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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Symantec Ghost Solution Suite comparison

 

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
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (5th), 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 August 2026, in the Software Distribution category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 21.9%, up from 17.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Ghost Solution Suite is 17.2%, down from 19.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Distribution Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Configuration Manager21.9%
Symantec Ghost Solution Suite17.2%
Other60.900000000000006%
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 solution is highly scalable."
"I have found some valuable features to be the built-in reporting tool, the ability to get visibility on your organization, compliance reports, software remitting for all your products in your organization, and the management of all machines in your environment including a new domain and workgroups."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward."
"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."
"The main, clear valuable feature is updating the latest, patches and updates from Windows. This is the main feature we really utilize a lot."
"Microsoft is being very competitive right now, and they are really investing in a lot of new features to be more competitive in the marketplace."
"I find the product valuable for deployment recovery and it has done much more than that."
"Software deployment and WSUS are most valuable."
"We can restore the Hard Disk including OS with few clicks."
"Great for personal use."
"Norton Ghost provides a friendly interface to backup and restore the disk image."
"Norton Ghost is a great tool for disk imaging, backup and restore with an easy-to-use interface and a variety of unique features."
 

Cons

"It would be better if automation options were available."
"As far as load balancing across, they don't have that support yet, so that you can actually build multiple primaries and have it load balance across. They don't have any of that functionality yet. That would be a nice feature, to scale that way."
"The solution should incorporate AI. It should also incorporate real-time capabilities. If we could get real-time information about challenges or issues, it would allow us to take immediate action. For example, with the recent outage caused by the Windows issue, having a real-time warning system could have helped us avoid or reduce the downtime we experienced."
"SCCM is a high CPU/memory consuming application and so it would be fine that Microsoft could improve performances."
"There is a reboot issue with the patching. Sometimes, if patching runs into any issue whatsoever, it doesn't reboot but it doesn't tell you it errored out. It just sits there and we don't find out until the next day whether it patched or not. That was a big issue for us. We're working through that. They added some stuff in there now where you can actually tell reboot is pending. But we still need some kind of notification that if something fails or is pending, we know. We shouldn't have to go in and look. They don't have anything for that right now."
"We have had a lot of issues with Mac application deployment support. They need to improve the support for the Mac operating system."
"The solution can be improved with the addition of a mobile device manager."
"The database should be made to be more stable and robust, but not so much the configuration."
"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."
"It doesn't offer scripting or drive-spanning."
"Norton Ghost software do not provide disk management utilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be better."
"There is not a license needed to use the solution."
"Pricing is negotiable with Microsoft, depending upon which of their packages you choose."
"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."
"Presently, I am using a free trial version."
"We have to pay for a license."
"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction 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: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.