KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. SysAid

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
KACE Systems Management Appliance
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Quest now offers the KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) as an IT Asset tracking and management appliance (also available as a virtual deployment if hardware requirements are met). Beyond discovery, inventory tracking and license management, KACE emphasizes automating software upgrade distribution with minimal end-user disruption, featuring remote replication for multi-site upgrades and rollouts. KACE SMA may be bundled with KACE Cloud Mobile Device Management (MDM) to form a complete UEM…N/A
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
SysAid is an ITSM platform that enhances service delivery with AI Agents, chatbots, workflow automation, and asset management. AI Copilot categorizes tickets, provides case summaries, and offers sentiment analysis. The AI chatbot, available via chat, email, and Teams, speeds support.N/A
Pricing
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)SysAid
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
KACE Systems Management ApplianceSysAid
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
Additional DetailsSysAid Copilot is available as an add-on for any plan. It bakes generative AI into every aspect of service management.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)SysAid
Considered Both Products
KACE Systems Management Appliance
Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
More features, better integration into our system(s). Ease of use for not only Techs but also end users.
Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
Ease of use and inventory management
Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
KACE has been a little bit easier to use and cheaper than when we were looking at Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). We have had much success with KACE as it has extra services such as the license manager and helpdesk ticketing system. Great value for the …
Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
Compared to more robust tools like SCCM, KACE delivers 90% of the value for a fraction of the cost. Not only is the initial upfront investment less it requires significantly less care and feeding to ensure you get what you need.
Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
By far it easier to deploy and manage. It makes the process of deployment, software, and patching much easier, and it's an all-in-one solution that is easy to manage and train helpdesk on.
Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
For our size organization, KACE offered a more complete solution that was easier to understand and deploy when compared to Ivanti. It was also more affordable to get the features we wanted. Ivanti might be more appropriate in a larger environment. You would definitely need …
Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
We liked having the helpdesk portion integrated with our hardware and software inventory instead of having 2-3 different discrete systems that wouldn't talk to each other.
Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
We have selected this software because it rolls several different systems into one. We have a helpdesk system with this and an asset and inventory management system as well. We pay one price for the whole system instead of paying multiple companies different amounts that …
Chose KACE Systems Management Appliance
The biggest part to KACE verses these options was the ability to have an agent installed on the endpoint that could communicate back to our primary KACE appliance for updates. As we have customers with different network setups and the machines are never in a direct connect to …
SysAid
Chose SysAid
Sysaid is a more streamlined overall process than Zendesk.
Chose SysAid
I find SysAid system much better than the Spiceworks cloud version in that you can actually customize it to your company needs. Spiceworks is a great free system, but limited by lack of customizations
Chose SysAid
The ease of implementation and the cost of the product for a small to medium-sized organization like mine.
Chose SysAid
The value of SysAid just seemed to be much better than Kaseya. The review was relatively short with Kaseya, but I immediately liked what SysAid offered. The overall capability compared to the costs associated with SysAid made it a great choice.
Chose SysAid
SysAid is simple to set up and gets online compared to Jira and Zendesk.
Chose SysAid
SysAid is very cost-effective and flexible and integrates ITSM and asset management tools in one platform, reducing the need for separate tools. They have an intuitive interface that ensures a smooth user experience, reducing the learning curve for IT teams. SysAid offers …
Chose SysAid
We found that SysAid was better value for money and had the features we needed in the right package for us.
Chose SysAid
There are many items offered on the other platforms that SysAid does not have. However, for a smaller or medium-sized business that needs a simple and easy way to get tickets flowing and allow users to help themselves, this is an excellent way to start.
Chose SysAid
ServiceNow is a very clean-looking portal and one of the primary IT asset management softwares. SysAid was originally onboarded by another project manager, but the selection came from a much lower cost than other ITSM software. In the future, interface/GUI will be a large part …
Chose SysAid
It was a lot less expensive, easy to use, and has all the features that you will need. Support is great and easy to work with.
Chose SysAid
SysAid is a decent ITSM based product for the money if you want an application that for the most part can be setup and administered without a dedicated resource assigned to SysAid maintenance.

In my experience, it does not have the full functionality of either Cherwell or …
Chose SysAid
ServiceNow is lightyears ahead of SysAid. They efficiently use workflows to get everything set up in the system. One prime example is the onboarding and offboarding of employees. You can set up individual approval tasks to add/remove employees from systems. These tasks will …
Chose SysAid
SysAid is better than our previous ticketing system in almost every aspect. The only thing our old system did better was time entry for our staff.
Chose SysAid
Better for immediate handling os priority issues but project related activities are better suited to a kanban board presented from devops
Chose SysAid
SysAid offers both cloud and on-premise delivery models, plus different ITSM capabilities and pricing levels from a basic ticketing system, through the help desk, to IT service management software.
Chose SysAid
The Spiceworks cloud helpdesk is a good, free alternative to paid helpdesk options. However, because it's free it's limited in functionality. We chose SysAid as it has all the features we desired such as strong change control, and more extras such as the remote support function …
Chose SysAid
Jira work management needs a difficult customization part. Jira is also a large scale tool. This tool is more complex. It requires more business understanding. SysAid is beginners friendly. Hence we have opted for this tool. For tools like Jira we need a scrum master to …
Chose SysAid
Better support than open source solutions. It provides a better overall design to get an overview of the whole IT system. To configure redmine you need some programming knowledge or search for plugins and solutions on forums. Sydaid has a proper helpdesk which you can contact …
Chose SysAid
SysAid, compared to other helpdesk software, was reasonably cost-effective; they provided seamless integrations and were willing to redesign the software to meet our needs. One of their current features that is winning with my organization is the SysAid bot. This is a great …
Chose SysAid
SysAid was better at including multiple modules than the competition. We also like the licensing options and price better than the competition.
Chose SysAid
Knowledge base, asset management, Teams Chat bot.
Features
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)SysAid
IT Asset Management
Comparison of IT Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
8.6
Ratings
9% above category average
SysAid
-
Ratings
Software and hardware inventory tracking10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
License management9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset lifecycle monitoring8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract management6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset relationship management10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
-
Ratings
SysAid
9.1
Ratings
11% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Service restoration00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Self-service tools00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
-
Ratings
SysAid
8.6
Ratings
5% above category average
Configuration mangement00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Asset management dashboard00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
-
Ratings
SysAid
9.8
Ratings
16% above category average
Change requests repository00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Change calendar00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Service-level management00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Best Alternatives
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)SysAid
Small Businesses
Atera
Atera
Score 8.7 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.2 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.2 out of 10
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)SysAid
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.5
(0 ratings)
7.5
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)SysAid
Likelihood to Recommend
I think it has added value for any organization. It reduced our Tech Support cost by: -Supporting users anywhere -Reducing users downtime as well keep them informed with the status of their tickets -Managing software and hardware actively -Processing automation -deploy mass software installs, patching or updates - Provide approved software's to users to install without IT help
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SysAid is Great for IT Support. Tickets can be easily entered using the portal that has a more modern look and feel. We have also used SysAid for our Customer Service Team. Tickets can come in through email or direct access through the cloud. They no longer get lost in the shuffle. Reports can be produced for the managers to better undersand where issues are.
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Pros
  • Helpdesk ticketing, the software allows not only the building of a portal that the users can log into to submit the tickets, but it also allows them to generate a ticket via email, which is a huge successful implementation that we have had.
  • Live inventory tracking. With an agent installed on a PC, as long as we maintain the data, it can report back information that is crucial to the machine.
  • Web portal makes for easy maintenance and implementation of the software and updates.
Read full review
  • Ease of use for end users creating tickets from their own Self-Service Portal (which is tied into Windows Active Directory so no login is needed).
  • Ease of use and management of tickets by the IT staff.
  • Flexibility. We currently have IT teams associated with a single program, a single department, and all other IT items. SysAid allows us to easily manage this, add to it, change it, etc.
  • Support - SysAid support has remained consistently great throughout the years that we have had the product. That is a fairly rare thing for hosted solutions these days.
  • Expandability. We have a lot more that we can still do with the product and are working on expanding what it can do as we move forward in time. There is a lot to this product overall.
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Cons
  • Administrative interface can be slow at times, and does require some decent PC specifications to run adequately.
  • The cost of the KACE solution can be very expensive depending on how many agents you plan to deploy
  • There is a learning curve in order to master KACE's capabilities - however Quest does provide lots of resources to dig into. It is not as intuitive as it could be.
Read full review
  • [I would like it if the] Due Date [could] recalculate if a ticket has been stopped (awaiting user).
  • [The] dashboard could have more options when creating a new graphic.
  • [The] end user portal [could offer] the ability to customize more info, like font and adding more images.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
Because through SYSAID is how the operation of all IT is carried out and in this way the performance indicators of the services, systems, operation, trends, workloads, project control and their deviations are known; as well as the requests for changes and requirements that are requested by both users and that is where the system improvement projects are triggered, such as change controls, which by the way are audit topics.
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Usability
Overall, the software is simple to understand and use. That said, most vendors have been slowly updating their user interfaces to HTML5 so that they have a clean updated look and feel. This is where KACE falls short in that the UI is great for a packaged software 10 years ago. This isn't a major limitation as the software is really meant primarily for technology users.
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It is a very simple tool to use, the training required to implement it is minimal and it is also very simple for end users. There is a quick guide to configure and it was the only thing we used to configure the tool. The response of the users was good to the implementation because they did not feel that it was a big change that complicated the request of tasks by the IT department.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
Another of the benefits of sysaid is that it is highly available when working in on-premise environments.The only times the system is down is when a restart of the services is required to add a new feature. Apart from that, we have not had any problems.In the case of the cloud, the only condition I have seen where sysaid is not available is because the internet link is down or damaged.
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Performance
No answers on this topic
In the case of system performance, I have seen that no matter the number of assets and users, Sysaid responds in the same way and at the same speed. The reports that are scheduled do not have any details because they arrive directly to your email. In the same way, when it is integrated with other systems, for example through the API or by email, we have not seen any failure due to the integration. It works very well with or without integrations.
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Support Rating
KACE does exactly what you need it to do, it maintains your computer environment. You can set patch schedules, inventory computers, setup software catalogs; basically everything you need to ensure the computers on your network are being actively managed. This is all with little need for constant configuration or updating the setup.
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I have had nothing but positive experiences working with the SysAid support team. There are multiple pathways to request and receive support, which are all connected with each other. I get an efficient and effective response most of the time and when there is not immediately a good answer, they create a support request to follow up for resolution.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
My team was greatly assisted and trained well. Despite the time zone difference the trainer made every effort to be available during times that were suitable for us and the assistance and help offered was extremely appreciated by my team. A wonderful experience by the team.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
The training I received was very good, they gave me tasks to carry out and then they checked what I had done.It was gratifying that the instructor noticed that I had made very fast progress because I had done the implementation myself and it was very fast. At least I remember that after 5 days I had already finished almost 90% of all the implementation tasks.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
In the initial stage we implement separate SysAid servers for head and branch offices. When we managed to link up our offices via point to point VPN, we manage to console them into one server. All the assets and devices on branch office were divert back to the server in head office
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Alternatives Considered
For our size organization, KACE offered a more complete solution that was easier to understand and deploy when compared to Ivanti. It was also more affordable to get the features we wanted. Ivanti might be more appropriate in a larger environment. You would definitely need someone that was primarily dedicated to run behind Ivanti.
Read full review
The value of SysAid just seemed to be much better than Kaseya. The review was relatively short with Kaseya, but I immediately liked what SysAid offered. The overall capability compared to the costs associated with SysAid made it a great choice.
Read full review
Scalability
No answers on this topic
Le doy esta calificación porque los módulos que contiene se pueden usar para casi cualquier departamento, tanto gestión de tickets como inventarios de equipos, hemos utilizado una versión gratuita en Ingeniería para gestionar sus tiempos en las tareas asignadas, es lo único que utilizan pero podrían usar fácilmente el módulo de inventario para su herramienta y el módulo de proyectos también
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Return on Investment
  • The time savings on Windows patching through the KACE SMA alone has helped us in saving hundreds of technician hours.
  • Ticket tracking through the KACE SMA has reduced the amount of calls to our helpdesk asking about the status of a ticket.
  • The tracking of licensed software through the KACE SMA has kept us in compliance and saved time from having to run around and look to see where the software is installed.
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  • Our resolution time has increased a lot compared to not using a ticketing system.
  • We have reduced communication load significantly for our helpdesk admins.
  • The knowledgebase is rough, but still allows us to preserve and share our collective experience and expertise.
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ScreenShots

SysAid Screenshots

Screenshot of Monitoring & Fine Tuning - Gives the admin control over the quality of answers that the AI Chatbot provides, through the ability to edit and fine-tune the answers.Screenshot of Ticket Journey - Admins can deep dive into the history and context of a ticket, quickly, with ticket journey filters, while reviewing a chronological, consolidated view of everything to help reach a resolution, faster – including all actions takenScreenshot of a Ticket Queue, which offers a consolidated, easy-to-navigate view of the ticket queue to help admins resolve issues more more efficiently.Screenshot of AI Chatbot, a conversational self-service experience that uses Generative AI to help employees work through issues by delivering answers based on what it has learned by absorbing knowledge base articles, internal data, and ticket resolution historyScreenshot of the workflow automation that digitizes processes without coding or scripting. Users can automate complex processes with simple design and editing capabilities, and real-time visibility of the end-to-end process.Screenshot of the SysAid AI Agents that empower IT teams with intelligence that thinks, learns, and acts securely. Designed to enhance—not override—IT operations, they anticipate needs, make informed decisions, and adapt responsibly