N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring &amp; Management vs Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) comparison

N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management vs. Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

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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

N-able N-sight Remote Monit...

Ranking in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)

11th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Quest KACE Systems Manageme...

Ranking in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)

17th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Client Desktop Management (12th), Endpoint Compliance (8th), Patch Management (12th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (18th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) category, the mindshare of N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management is 3.6%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)

Featured Reviews

Yazan Albaw

Customer Success Director at We Cybers

N-sight RMM provides comprehensive remote monitoring and management, enabling IT professionals to manage, monitor, and support IT infrastructure efficiently from a single platform

N-sight RMM delivers comprehensive visibility into your clients' infrastructure, outperforming competitors by supporting multiple platforms such as Windows and Linux. Our custom-designed agent streamlines network discovery, eliminating the need for manual device checks. With its easy deployment across a small address range, N-sight automatically identifies all networks at the client site and deploys the agent efficiently. The solution integrates various monitoring mechanisms, allowing us to manage hardware and software status, track assets, and configure custom scripts in conjunction with Active Directory. It also supports web protection and desktop encryption, all manageable from a unified dashboard. For clients utilizing cloud services, web filtering, or WebProtect, N-sight enables rapid deployment of web protection and antivirus software across thousands of devices. Its multi-tenant design is ideal for MSPs, providing separate dashboards for each customer and enabling client access to manage their own environments. N-sight RMM is essential for effective resource management. Clients appreciate the platform's ability to simplify operations, including dashboard access, asset tracking, report generation, and help desk support. The integration with N-able Data Protection allows us to manage and monitor jobs through the N-sight dashboard, streamlining daily operations. Additionally, N-sight offers patch management and remote access capabilities. When discussing our services with clients, we highlight the benefits of our comprehensive dashboard for device control and visibility. This includes patch management, scheduling, and approval of updates, as well as endpoint security configurations. By including these features in our managed services, clients benefit from a full spectrum of IT management solutions tailored to their needs.

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Scott Tweed

Windows Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We like that this solution is in real-time, it gives us real-time monitoring."

"The most helpful feature is script deployment because we can create whatever we want to deploy on our devices. This works in a cloud environment, where we previously relied on Active Directory. Since the start of the COVID outbreak, all the staff members began working from home, and most of the people there did not use the VPN to transfer the policies."

"I'm really happy with the background remote access, which allows me to easily change system internals such as registry keys and silently execute commands using the command prompt in the background. This kind of remote access makes it easy for us to do our jobs without getting in the customer's way."

"The integrated backup and the scripting are good."

"The solution provides complete visibility for the client's infrastructure. Competitors support multiple platforms like Windows and Linux. We designed the agent for our clients, providing network discovery, so there's no need to go to each device individually. It is easy to deploy with a small address range."

"The solution is user-friendly."

"The solution provides an administration panel where we can see what is happening on our client's stations, such as events, alerts, and all the software installed."

"I like being able to get a picture of what's happening on a computer. I can just click on it, and I can see the CPU usage and the memory usage and what services and programs are currently running. I can connect remotely to a computer. All these are very useful."

More N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management pros

"Patching is definitely the most valuable feature. It gives us good, centralized software, which comes in very handy since we are doing 400 servers at a time. It enables us to manage all the servers, and to deal with the application team regarding reboots and scheduling."

"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."

"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 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 big pros of Quest KACE Systems Management are its simple interface, and simple, direct management. It's very easy to maintain and manage the device, and it's easy to get it up and running. You can have it up and running in an hour..."

"Using this solution saves us lots of time, especially when it comes to performing updates."

"The most valuable feature is the imaging of computers through the SDA... Being able to do that so quickly with the SDA, and to then use the SMA for reinstalling software, has been huge for our productivity."

"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."

More Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) pros

Cons

"Kaseya is a similar product and they have easier scripts. If you want to deploy one software to 100 machines, we need to dig into it and then we need to create the script and work with the support team and then we can deploy that particular script. The pre-built scripted is the one thing that I would definitely like to have improved."

"I would like to see notifications sent with SMS."

"The solutions could improve by adding more features."

"The product looks a bit old-fashioned."

"The reporting could be more customizable. RMM pulls a vast amount of data, but you need to filter through it to get a decent executive report each month. I'm pulling reports all day through the XML file and such to get the information our executive needs. They don't want a 34-megabyte Excel spreadsheet, but the overview only provides limited information, like a basic breakdown."

"The alerts and reporting could be done a little more clearly. They are quite cryptic, and quite often, we seem to get a lot of reports just for a computer rebooting or going offline for a couple of minutes, which doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal. Reporting could be refined and improved, and they can make it easy to decipher the reports."

"The patch management of the solution could improve."

"What could be improved in N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management is the reporting, in particular, the reporting interface and the report generation method. Currently, I don't find it easy to run reports on the solution. Every time, if I want a report on a Windows vulnerability because a client requested that report, I find the process difficult. For example, out of one hundred PCs, I need to get a report on how many PCs have not been updated to a specific patch level. I need to give that report to the CTO or CEO of a particular client organization, and as running the report on N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management isn't easy, sometimes, that makes me doubt the validity of the generated report as well. It depends on each case because I do find some reports to be genuine and 100% correct, but most of the time, I have to ask for help from other engineers, and even collaborating with another engineer to run reports isn't that easy, so reporting needs improvement in N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management. Another room for improvement in the solution is patch management. The user-friendliness of the Take Control feature in N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management also needs improvement, particularly when it's used on multiple computers or displays. Switching between displays isn't as user-friendly on the technician side, so that could be improved by letting you see all displays or monitors all at once, or on a single display, rather than needing to switch from one display to another. As Take Control is on a Windows agent, or running on a client-end device, that feature of N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management could be improved as well. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is a mobile application, though I'm not familiar if that's already available. As an IT MSP, sometimes I have on-call jobs, and I don't always want to look at the mailbox to see if there's any alert triggered from the devices. If N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management has a mobile application that would allow my team to get push notifications whenever there's downtime or issues, then that would make the solution more reliable. I'd like to get an alert that would pop up from my mobile device, so it would be pretty easy to keep an eye on alerts, and I won't have to check my inbox every time."

More N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management cons

"I would like them to implement VBScript language in KACE Systems Management. Currently, we can only use PowerShell."

"It could be designed a little bit more intuitively in terms of administration."

"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."

"There is always room for improvement. However, the system does most of what we need at this moment."

"The problem is that it's harder to directly emulate a lot of the stuff that the group policies do, using the KACE solution. With regular group policies, you just specify the various settings you want to change on the workstations, and then you specify the workstations and—while it's kind of an ugly mess—it does it. Whereas on KACE, you really have to know what you're doing with scripting to effectively script those exact same changes."

"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."

"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."

"I've had some issues with patch catalogue."

More Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license required for this solution."

"As I'm not part of the procurement team and because I'm 100% technical, I'm not that familiar with the costs associated with N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management, but I can say that in my location, particularly here in Sri Lanka, it's more expensive than other RMM solutions. I'm working for an Australian IT MSP, and over there, the solution isn't as expensive, but where I'm located, it is, so this is the reason why sometimes, clients don't go with N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management. Licensing cost is also the reason why my organization is looking into Kaseya RMM. My current organization merged with another organization that's using both Kaseya RMM and Connectwise."

"We use SolarWinds RMM on a pay-as-you-go monthly basis, so the cost can be highly variable because it depends on a few factors such as how many devices you need to support and what extra features you want to use. The more devices you have, the more you'll pay, and the same goes for extras."

"It's expensive and out of our budget."

"The product is fairly priced."

"The solution is not very expensive."

"I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to that since I set it up. It has per-user licensing. If I remember it correctly, it worked out to about $10 a month per user. There were no additional costs. It was pretty straightforward and simple."

"Out clients pay monthly for the license of N-able Remote Monitoring & Management."

"The pricing and licensing are absolutely fair."

"The pricing is great. It's billed annually and it's very reasonable."

"The pricing is fair."

"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."

"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."

"We pay annually for technical support."

"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."

More Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Comms Service Provider

16%

Performing Arts

Outsourcing Company

University

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for N-able Remote Monitoring & Management?

The pricing is straightforward: it is based on a per-node basis. A node is a device that you would like to monitor to install the agent. The pricing is neither cheap nor expensive; it falls within ...

What is your primary use case for N-able Remote Monitoring & Management?

We use the solution to monitor, automate, and protect the clients and environments.

What do you like most about N-able Remote Monitoring & Management?

The details and the reports they provide are what I like, especially the details for almost the whole computer and the OS type.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest KACE Systems Management?

The pricing is in the middle range of the market, not too expensive but not the cheapest either.

What needs improvement with Quest KACE Systems Management?

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.

What is your primary use case for Quest KACE Systems Management?

The main use cases for Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance are touch management, software and hardware inventory, and software delivery.

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Product Reports

N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management

Download N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management product report

N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management report

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Download Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) product report

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) report

Also Known As

N-able Remote Monitoring & Management, SolarWinds MSP Remote Monitoring & Management, MSP RMM, SolarWinds RMM, SolarWinds Remote Monitoring and Management

Dell KACE Systems Management

Overview

RMM software designed for next-level protection

Defend Windows and Apple devices with flexible, real-time remote monitoring and management, and a simple dashboard highlighting critical information during operational peaks.

Patch Microsoft and more

Keep devices compliant and secure with flexible patch management that easily allows MSPs to patch every aspect of the MSFT Environment and beyond.

N-able

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance is a comprehensive tool for managing IT endpoints. It facilitates asset management, software distribution, and endpoint tracking while offering remote access capabilities and a centralized help desk.

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance is designed for organizations that need efficient endpoint management. It offers a range of features like inventory tracking, automated patch management, and ticketing. By integrating with remote access tools such as Bomgar, Quest KACE helps reduce manual tasks involved in managing software updates and system deployments. Although it faces challenges in scalability and requires improvements in integration and reporting, it remains a versatile choice for asset tracking and endpoint administration.

What are Quest KACE SMA's key features?

Asset Management: Streamline the organization and tracking of physical and virtual assets.
Remote Access: Integrates with Bomgar for secure, remote troubleshooting and management.
Software Distribution: Deploy applications across devices efficiently without physical intervention.
Centralized Endpoint Management: Manage endpoints from a centralized console to ensure compliance and optimization.
Automated Patch Management: Schedule and deploy patches to maintain system security and performance.
Help Desk: Integrated ticketing system for tracking and resolving user issues.
Scripting and Reporting: Enhance administrative tasks through automated scripts and detailed reports.

What benefits should users consider?

Improved Productivity: Reduces manual interference with automated deployments and updates.
Labor Savings: Minimizes labor requirements with efficient remote management tools.
Integrated Reporting: Provides actionable insights through comprehensive reports to optimize IT operation.
User-Friendly Interface: Boosts effectiveness due to its intuitive, easy-to-navigate design.

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance is implemented across industries for managing IT assets and endpoints, particularly where remote management and compliance are critical. It's employed in healthcare, education, and government sectors for efficient patch management, inventory control, and software deployment, aiding organizations in managing security accreditations and centralizing help desk operations.

Quest Software

Sample Customers

NetSys Network Systems

Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King

N-able N-sight Remote Monitoring & Management vs. Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)