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KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs SolarWinds Patch Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 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...
Ranking in Patch Management
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (3rd), Endpoint Compliance (7th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (12th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (10th)
SolarWinds Patch Manager
Ranking in Patch Management
31st
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is 3.9%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Patch Manager is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)3.9%
SolarWinds Patch Manager1.0%
Other95.1%
Patch Management
 

Featured Reviews

MH
Server Administrator III at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Reliability and adaptability enable efficient application deployment and security management
The best features Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) offers include the scripting function, which stands out to me because I can find specific needs and deploy the applications based on those needs. There was a time when scripting really saved me time by allowing me to find specific registry entries and modify them to patch security vulnerabilities. Scripting has saved us hundreds of hours over the years when patching these vulnerabilities compared to how we did it before. I really enjoy the security features that are enabled to deploy Microsoft and other vendor patches, which stand out to me as key functionalities.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
12%
Government
9%
Non Profit
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
No data available
 

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
Patch Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Waypoint, Mattos Filho, Meetic, Gems Education, Green Clinic HealthSystem, Service King
University of San Diego
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys, Microsoft, Vicarius and others in Patch Management. Updated: January 2026.
879,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.