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BigFix vs VMware Carbon Black Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

BigFix
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (5th), Patch Management (2nd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
20th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Security Incident Response (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Ransomware Protection (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of BigFix is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is 1.9%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 15, 2019
 

Featured Reviews

Bella Yakoby - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers third-party patching feature, good scalability, and enhance endpoint management capabilities
From the perspective of the team that's handling the environment, it's not so user-friendly compared to other solutions, the competitors. We hire new teams from time to time, and they are complaining, look, although BigFix is very robust and cross-platform, it's not so fun to work with. The user interface for the technical teams is not so advanced. It's not so intuitive compared to SCCM, compared to ManageEngine. And this is the fact that they have, with the teams, because they have the rejection. The look and feel of the system are old-fashioned. For new employees, it's less easy to find someone I don't need to educate on how to work with BigFix. Although it's easy, it's not as intuitive as the other solutions, and the functionality of the other solutions is less advanced. Let's summarize: The user interface has to be changed from the perspective of the teams that are managing the product. It's old school.
Matthew Weisler - PeerSpot reviewer
Great granularity for policies or applications without needing hash values
The solution is cloud based which makes it easy to use for remote devices or work-at-home situations. The solution supports full trust or signature-based approvals. You can get very granular and band out policies or applications without having to do hash values. You can band through the entire environment by execution of the name or desk IDXE. This can be achieved on the policy side because of the signature, IOC, or naming convention itself. This is very effective for pushing more blockage or removing threats across the board. The solution has a very nice API on the back end for remoting into a system and executing scripts or utilizing self automation. This is useful for monitoring several different companies in a workspace or workbook-type format. For example, I report and send out mass emails from a clickable button in an Excel workbook. The APIs all exist for each client. I push out automatic endpoint monitoring and reports every single day at a particular time, with a simple clickable button that serves as a scheduled task for fifty clients.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We receive the patches automatically, and BigFix spreads them automatically to our endpoints."
"The solution has many useful features. Its main advantage is simplicity - you can do everything from one console, regardless of the task. It supports many operating systems and is scalable to up to 250,000 clients."
"The tool's most valuable features are patching and integration with vulnerability scanners."
"My company provides support services to a lot of customers and companies. We have reduced a huge amount of man-effort. Along with the man-effort, we have reduced the timeline to fix the compliance and security gaps. We have an unbroken record. The documentation clearly says that we have done the patching of newly released patches, including Microsoft and third-party patches, in up to 80% of the computers, within 72 hours of the release of the production. That was a very massive benefit that we have seen. When I talk about the 80% endpoints, it is 100 or 200. I am talking about 25,000 endpoints."
"It enables us to patch our systems quickly and within expectations and to increase our volume as needed. It has also helped us compress our patch sites. We used to do it monthly but now we do it weekly."
"The technical support for BigFix is really amazing."
"It allows for visibility into the OT, the industrial environments, that didn't exist before which is a big piece and has benefited my organization. Second, the speed at which people can patch is night and day versus SCCM scan or another similar solution."
"Ability to run custom reports and custom relevance."
"Carbon Black Cb Defense has a nice component called Alert Triage. It contains full details of the process execution "kill chain" and "go live" for immediate remediation."
"I found the offline scanning to be particularly useful."
"The solution has a very nice API on the back end for remoting into a system and executing scripts or utilizing self automation."
"The solution is extremely scalable."
"It is a very complete platform."
"The product enables device controls, helping us protect the devices and prevent data leakages."
"The whole purpose of the product, like application control, is very good, and also if you need to update some policies, it works well and instantly."
"Technical support is excellent."
 

Cons

"Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution to clients if there are too many."
"I would like to see for it to be a little easier for new users to be able to learn and create relevant statements. In my opinion, that's the hardest part for bringing on new people that haven't had BigFix experience. Being able to have easier ways to build relevance in ActionScript would be the biggest improvement I'd like to see."
"I would like to see improvements in the Web UI program and also a BigFix console for Mac OS."
"BigFix should improve its compatibility with other platforms, such as Linux."
"License management isn't quite as easy as it should be to deal with the licensing. You need to take the server down to import the new licenses which I find to be annoying."
"There is no support for patch management on SLES on IBM pSeries (only the Intel platform is supported)."
"I want to see a solution for being able to deploy automated software to a Mac running OS X 10.13, something that's going to deal with kernel exceptions and answering prompts for user permissions for data folders and whatnot. They need to really streamline and automate the Mac software deployment."
"I would request them to build a robots, or an easier way for integration with the other tools, like ITSM tools."
"Its compatibility can be improved. It did crash a server during deployment, which is not something that I want to happen. Its deployment should also be easier. The whole deployment cycle needs to be simplified. It is an enterprise solution, and to set it up right now, you have to be an expert."
"They will most likely need to create or include a feature that checks the network."
"Adding an application and a device control feature would be a great help for this solution."
"When you view the triage, it will show you everything within a given time frame, and not only the attack that caused the alert, which is what I want to see. It shows you all the events during that time, and that can be quite confusing."
"This solution works well but needs lots of tuning and optimization."
"Carbon Black CB Defense has helped improve my organization by allowing us to have better data so that we can do correlation and get visibility into the alerts."
"In the next release, it would help if we can get better control over containers."
"The support is poor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There's not much big cost. We only have to pay the agents' cost for the server, and for the systems."
"The price of the solution is high. There are not any additional fees from the standard license."
"The price is reasonable, but our customers find it expensive."
"I would stay with the Managed Virtual Server license model, which is a 1-to-1 license per OS whether it is virtual or physical."
"The cost is slightly high."
"Compliance, inventory, and licensing are really pricey. They should lower the price. It discourages users from getting onboard."
"You are charged per server and per workstation when using BigFix. ManageEngine is a lot cheaper than BigFix. There are some additional costs, such as support."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing one out of ten."
"Carbon Black might be a touch more expensive than Symantec. They tend to get a premium for their capabilities. They're sort of an industry leader in a lot of areas with the functionality that they provide."
"Its pricing was very good, which is one of the reasons I went to it as an alternative. It is on a yearly basis. There are no additional fees."
"The price for the solution is completely at government level, meaning one which is very high."
"The product is expensive. There are some additional costs apart from the standard licensing charges attached to the solution."
"The pricing is annually based and operates through another department than mine."
"It is more expensive, but it's worth it. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"I am not really involved in the pricing of this product. But, from my understanding, it is OK for us."
"The pricing [is] more or less the same as other similar solutions."
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Answers from the Community

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 23, 2019
Apr 23, 2019
BigFix and Carbon Black are really two different products from a functionality standpoint and are not really competing products. Carbon Black Defense is essentially an anti-malware (with more smarts and they refer to it as Next-gen AV) BigFix does not provide anti-malware functionality. BigFix has multiple components that you would use to protect your environment BigFix Patch: As the name sug...
2 out of 8 answers
MP
Apr 15, 2019
These are complementary solutions. Cb Defense is a combination of next-gen AV and EDR capabilities. BigFix is used to identify assets, distribute software, Patch OS� and applications, provision systems, keep systems continuously compliant and much more. Many enterprises use BigFix to find which endpoints need Cb, distribute Cb agents, keep them updated and fix what Cb finds either by quarantining the endpoint, patching it, distributing a new application or wiping and reimaging it.
MW
Apr 15, 2019
Hey Nick, We chose MS SCCM not Bigfix at the end. Thanks
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
51%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BigFix?
The most valuable features of the solution are Windows patching and the hardware and software inventory.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigFix?
The pricing is competitive, but not the most competitive.
What needs improvement with BigFix?
BigFix could improve its asset management capabilities to discover assets, including hardware. More improvements could be made in asset management.
What to choose: an endpoint antivirus, an EDR solution or both?
I can recommend Carbon Black, an award-winning next-gen anti-virus (NGAV) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) security solution. The CB Predictive Security Cloud platform combines multiple hi...
What's the difference between Carbon Black CB Response and Carbon Black CB Defense?
Carbon Black offers two different levels of Endpoint Detection and Response. One is the VM Carbon Black Cloud Endpoint Standard (CB Defense), and the other is the Carbon Black Endpoint Detection an...
What do you like most about Carbon Black CB Defense?
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is a highly stable solution.
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Carbon Black CB Defense, Bit9, Confer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

US Foods, Penn State, St Vincent's Health US Foods, Sabadell Bank, SunTrust, Australia Sydney, Stemac, Capgemini, WNS Global Services, Jebsen & Jessen, CenterBeam, Strauss, Christian Hospital Centre, Brit Insurance, Career Education Corporation
Netflix, Progress Residential, Indeed, Hologic, Gentle Giant, Samsung Research America
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. VMware Carbon Black Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.