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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management 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

KACE Systems Management App...
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), Patch Management (10th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (9th)
OpenText ZENworks Configura...
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (22nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is designed for Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) and holds a mindshare of 1.0%, up 0.8% compared to last year.
OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management, on the other hand, focuses on Configuration Management, holds 1.5% mindshare, up 0.9% since last year.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)1.0%
Kaseya VSA18.2%
NinjaOne13.7%
Other67.1%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
Configuration Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management1.5%
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform16.1%
Microsoft Configuration Manager11.5%
Other70.9%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
it_user1272306 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"This product made the job easy to do without having to go put hands on the machines."
"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."
"The ability to build scripts right on the deployment center itself, as well as building groups that take those scripts/task chains has been absolutely invaluable and one of the most important parts of my whole environment."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the impact analysis."
"Helps me perform changes in connected infrastructure thanks to the discovery features."
 

Cons

"One of the complications is that they don't have 24/7 support, and they're also not in our time zone... Sometimes, no matter how critical my application is, if my production server is down I won't be able to connect with anybody till 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time."
"KACE implemented the possibility of reducing the network speed of the KACE agent. You can set it so that it takes whatever network speed you want or you can set it to 5 Mb, to save network speed. You set it for all the computers, but it would be preferable to separate between VPN connections in our home office and the local area. It would be great to be able to set separate speeds for different VLANs."
"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."
"The GUI needs some work. I love all that it can do, however, it can be just be so cluttered at times."
"I have complaints about smart label adaptation and because of this, I recommend a 24 to 48 hour bake-in period."
"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."
"The software asset management functionality is an area that needs to be improved. It could be more automated because when connections need to be made, such as when I connected Adobe and my malware removed, the process was pretty much manual."
"The native UI should be simplified because it is outdated and a little bit over-complicated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are also saving on the licensing fee, compared to other endpoint management solutions."
"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."
"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."
"We buy consulting fees from Software Factory, then we pay extra for it."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing are good. It's worth it."
"Licensing is done on a per device basis, so it's dependent on how many agents you've got installed."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"This is a really good tool for the money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
12%
Government
10%
Non Profit
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
16%
Educational Organization
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
University
9%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

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...
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Also Known As

Dell KACE Systems Management
Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management, HPE CMS, HPE Configuration Management, Micro Focus Configuration Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
Tech Mahindra, NNIT, ASIC
Find out what your peers are saying about KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.