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BigFix vs Chef comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 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

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
238
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
BigFix
Ranking in Configuration Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (14th), Patch Management (2nd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
Chef
Ranking in Configuration Management
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (16th), Release Automation (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.1%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 9.2%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 1.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
Everything has worked better since we started using it
Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.
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.
Arun S . - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for large infrastructure, reliable, but steep learning cureve
Chef can be scaled as needed. The Chef server itself can scale but it depends on the available resources. You can upgrade specific resources to meet the demand. Similarly, with clients, you can add as many clients as you need. Again, this depends on the server resources. If the server has enough resources, it can handle the number of servers required to manage the infrastructure. Chef can be scaled to meet the needs of the infrastructure being managed. The solution is good to manage multiple large infrastructures. We can have 10 to 10,000 users using this solution and it manages them well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Mobile device management is most valuable."
"This solution saves us a lot of time once it's implemented."
"It's easy to manage."
"The Microsoft Windows Autopilot and Defender policies are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Intune's compliance features are valuable because they allow immediate visibility into ongoing situations."
"Overall, I like Intune as a solution and would rate it nine out of ten."
"We have a BYOD policy, and this solution helps us manage our devices."
"It is very easy for me to configure all the things. Once I create policies and applications in Intune, it is very easy for us to enroll users."
"It is user-friendly."
"The most valuable features of the solution are Windows patching and the hardware and software inventory."
"It covers multiple operating systems and helps with patch management."
"I would advise someone considering this product to go for it. It's easy to use, cheaper than the value, and there is tons and tons of support from the BigFix community. With almost every challenge we have someone who has encountered it, and you will have a solution right away."
"In terms of vulnerability management, it gives tough competition by providing a single management console with multiple benefits."
"We rely on BigFix as part of our consulting engagements. It's more efficient from a visibility and discovery standpoint on the initial phase, the consulting engagement. It also increases our efficiencies on the remediation phase of our engagements."
"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."
"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."
"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."
"I wanted to monitor a hybrid cloud environment, one using AWS and Azure. If I have to provision/orchestrate between multiple cloud platforms, I can use Chef as a one-stop solution, to broker between those cloud platforms and orchestrate around them, rather than going directly into each of the cloud-vendors' consoles."
"The most valuable feature is automation."
"Stable and scalable configuration management and automation tool. Installing it is easy. Its most valuable feature is its compliance, e.g. it's very good."
"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."
"Chef recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments."
"The solution is easy to use and learn, and it easily automates all the code and infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature is its easy configuration management, optimization abilities, complete infrastructure and application automation, and its superiority over other similar tools."
 

Cons

"When somebody has a customized application or their own company's application, we cannot deploy that application."
"It would be great to see on-premises mailboxes and for the solution to have geofencing capabilities."
"Some enrollment features could be improved."
"I expect Microsoft Intune to have more features in the cloud because there are two major functionalities that we need to be added. This is software metering and license management. These functionalities, for now, must be on-premise. For this purpose, we have set up a SQL Server and I hope that in near future this option will be in the cloud in Microsoft Intune."
"We need the capabilities of the Cloud Management Gateway (CMG) to be enhanced through Intune instead of Azure."
"Customer service used to be better. In the last couple of years, support has not been very good, even with Premier and Premium support. It's been very hit-or-miss."
"The reporting and cost have room for improvement."
"Historically, Group Policy has simplified the management of various items, such as printer and drive mappings and while Intune offers workarounds, it lacks native support for these functionalities. This is an area I believe needs improvement."
"In-place and OS upgrades can be improved."
"To make it a ten they should improve the licensing. Second, if they could have one environment for everything it would be nice. For you to install compliance you need to install the server, and then you add the modules. For you to install inventory you install the server and then you add the modules. It's not easy to do. When I was doing it before I learned it, it was not straight forward."
"I would request them to build a robots, or an easier way for integration with the other tools, like ITSM tools."
"For improvements, it would be good if BigFix supported more databases. Currently, it only supports DB2 and Microsoft SQL. Adding support for other databases like Oracle would be beneficial."
"BigFix should improve its compatibility with other platforms, such as Linux."
"The tool should be more friendly in terms of Web UI and should be having better vulnerability scanning mechanisms so a third-party application is not required to fulfill that aspect."
"The product lacks AI, ML, and IIT."
"I would eventually like to see a SaaS offering, a cloud-hosted BigFix instance where we only have to put a relay in our environment."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."
"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."
"I would like them to add database specific items, configuration items, and migration tools. Not necessarily on the builder side or the actual setup of the system, but more of a migration package for your different database sets, such as MongoDB, your extenders, etc. I want to see how that would function with a transition out to AWS for Aurora services and any of the RDBMS packages."
"I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten."
"They could provide more features, so the recipes could be developed in a simpler and faster way. There is still a lot of room for improvement, providing better functionalities when creating recipes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"It is expensive. The cost depends on the license that we choose."
"The price is reasonable, but they should lower it a bit to make it more competitive. It's cheaper than AirWatch and other products, but I still feel like Microsoft can make a base version or with Exchange online or a la carte only Intune version which will be useful. A customer who doesn't want to go full-fledged E3 or E5 can take out or consume an Intune solution only for their purpose, and we want to target that customer."
"Based on the features that it gives, it is cost-efficient. It is not necessarily on the expensive side of the scale. It provides a hefty number of features that any organization would want. It is in a good price range."
"Microsoft Intune is moderately priced. There is a monthly license required to use the solution and it is approximately eight dollars per month."
"Microsoft Intune's pricing is reasonable."
"Any bundle package, such as Security E3, covers multiple things, such as AAP, BitLocker, etc. If you go for them individually, they would be more expensive. Bundling makes the price more attractive and competitive."
"Pricing can be improved."
"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."
"So, the pricing is slightly more expensive than the others. I have to keep buying licenses every time I add a new device."
"It is too costly. It is one of the best tools, but because of pricing, not all clients support it. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Compliance, inventory, and licensing are really pricey. They should lower the price. It discourages users from getting onboard."
"The tool's price continues to go up. The cost per endpoint can vary, ranging from approximately 30 to 80 dollars per year. Compared to other products, pricing is in the middle. You need to buy an additional database license, but most users already have it."
"The price is very fair."
"The price of BigFix could be lower. However, I am always seeking a lower price."
"It might be about $23 a client."
"When we're rolling out a new server, we're not using the AWS Marketplace AMI, we're using our own AMI, but we are paying them a licensing fee."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
"We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"The price is always a problem. It is high. There is room for improvement. I do like purchasing on the AWS Marketplace, but I would like the ability to negotiate and have some flexibility in the pricing on it."
"Purchasing the solution from AWS Marketplace was a good experience. AWS's pricing is pretty in line with the product's regular pricing. Though instance-wise, AWS is not the cheapest in the market."
"The price per node is a little weird. It doesn't scale along with your organization. If you're truly utilizing Chef to its fullest, then the number of nodes which are being utilized in any particular day might scale or change based on your Auto Scaling groups. How do you keep track of that or audit it? Then, how do you appropriately license it? It's difficult."
"I wasn't involved in the purchasing, but I am pretty sure that we are happy with the current pricing and licensing since it never comes up."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
52%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
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?
Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution...
What do you like most about Chef?
Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code.
What needs improvement with Chef?
Chef does not support the containerized things of Chef products. In the future, Chef could develop a docker container...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
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
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Chef and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.