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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Symantec Ghost Solution Suite comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 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 Configuration Man...
Ranking in Software Distribution
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (4th), Configuration Management (4th), Patch Management (2nd)
Symantec Ghost Solution Suite
Ranking in Software Distribution
3rd
Average Rating
7.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Software Distribution category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 27.5%, down from 33.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Ghost Solution Suite is 13.6%, up from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Distribution Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Configuration Manager27.5%
Symantec Ghost Solution Suite13.6%
Other58.9%
Software Distribution
 

Featured Reviews

NS
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Centralized endpoint control has streamlined deployments and improved security compliance
In my experience, the best features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are software deployments and updates, OSD, hardware and software inventory, compliance and configuration baseline, reporting and monitoring, and integration with Intune hybrid management. These features make endpoint management efficient and scalable. The feature I rely on the most day-to-day is software deployment and patch management. It keeps endpoints updated and secure with minimal manual effort. Inventory and compliance monitoring are also important, but daily deployments are critical. Microsoft Configuration Manager has had a significant positive impact on our organization in several ways: improved efficiency, enhanced security and compliance, standardization, scalability, and visibility reporting. Overall, Microsoft Configuration Manager has helped us save time, reduce risk, improve operational efficiency, and maintain strong control over our endpoints. One of the biggest impacts Microsoft Configuration Manager has had on efficiency is the reduced manual work for software deployment and patching. For example, deploying a new application or security updates to hundreds or thousands of devices previously required several days of manual effort, including running scripts, checking devices individually, and validating installation. With Microsoft Configuration Manager, these tasks are automated and managed, allowing deployments to complete in hours rather than days. We also have automated reporting for deployment success and compliance which saved the IT team significant time that used to be spent gathering and reconciling inventory data from multiple tools.
it_user5682 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager of Infrastructure at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Saves time in our deployments
For many years we were using Ghost for saving time in our deployments. Almost 15 year later this product is still on the way. Ease of use, faster and useful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is straightforward and not too complicated."
"The major features of this product are the reporting tools. The most valuable features are package deployment and application deployment. Security management is also good because any vulnerability will be identified, and you can fix it. It's the best tool because you never know what kind of client you will have. For example, you may have your offices in low bandwidth remote areas. But it's achievable because it accommodates the bandwidth that you have available. Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is an excellent reporting tool for your environment. If you want to know the details about the hardware configuration, software configuration, what is causing a problem, or when a new feature update comes in for Windows, even that goes on SCCM itself. A lot of deployment stuff."
"In general, I would recommend the solution to other organizations and companies."
"The main, clear valuable feature is updating the latest, patches and updates from Windows. This is the main feature we really utilize a lot."
"Endpoint Manager is valuable to our organization because it allows us to connect to our enterprise from remote locations securely. The most useful feature is its robustness and scalability. It is highly scalable and flexible, allowing us to use it in various environments. Additionally, we can specialize the policies related to each device group. This ensures that each group has access to the applications they need for their work and non-work hours."
"I like that this solution captures all the devices in our infrastructure, quickly identifying those items based upon everything we've identified within the SCCM, as far as the proper nomenclature goes."
"Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is a complete solution for what we need it for, and I would recommend it to others."
"Microsoft has done a good job with authentication solutions, such as single sign-on, or open authentication."
"Norton Ghost provides a friendly interface to backup and restore the disk image."
"We can restore the Hard Disk including OS with few clicks."
"Norton Ghost is a great tool for disk imaging, backup and restore with an easy-to-use interface and a variety of unique features."
"Great for personal use."
 

Cons

"Their compliance reporting is not accurate, and they admitted it on the phone when we had a call with them. We were trying to understand why their numbers didn't match on our compliance reports. It is not accurate and you cannot depend on the compliance reports. The numbers just don't match, and we can't figure out why. We called Microsoft and they said, "Yeah, that's a known issue." But there is no word that they're working on it."
"The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved."
"There are also some limitations of Intune, such as the inability to deploy operating systems the traditional way via task sequences, making it such that we have to use Autopilot to deploy operating systems."
"I would like to see more automation."
"It needs to be able to load faster during deployment and the new release could include this ability."
"The solution could improve the functionality for automating, license management. Additionally, more and better-looking reports are needed."
"It would be cool if the SCCM client had some PowerShell cmdlets built into it, as managing clients remotely can be a pain without knowing the WMI calls to run remotely."
"Devices like smartphones and tablets are managed very well on VMware, however, they are absent in SCCM. I could configure iPad from the VMware site and it was done very easily. It should be just as possible on SCCM."
"Norton Ghost software do not provide disk management utilities."
"It doesn't offer scripting or drive-spanning."
"Recovery CD is slow to boot and requires a minimum of 1GB RAM."
"Data backup on DVDs failed entirely on Win (XP, Vista), as the process either could not be completed or written data was corrupted."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for."
"Pricing and licensing are horrible. You have to not look at dollar value to use SCCM. It's super-duper expensive but it works. The acquisition cost is expensive, it's labor-intensive. But it works."
"It comes free with the Microsoft account. We have a yearly agreement, and all products are covered under it."
"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."
"Its licensing is quite complicated because we are getting the license not only for SCCM but for the full Microsoft package. We don't need to pay for a separate license. We need to have one license that includes everything we need, such as Windows, Microsoft 365, SCCM, encryption, and so on. So, we don't have a specific price for it. Perhaps, it is good that it includes the full suite of licensing of Microsoft. It is expensive, but we are getting a lot of features."
"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."
"Microsoft provides a steep price for their enterprise products, but they offer very competitive pricing for their legacy customers."
"I would rate the cost as eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise69
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCCM?
The setup cost is considered sufficient. It is not significant enough for us to consider a change at the moment.
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Also Known As

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
24 HourFitness, BDO Israel, and Citizens Business Bank.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Symantec Ghost Solution Suite and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.