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5 up-and-coming Mac management software vendors to know
Vendors that are dedicated to Mac management software tout their specialization as an advantage over unified endpoint management vendors and other desktop management tools.
More organizations are officially deploying and supporting Apple macOS devices thanks to a variety of factors, ranging from the rise of SaaS, employee experience initiatives, and Windows apps delivered from the cloud.
As a result of this enterprise growth, macOS device management vendors are growing too. Many enterprise Apple customers are familiar with Jamf's Apple management suite and offerings from unified endpoint management (UEM) vendors, but there are also a range of newer players in the market. These new players in the Mac device management market include Addigy, Fleetsmith, Kandji, Mosyle and SimpleMDM.
Choosing a Mac management software vendor
Jamf has a commanding lead in the Mac management market. The vendor has been around since 2002 and has a very full-featured Mac management software offering. As a result, Jamf now has 35,000 customers with 15 million devices under management.
Many customers also turn to their UEM vendors for Mac support in addition to the mobile and Windows device management. UEM vendors tout the convenience of having all types of device management under one product. For vendors that support mobile device management (MDM) for iOS, adding MDM support for macOS is a relatively simple addition.
Full management of macOS, however, requires a mixture of MDM-based and traditional desktop agent-based management techniques. Some UEM vendors, such as VMware Workspace One and MobileIron, have explicitly invested in the features of their macOS agents. Other UEM vendors partner with specialized Mac management software vendors for these capabilities. For example, Microsoft partners with Jamf for macOS management capabilities in Intune and Citrix partners with Addigy to add to its Endpoint Management offering. Other vendors simply rely on MDM.
The current crop of macOS device management startups have their own set of advantages. They are dedicated to managing Apple devices, so they generally keep up with the latest management features on the market. They also tout the benefits of being smaller, younger vendors than Jamf, with more modern architectures and easier-to-use consoles.
Pure-play Apple and Mac management vendors
- Addigy
The Mac management software vendor Addigy is based in Miami and was founded in 2013. They recently took their first round of funding, at $6 million. Like most dedicated macOS management vendors, they use a combination of MDM and traditional agent-based approaches. Addigy's SaaS offering is suitable for managed service providers, with support for multi-tenancy and role-based access control. Addigy recently launched a curated repository of community-sourced scripts, which can be used to augment the management features of their platform.
- Fleetsmith
Fleetsmith launched in San Francisco in 2016, and now has $40 million in funding. They manage macOS devices through MDM and an agent and provide administrators with prepackaged versions of common business apps. Fleetsmith recently announced support for distribution of custom apps as well. A free version, Fleetsmith Intelligence, allows customers to monitor and inventory Mac device fleets.
- Kandji
The newest vendor in the space, Kandji, launched in late 2019 after two years in stealth mode. Kandji's software allows organizations to manage Macs via MDM and an agent written in Swift. Kandji offers templates that can set management policies according to various compliance frameworks and templates to automate policies that would otherwise take many steps to implement manually. Kandji is based in San Diego and launched with a $3.4 million seed round.
- Mosyle
Originally founded in Brazil in 2012, Mosyle launched as an iPad-based learning management system for educational markets. In 2016, they expanded to manage all Apple devices, and now they are based in Winter Park, Fla. In 2019, Mosyle took a $16 million Series A round funding and launched Mosyle Business to expand beyond the education market. Some notable features include login screen configurations, remote printer management and data backup via Mosyle's Time Machine storage.
- SimpleMDM
The appropriately named SimpleMDM focuses purely on MDM for Apple products, without a separate desktop agent. SimpleMDM was founded in Portland, Ore. in 2011 and has not taken any funding. SimpleMDM includes significant features such as restricting native macOS policies that could cause problems for IT, remotely locking and unlocking desktops and enabling lost mode without requiring an Apple ID. The company now has a loyal following, with frequent mentions in Mac management software community groups.
