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BigFix pros and cons

Vendor: HCLSoftware

4.3 out of 5

96 reviews
97% willing to recommend

2,718 followers

Pros & Cons summary

BigFix offers reliable pre-packaged support for numerous third-party applications, excelling in patch management and enhancing compliance. Its centralized reporting and deployment improve efficiency across platforms. However, modern reporting features and integration with third-party tools need enhancement. Limited to Intel platforms, it excludes SLES on IBM pSeries. API integration, network software installation, and licensing management require improvement alongside multi-tenant support. Despite these areas, BigFix optimizes vulnerability management with a comprehensive console.

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

BigFix offers powerful patch management capabilities across multiple operating systems, improving patch compliance and reducing security vulnerabilities.

It supports a wide range of third-party applications, enhancing the efficiency of software distribution and patch automation.

BigFix provides extensive scalability and can manage up to 250,000 clients from a single console.

Organizations benefit from the ability to automate and significantly reduce the effort and time required for tasks like patching thousands of machines, increasing security posture and visibility.

The centralized management and extensive community support make BigFix highly effective for desktop and endpoint management.

CONS

IBM has not supported patch management on SLES on IBM pSeries, only the Intel platform is supported.

Relay selection and availability require improvement to prevent network chokes caused by incorrect relay selection.

BigFix lacks proper integration with vulnerability management solutions like Qualys and Tenable.

Needs improved integration with external data and more custom content options.

BigFix can improve compatibility with other platforms like Linux and support drivers for different systems.

BigFix Pros review quotes

Senior Consultant at Wipro Technologies

Nov 1, 2017

Pre-packaged support for many third-party applications such as Adobe, Google, Mozilla, Sun (Java), WinZip, and others.

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JS

Security Administrator at Dev Information Tech Pvt Ltd

Jun 23, 2023

The technical support for BigFix is really amazing.

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FD

Security Solutions Architect at Thuthukani Technology Solutions

Oct 26, 2020

The solution is unbelievably scalable.

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Learn what your peers think about BigFix. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.

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PA

Paul Aage Aasheim

Marketing Coordinator and Project Manager at Attend IT AS

Dec 16, 2020

What I like most is that it is a powerful solution.

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Information Security Systems Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees

Feb 18, 2019

It's enabled us to have a highly successful endpoint patching program for the past decade. It's been enormously successful there. It's also become a core part of many of our business processes, from compliance monitoring of endpoints, encryption management, key escrow, and local administrator password escrow. It's built into our inventory. It's very much everywhere.

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Chief Executive Officer at Catnip infotech private limited

Jan 17, 2023

The best feature of BigFix is its multi-platform support.

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BigFix Admin / Win SysAdmin at Costco Wholesale

Feb 18, 2019

Between the user groups, the community, the AVP support, the direct access via technical route and the PMR support, half the time I don't even need to do a formal PMR because the solutions from the community resolve whatever issues we're having. It's the best community and support based system I've ever used.

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CEO at Novilis

Aug 12, 2024

We receive the patches automatically, and BigFix spreads them automatically to our endpoints.

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TG

Tanyalynnette Grimes

CEO/ Chief Strategist at GreenWave Tech Corp

Feb 18, 2019

DOWNLOADING-PATCHES; It has also helped to reduce network traffic when it comes to downloading patches. By only having to download the patch once to the central location and then utilizing the relay structure to then download the patch to a specific site and then everything gathering at local, it greatly reduces the bandwidth of multiple endpoints.

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reviewer1956723

Automation Architect at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Sep 20, 2022

BigFix has always been easier to use when managing servers, especially when you deal with so many servers. We have 7,000. That's a lot of services to manage, and it's convenient to patch them all at once.

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BigFix Cons review quotes

Senior Consultant at Wipro Technologies

Nov 1, 2017

IBM has not focused on the Web Reports capabilities.

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JS

Security Administrator at Dev Information Tech Pvt Ltd

Jun 23, 2023

One aspect that could be improved is the speed of the console. Sometimes it can be slow, which is something that needs to be addressed.

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FD

Security Solutions Architect at Thuthukani Technology Solutions

Oct 26, 2020

They don't have a proper mobile device management capability. They're working on it, however, that's the one thing that needs improvement so that you can have full unified endpoint management.

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Free Report: BigFix Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about BigFix. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.

838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.

PA

Paul Aage Aasheim

Marketing Coordinator and Project Manager at Attend IT AS

Dec 16, 2020

They need better integration.

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Information Security Systems Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees

Feb 18, 2019

Around the scalability concern, I would like to see the ability to run teamed, clustered, or hierarchical root servers, in order to provide a more robust, high availability system. The single monolithic root server model does somewhat bother me.

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Chief Executive Officer at Catnip infotech private limited

Jan 17, 2023

The solution should have some kind of a local caching methodology, where the patches can be taken locally into a localized relay server, and from there, the patch can be applied, so that there is not much usage of the network required.

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BigFix Admin / Win SysAdmin at Costco Wholesale

Feb 18, 2019

I'd like to see better integration, with the different applications within BigFix. Instead of sometimes feeling like four or five different applications, they need to be integrated a little better within themselves.

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CEO at Novilis

Aug 12, 2024

The look and feel of the system are old-fashioned.

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TG

Tanyalynnette Grimes

CEO/ Chief Strategist at GreenWave Tech Corp

Feb 18, 2019

We're a partner, so we deliver technical support to customers. When we need to talk to the product support, traditionally, with the product over the last five years, I would not say support has been supportive. I hope that changes.

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reviewer1956723

Automation Architect at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Sep 20, 2022

The relevant language takes a little getting used to since it's not used anywhere else in the industry. It's just in the BigFix environment.

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