Smart Keeper vs. Kensington: A Product Comparison

Smart Keeper and Kensington are two well-known brands of cybersecurity products. Here, we compare the two companies’ port lock product lines on a head-to-head basis, first comparing their port lock security features and then comparing their breadth of port lock offerings.

Security

Kensington’s and Smart Keeper’s USB port locks operate in a similar fashion. Installing the port lock is as simple as pushing the lock into the port. In addition, removing both the Kensington lock and the Smart Keeper lock requires a key.

However, the similarities end there.

First, Kensington’s port lock does not sit flush to the cabinet of the desktop tower or laptop case, which means a bad actor can grab and pull the lock, potentially ripping it from the USB port. The Smart Keeper lock fits flush to the cabinet, making it impossible to grab and yank the lock.

Second, Kensington deploys a universal key, meaning that anyone with any Kensington key can unlock any Kensington USB port lock.

Smart Keeper offers a much greater level of security, as Smart Keeper locks cannot be removed unless a Smart Keeper key with a matching pattern is used. All locks and keys are a common color – making it impossible to determine key pattern by color.

What’s more, neither the purchaser nor the end user knows what key pattern has been deployed to a particular installation site. The installation sites are registered, and patterns assigned by the Smart Keeper team. If additional locks or keys need to be purchased, then the Smart Keeper team can provide products that are pattern-matched to the previous deployment.

In addition, if a purchaser wants to buy goods for a particular installation site, they must first go through a simple vetting process to determine that they are, indeed, authorized to buy for that site. All of this is designed to make it much harder for an unauthorized person to procure a key on their own and use it to open ports without permission.

WINNER HANDS-DOWN: Smart Keeper

Breadth of Product Line

Smart Keeper offers 23 different locks; Kensington offers one. What’s more, all Smart Keeper locks can be unlocked with the same professional Smart Keeper Port Lock Key, providing extreme versatility without the need to maintain multiple keys.

BREADTH OF PRODUCT LINE WINNER HANDS-DOWN: Smart Keeper

Based on Smart Keeper’s security superiority, its much-expanded product line offering, and the need to purchase and maintain a single Smart Keeper key to operate all locks regardless of type, we declare Smart Keeper the overall winner.