SecuriveComparison
Securive vs WSUS
WSUS is free, it is already on a server somewhere, and for distributing updates on a flat network it works. The question is not whether it distributes. It is what it can tell you about the machines that never checked in — and what it does the day one of those updates breaks a domain controller.
The short version
If you have a small, stable, on-premises estate and somebody who enjoys WSUS, keep it. If you need to answer “which machines are unpatched, and which have we simply not heard from” — for an auditor, a client or an insurer — that is the question WSUS is worst at and this is built around.
Which one
Pick the right one, even if it isn't us.
Choose Securive if…
- You need to state coverage, not just compliance: how much of the estate you have actually assessed, as a number.
- Machines are laptops that are rarely on the corporate network, so a server they must reach is a server they often do not.
- You want updates deployed in rings with a snapshot and a one-click rollback, rather than approved and hoped for.
- You are an MSP with many customers and need per-client isolation and your own branding without standing up a WSUS per client.
- Nobody wants to own, patch and capacity-plan the update server itself — WSUS has its own maintenance, and a neglected one silently stops synchronising.
Choose WSUS if…
- It is free and already licensed with Windows Server. That is a real advantage and not a small one.
- It caches update content locally, which matters enormously on a constrained or metered link — we do not distribute the payloads.
- Fully disconnected environments, where any hosted component is out of the question.
- You already run SCCM/Configuration Manager on top of it and have the deployment tooling you need.
- Your estate is small, static and entirely on one network, where the reporting gap barely bites.
Side by side
Where the two models differ
Windows Server Update Services — Microsoft's own free update distribution role, installed on a Windows server and driven by Group Policy.
- What it costs
- WSUS: Free with Windows Server, plus the server it runs on and the time to keep it healthy.
- Securive: Per machine per month, published.
- Machines that never report
- WSUS: Absent from the report. A machine that stopped checking in looks the same as one that was never enrolled.
- Securive: Counted and shown as not assessed. Coverage is a headline number, never rounded up to clean.
- Where the data comes from
- WSUS: The Windows Update Agent, reported back to the WSUS server on its own schedule.
- Securive: The same Windows Update Agent, read by an agent that reports to an appliance on your network.
- Deployment control
- WSUS: Approve an update for a computer group. What happens after that is between the machine and Group Policy.
- Securive: Rings with a soak period, maintenance windows, per-group change freezes, and a VSS snapshot before each install.
- When an update breaks something
- WSUS: Decline the update and remove it by script or by hand, machine by machine.
- Securive: Roll the ring back. The snapshot was taken before the install.
- The server going quiet
- WSUS: A WSUS that stops synchronising still answers clients, and the estate reports nothing missing. It looks healthy.
- Securive: Machines pointed at a WSUS are flagged as such, so an estate agreeing suspiciously well is visible rather than reassuring.
- Laptops off the network
- WSUS: Must reach the WSUS server. Off the VPN, they neither update nor report.
- Securive: The agent reports whenever the machine can reach the appliance; a machine that is off is shown as not reporting rather than as fine.
- Multi-tenant
- WSUS: One WSUS per customer, or shared groups and careful discipline.
- Securive: Per-customer isolation, scoped end-client accounts and White Label as part of the product.
- Update content
- WSUS: Cached locally. Real bandwidth savings on a constrained link.
- Securive: Not distributed by us — machines fetch from Microsoft or from your existing WSUS. This is a genuine gap on a metered link.
Compiled from publicly available material and reviewed August 2026. These products change. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it — including when the correction doesn't favour us. WSUS is a trademark of its respective owner and is used here for identification only.
Questions
The things people ask before they switch
No, and for a lot of estates you should not. Keep it for content distribution on constrained links; Patch Guard reports which machines take updates from it, which is the one thing WSUS itself cannot tell you when it has quietly stopped synchronising. Deployment through WSUS or SCCM is an explicit choice rather than something we take over.
WSUS reports on machines that checked in. The number it cannot give you is how many did not — and that is the number an auditor, a client or an insurer is really asking for. A report showing 340 machines compliant is worth very little if the estate is 400 and nobody knows where the other 60 went.
It is deprecated rather than removed, and it still ships. Plan for it, but do not let a deprecation notice be the reason: the reporting gap was there when WSUS was current, and any replacement should be judged on whether it closes that rather than on the announcement.
Yes, and that is the sensible order. The agent only reads while you are evaluating — it installs nothing. Point it at the estate, look at the coverage number against what WSUS reports, and decide from the difference.
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