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Freshservice vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Freshservice

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AFreshservice is a cloud-based service desk and IT service management (ITSM) solution that currently serves more than 10,000 SMB, mid-market, and enterprise customers worldwide.

    $29

    per month per agent

    KACE Systems Management Appliance

    Score10 out of 10
    N/AQuest 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
    Pricing
    FreshserviceKACE Systems Management Appliance
    Editions & Modules
    Starter
    $29.00
    per month per agent
    Growth
    $59.00
    per month per agent
    Pro
    $119.00
    per month per agent
    Enterprise
    Custom
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FreshserviceKACE Systems Management Appliance
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual billing.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    FreshserviceKACE Systems Management Appliance
    Considered Both Products
    Freshworks Inc
    Chose Freshservice
    We've used a few products. KACE was the system we used prior to getting FreshService, however, KACE did not have a user-friendly UI, and required someone that knew what they were doing to setup. SharePoint is a good option for small departments, we setup a ticketing system …
    Incentivized
    Quest Software
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    99%
    Would buy again
    148 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    141 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    148 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    113 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    93%
    Implementation went as expected
    117 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    FreshserviceKACE Systems Management Appliance
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Freshservice and KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
    Feature
    Freshservice
    8.2
    142 Ratings
    1% above category average
    KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
    -
    Ratings
    Organize and prioritize service tickets9.1142 Ratings00 Ratings
    Expert directory8.3100 Ratings00 Ratings
    Service restoration8.485 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self-service tools8.1126 Ratings00 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications7.9103 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation7.6117 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM reports and dashboards8.1122 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM asset management
    Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Freshservice and KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
    Feature
    Freshservice
    7.7
    114 Ratings
    6% below category average
    KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
    -
    Ratings
    Configuration mangement7.4106 Ratings00 Ratings
    Asset management dashboard7.5111 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy and contract enforcement8.278 Ratings00 Ratings
    Change management
    Comparison of Change management features of Freshservice and KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
    Feature
    Freshservice
    8.0
    109 Ratings
    5% below category average
    KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
    -
    Ratings
    Change requests repository7.7103 Ratings00 Ratings
    Change calendar7.887 Ratings00 Ratings
    Service-level management8.4102 Ratings00 Ratings
    IT Asset Management
    Comparison of IT Asset Management features of Freshservice and KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
    Feature
    Freshservice
    -
    Ratings
    KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)
    8.6
    12 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Software and hardware inventory tracking00 Ratings10.012 Ratings
    License management00 Ratings9.011 Ratings
    Asset lifecycle monitoring00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
    Contract management00 Ratings6.06 Ratings
    Asset relationship management00 Ratings10.08 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    FreshserviceKACE Systems Management Appliance
    Small Businesses
    Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Score9.2 out of 10
    KACE Asset Management Appliance
    Score7.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
    Score4.5 out of 10
    Ivanti Neurons for ITAM
    Score6.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    FreshserviceKACE Systems Management Appliance
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (143 ratings)
    10.0
    (12 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.7
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.5
    (13 ratings)
    8.6
    (3 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.8
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.3
    (107 ratings)
    9.5
    (4 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.2
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (8 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    7.9
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    7.8
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    6.4
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    8.6
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.3
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    FreshserviceKACE Systems Management Appliance
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Freshworks Inc
    Freshservice is well suited for companies looking to implement ticketing / case management across the organization, but only if IT will be using it. Otherwise, I'd recommend Freshdesk. IT departments that don't function in the ITIL style of incident, request, change, and project management may find it overkill if they are only looking for a simple Help Desk solution.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Freshworks Inc
    • The smartphone app is very well designed and adding assets from there is very easy
    • If you have questions or support, the support desk is fast to respond and setup a meeting to explain the features
    • Very customizable and everything can be easily changed with a wizard
    • Reporting feature does what it needs to do and is not complicated to work with
    • The overall ticketing system is very good and we have not run into any issues
    • The whole system is incredibly responsive and does not hang or freeze
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    • Inventory: KACE provides a ton of hardware and software inventory information that is easy to search, filter, and export. This is critical when we need to find the answers to questions about how many of such and such we have in our fleet.
    • Patch Management: We were using WSUS before and it was altogether too cumbersome. KACE has given us the power, flexibility, and verification we need to feel comfortable our patches are up-to-date.
    • Service Queue: We made KACE our help desk system and it does everything we need it to do. Great improvement over our old system.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Freshworks Inc
    • To have more options on what to do with the emails that arrive in the support mailbox (which goes to Freshservice), Setting some special rules or detailed filtering is not possible.
    • Non 3rd party tools to connect to Intune are missing. Additionally, the third-party tool available in the store is not satisfactory. It would be nice to have native support for importing devices from our Azure cloud.
    • The contract requires you to prolong your contract end-date by two years instead of just one year, which to us is a bit aggressive.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    • The KACE SMA needs a better way to handle different roles in the software so certain users can access or administrate certain parts of the software, but not the entire software installation.
    • The KACE SMA could improve the ticketing process of projects. The aspects of the title and some information do not always flow down from the parent ticket to its child tickets.
    • The KACE SMA could improve the UI of the software with the addition of different CSS color schemes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Freshworks Inc
    We are pretty invested in Freshservice right now and have integrated it pretty heavily into our environment, so it would be hard to move away from it. For the most part, we are happy with Freshservice and the ease of use it gives us in managing tickets through the system. The only complaint we've had is customer service.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Freshworks Inc
    The UI design of Freshservice is simple and intuitive. You don't have to be a technical expert to navigate your way into the different pages/modules available. There are no buttons that are hidden in plain sight. Even our HR team required little to no help when they started using Freshservice.
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Freshworks Inc
    Downtime is minimal (it does happen but not often)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Freshworks Inc
    Most reports are quick, however, it can take some time for emailed exports to come via email. It would be helpful to have the exports live in the system rather than having to wait on emails.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Freshworks Inc
    Support from OEM is decent but needs improvement. Sometimes OEM also needs to understand the criticality of the customer and help as an Ad-hoc, which is somewhat lacking at Feshservice. Although the normal support team is well-equipped and helps according to the matrix, if something critical for the partner or customer requires immediate attention, it still goes through the L1-L2-L3 levels, which wastes a lot of time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Freshworks Inc
    Training was enough to use the base website
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Freshworks Inc
    Their documentation is pretty good, but only available in English. This makes it difficult for some of our users to understand. There are also some basic video courses available.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Freshworks Inc
    Creating the correct groups for the stakeholders and enabling the right notifications are one of the most important aspect of the implementation. Creating Change templates will also help in the long run and it's a good practice to create one, if applicable.
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Freshworks Inc
    Easy setup and a lot of customization which can be made. They offer the full ITSM tool for 75$ per agent and all the PRO are included in the package, which makes it easy to calculate and use. There are only a few add-ins that you need to pay for, based on the number of agents or the number of executions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    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 would have totaled more than we pay for the single system.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Freshworks Inc
    Was not able to update us proactively about our renewal causing lost of access
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Freshworks Inc
    The software is very scalable from a small to mid sized team. The features have seemed to scale exceptionally well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Professional Services
    Freshworks Inc
    We did not have professional services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Freshworks Inc
    • We had no ticketing system at all so we had no idea of the workload, we now do
    • We have been able to go from nothing to seeing workload to identifying areas for improvement by having the metrics
    • We have lowered MTTR every month since turning on fresh service
    • We have increased 1st all resolution every month
    • We have been able to start talking about real SLA's with the business
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Quest Software
    • KACE has saved us from having to spend several days of employee hours in crafting DVDs and duplicating them (100+ DVDs)
    • KACE has saved us on the postage required to send out those DVDs for every update (monthly) to all of our customers electronically
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Freshservice Screenshots

    Screenshot of Android App SupportScreenshot of Asset ManagementScreenshot of Project ManagementScreenshot of Asset ManagementScreenshot of Change ManagementScreenshot of Project Management