within about three clicks, we're done."
"The software asset management has been a big help, even when it comes to license true-ups. I can use it to find out how many Tivoli we have, and boom, there's the number... And you can actually click on the information about the software and it shows, for example, that these five servers are where it's being reported. If you really want, you can log in to them and validate."
"This product made the job easy to do without having to go put hands on the machines."
"Scalefusion is easy to use, and they have a broad knowledge base, so you can quickly find answers if you're unsure how to do something. The articles on the knowledge base are well-written, with clear steps on what to do for a specific scenario. That part is well documented."
"Its enhanced support for iOS and Windows devices has been particularly beneficial, expanding our service offerings to customers with diverse device environments."
"Scalefusion has significantly increased the amount of work we can perform and has made it much easier to achieve our goals efficiently by eliminating tedious work and cumbersome processes."
 

Cons

"The current Intune reporting functionality could benefit from some improvements."
"The mobile management is good for iPhone and iPad, but the Apple Mac management needs improvement. That is probably because Microsoft does not have low-level access to Apple Mac hardware. If you are doing basic things, it is okay, but if you want to image Apple Macs and do things like that, then Jamf is much better."
"The way the apps are getting deployed, the checkboxes for deleting previous versions are actually creating more conflicts than fixing problems."
"Sometimes, the process is unsuccessful when we attempt to reset a device and wipe the data using Intune."
"I have experienced downtime, bugs, and glitches. I rate it a seven because when we have bugs or instability in Microsoft Intune, we need to wait for the backend from Microsoft Intune to resolve issues and we can't deliver solutions to clients because we need to wait for action plans and related processes."
"Intune could be improved by expanding its third-party patching capabilities for a more comprehensive solution."
"In terms of the admin experience, it is straightforward, but the Windows enrollment experience could be improved. Sometimes, for enrollment, we have to reset devices and re-enroll them. Just configuring Windows, Azure, or Active Directory doesn't enroll the devices. We need easy enrollment for Windows."
"There is room for improvement in Microsoft Intune regarding Linux and Mac compatibility because some limitations exist."
"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."
"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."
"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 would like them to implement VBScript language in KACE Systems Management. Currently, we can only use PowerShell."
"I still need better communication about which processes are really due and which processes are currently being processed."
"The labeling process should be more streamlined. It should be easier to do. It gets confusing at times."
"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."
"I still need better communication about which processes are really due and which processes are currently being processed. According to the initial setup service provider, there is still no real management or overview on KACE where you can really see 100 percent of what is going on as well as what is going to be processed next and whether I can influence the overall process. It could really help me if I knew, e.g. exactly in 10 minutes my colleague will be supplied with this or that software. I haven't found this yet. If they could add this, that would be cool. It is still missing and I haven't yet found something like this."
"It could be easier to put devices on the blocklist. I would like the ability to block a device with a click of a button. Currently, we have to sift through different groups to block a device. It would be nice if Scalefusion allowed me to block without moving the device to a different profile. Another helpful feature they could add is the ability to migrate from one MDM to another. I'd also appreciate more extensive cloud storage. They give you 1 GB by default, but sometimes that's not enough."
"It could be easier to put devices on the blocklist. I would like the ability to block a device with a click of a button."
"One area for improvement could be streamlining permissions during initial device setup, especially for corporate-owned devices, to reduce manual user interaction and expedite deployment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Intune is reasonably priced for large organizations that already have Microsoft Enterprise licenses, but it is less affordable for smaller businesses."
"It comes as a bundle, so you do not really know what the prices are. Microsoft does not break it down to the user cost for us. It is just bundled with our E5 license."
"Microsoft Intune costs about $7 per user per month, which is somewhat on the pricier end. That said, it's a reliable product, so it's fair."
"The cost is handled through our Office 365 license, so I have yet to be able to compare it directly with other tools in its class."
"I recently got to know that the AD P1 license is compulsory to use Intune Autopilot, which was surprising for me. Earlier, this was not the case. It is the wrong thing to do. We now need to purchase AD P1 licenses for us and for our customers. I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing."
"While Microsoft charges for actual usage, it lacks discount options."
"They have categorized the licenses according to the size of the business. So, if it's a smaller organization, we can choose the license accordingly. If it's a big organization, then we can choose accordingly. Everything is clearly mentioned, and we can decide. It's suitable for all kinds of infrastructure, and that's very goo"
"Intune is linked with Microsoft. We can deploy the Microsoft E365 license to users by Intune. There are different types of licenses, such as device administrator licenses, E5 licenses for device enrollment manually, and P1 and p2 licenses for device enrollment automatically. These are the licenses required for the administration."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We pay annually for technical support."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"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."
"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
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
10%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise187
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
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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Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Dell KACE Systems Management
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Magna, Scania, Darya - Varia, Radisson Blu, Slice, Veezu
Find out what your peers are saying about KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. Scalefusion and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.