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Action1 reinvents patching with an infinitely scalable, highly secure, cloud-native platform configurable in 5 minutes — it just works and is always free for the first 100 endpoints, with no functional limits. Featuring unified OS and third-party patching ...Read more about Action1
Atera’s all-in-one platform enables IT professionals to gain access, visibility and control over their networks and devices from anywhere. With Atera, users can manage their IT operation — from patch management, IT automations, advanced reporting, alerts,...Read more about Atera
Simplify the complexities of IT management with NinjaOne. We serve over 20,000 IT teams worldwide and provide unparalleled visibility, control, and security across all your endpoints. Our platform is built for MSPs and IT professionals who need a comprehen...Read more about NinjaOne
ManageEngine Desktop Central is a mobile device management (MDM) solution designed to help businesses automate, secure, audit, standardize and manage operations across servers, desktops, smartphones, and more. Features include software license management, ...Read more about ManageEngine Endpoint Central
Heimdal Patch & Asset Management is an automated patch management solution with incorporated asset tracking features. With its help, your company can achieve pre-emptive vulnerability management, while at the same time allowing you to view and manage your ...Read more about Heimdal Patch & Asset Management
Pulseway is an integrated IT assets and network monitoring solution designed for IT administrators to remotely monitor and control their business IT resources. The solution supports multi-deployment architecture, allowing the users to choose either on-prem...Read more about Pulseway
LogMeIn Miradore is a cloud-based Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution designed to help IT admins and Managed Service Providers manage both company-owned and personal Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows devices from a single platform. With Miradore, you ca...Read more about LogMeIn Miradore
baramundi Management Suite is an IT management solution that helps businesses of all sizes streamline processes related to IT asset installation, distribution, protection and backup. The license management module allows employees to automatically detect or...Read more about baramundi Management Suite
Automatically or manually install all prioritized updates for which a patch is available across your OS and Apps. Focus on the vulnerabilities that have a real probability of being exploited instead of solving problems that don’t exist. vRx's Patchless P...Read more about vRx
Rippling is an integrated platform designed to empower HR departments to have a significant impact on day-to-day operations and drive strategic outcomes across the business. The platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools to streamline HR processes, enh...Read more about Rippling
ESET PROTECT Complete delivers robust patch management for businesses with 250+ employees, providing both cloud-based and on-premises solutions. This comprehensive tool ensures your systems are always secure and up-to-date by automating updates and conduct...Read more about ESET PROTECT Complete
Applivery is an advanced Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) platform designed to provide complete control over apps and devices for enterprise-level businesses. With Applivery, companies can easily manage their endpoints and mobile applications on Android...Read more about Applivery
ConnectWise Automate (Formerly LabTech) is a cloud-based and on-premise IT automation solution that helps companies track and manage IT assets from a single location. Content management features allow users to share documents and publish content on their ...Read more about ConnectWise Automate
Automox is the modern, cloud-native endpoint-hardening platform that empowers organizations to remediate vulnerabilities faster than they can be weaponized. This cross-platform solution simplifies and automates critical patching, software updates, security...Read more about Automox
Patch My PC is a product that allows system administrators to easily publish and deploy patches to third-party applications in Microsoft Configuration Manager and Intune. Our product can also package third-party applications that can be used for the initia...Read more about Patch My PC
PDQ Deploy is specifically designed to automate system patches and application updates. Choose from our Package Library of over 200 applications to make updates within minutes. Select the software you want to deploy, specify which machines require updates,...Read more about PDQ Deploy & Inventory
Scalefusion is a solution that helps businesses manage and control content on corporate devices in lockdown kiosk mode. Key features include wireless internet access, usage reporting, secure browsing, onsite printing, digital signature and touch screen sup...Read more about Scalefusion
Domotz is IT Infrastructure Monitoring and Management Software on a mission to provide all service providers, MSPs, integrators, and enterprises with affordable network monitoring software that enables you to work smarter, build customer loyalty, and solv...Read more about Domotz
Naverisk is a remote monitoring and management solution for businesses of all sizes. The solution is used by managed service providers and IT professionals. Key features include technology monitoring, management patching, alerting, scripting and automation...Read more about Naverisk
AppTec EMM is an enterprise mobility management solution that helps organizations securely manage and control mobile devices, applications, and content. The solution caters to a range of industries such as retail, hybrid work, healthcare, education, and lo...Read more about AppTec360 UEM
ESET PROTECT MDR offers comprehensive managed detection and response services designed to secure businesses with 250+ employees. This advanced solution combines continuous threat monitoring, real-time threat intelligence, and expert incident response to pr...Read more about ESET PROTECT MDR
The Nanitor vulnerability management solution is designed to simplify the process of real-time detection and proactive response to cybersecurity issues. It focuses on strengthening the security fundamentals of an organization's global IT infrastructure. Th...Read more about Nanitor
RG System is a network monitoring solution designed for managed service providers (MSPs), independent software vendors (ISVs) and office automation companies to monitor, secure and manage IT infrastructures. RG System is a modular solution containing 4 i...Read more about RG System
Built on the Ninite platform, Ninite Pro is a patch management solution that can be used to patch and secure software in a live web interface. With Ninite Pro, businesses can obtain a real-time interactive view of all machines and utilize simple point-and-...Read more about Ninite Pro
Relution is a mobile device management solution for data protection-compliant and multi-platform device management. Digital end devices can be controlled and monitored via remote management. In this way, devices can be prepared for use and deployed specifi...Read more about Relution
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Buyers Guide
This detailed guide will help you find and buy the right patch management software for you and your business.
Last Updated on January 27, 2025There’s no such thing as perfect software. All software is a work in progress. This is true of all software, whether it’s an early beta release—and is expected to have bugs—or is the latest production version of a widely used platform.
When problems are discovered post-release, vendors issue software patches to fix them. Patches are updates to the software’s underlying code made to repair functionality or fix security vulnerabilities. Since they’re issued in response to freshly discovered problems and newly created vulnerabilities, their release doesn’t follow any predictable schedule. As a further complication, the management and installation of patches is the responsibility of the end-user.
Patch management software helps IT teams monitor and manage the deployment of software patches. In this Buyer’s Guide, we discuss:
What Is Patch Management Software?
Common Features of Patch Management Software
Benefits of Patch Management Software
Patch Management Software Best Practices
What Is Patch Management Software?
IT departments—even in SMBs that may only have an IT department of one or two people—have been patching software for as long as they’ve been around. Patching software is, in fact, one of the central operations required to keep a company’s IT both up and running as well as safe and secure.
To that last point, it’s been estimated that “99% of exploits are based on vulnerabilities that have already been known to security and IT professionals for at least one year.” (It's Time to Align Your Vulnerability Management Priorities With the Biggest Threats, Gartner, available to clients.) Only when the vulnerabilities are successfully patched can the risk of falling victim to an exploit be minimized.
Patch management software is designed to simplify and automate various aspects of the patch deployment and monitoring process. It addresses patch management for a variety of IT components, including individual endpoints, servers and network applications.
Because IT varies widely between verticals and company size-tiers, patch management software comes in many shapes and sizes. It’s not uncommon for an enterprise to have several IT teams and find each using different patch management software.
While SMBs have simpler, more focused patch management software needs, they must still search within a highly fragmented and complex patch management software market to find the solution that best meets their needs.
Common Features of Patch Management Software
This section highlights the central applications of patch management software and provides a good place to begin your search.
Patch inventory | Patch management software helps keep track of a company’s IT inventory, including its endpoints (PCs, tablets, POSs etc.), databases, servers and applications. Inventory tools also help track which versions of software are installed on the devices and their patch history. |
Patch catalog | A repository to store and manage patches active in your company’s IT ecosystem. Catalog tools can automatically download patches from software vendors, ensuring solutions are up to date. They can also help confirm that new patches are necessary and aren’t, for example, superseded by an earlier patch or update. |
Patch prioritization | Prioritization tools help IT admins determine which patches should receive the most immediate attention, based on the organization’s IT profile. Some prioritization tools incorporate Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) ratings to better identify vulnerabilities that need the most immediate attention. |
Patch installation | Installation tools assist with the deployment and installation of software patches, helping to automate what can be a very time consuming manual process. Apart from saving time, they also increase the quality of patch management processes by minimizing downtime and reducing human error. |
Patch integration | Patch management tools can often be integrated with other IT service management tools, like help desks and tools for IT asset management. These integrations can improve workflow efficiencies and provide more transparency into the current state of all of a company’s IT assets. |
Reporting | These tools report on the current (and historical) state of an IT environment, letting admins see at a glance which patches have and haven’t been implemented. They can also help maintain patch compliance in circumstances where patch installation is left up to end users or individual (non-IT) departments. |
Benefits of Patch Management Software
While we touched on some of the benefits of patch management software in the sections above, here we’ll lay them out in a more organized fashion.
Improved IT security: Improved IT security across endpoints, databases and internal networks is the most significant benefit of a successful patch management software deployment. Note that patch management software doesn’t make IT security software unnecessary, but it can improve its effectiveness.
Better system stability: Patches do more than just fix security vulnerabilities, they can also restore functionality, prevent errors and ensure that production IT equipments always runs at full capacity. Better systems stability is a benefit that all IT users can appreciate.
Time savings: Deploying patches manually can be extremely time consuming. Patch management software greatly reduces this burden. It also saves time for IT end-users by reducing the need for lengthy update processes, re-installations and reduces the need for damage control following a malware infection.
Keep in mind, however, that these benefits are contingent upon proper selection and implementation of patch management software. Some tips for this are in the following section.
Patch Management Software Best Practices
As with all software, the success of a patch management software implementation depends upon accurate alignment with company-wide goals. Additionally, consider the following best practices when planning your company’s implementation:
Avoid using heavily automated patching until you have well-defined standards and process. Haphazard use of automated patching can lead to system instability.
IT configurations should be tracked or monitored to prevent configuration drift, a problem in which the configuration of production IT grows apart from the configuration of backup and secondary systems.
Patch management may require occasional cooperation from staff outside the IT department to, for example, test recently patched applications or avoid using certain applications during scheduled patch maintenance windows.
Cloud-deployed software is typically patched by the software vendor, not end-users, so can be a good alternative if patch management becomes too much of a burden.
Patch management can be a significant burden on IT departments, but given the myriad risks associated with using unpatched software, it’s a necessary burden. Careful patch management software selection and implementation can greatly reduce that burden without introducing extra complications.