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BigFix vs Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks 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)
22nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (6th), Patch Management (2nd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of BigFix is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 3.9%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

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.
Mohammad Qaw - PeerSpot reviewer
Perfect correlation and XDR capabilities for network traffic plus endpoint security
The solution should force customers to integrate with network traffic to see the full benefits of XDR. If you are not integrating it or feeding in your network traffic, then you are just buying a normal antivirus which doesn't make any sense. You are paying double the price to use the antivirus feature or to say you have XDR, but in reality you are not using it. The solution should include an on-premises option because some customers want only on-premises. It would be hard, but good to do if possible. Open XDR would be beneficial in the future. Right now, the solution is Closed XDR so cannot communicate with the few new vendors in the Open XDR market.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is patch management, a must have, even for Linux and iOS."
"We found the implementation partner to be very supportive in terms of explaining and training the in-house resources and deploying the solution."
"One of the biggest benefits BigFix has had for our organization is the ease and efficiency to perform many different tasks, across pillars and platforms, all from one pane of glass."
"I like the inventory and life cycle management feature."
"Almost every feature is wonderful in BigFix. It is very stable, and we can rely on it. It is an awesome tool."
"It has improved my organization because we can automate a lot of tasks. We went from manually patching machines or doing our best and having very little visibility into it to us being able to set it and forget it and getting really good results on first-pass patching."
"All the vendor patches are synchronized automatically."
"Prior to BigFix we used Altiris, which was distributed. We had to manage multiple servers, and duplicate the tasks that we did on each server. BigFix tremendously reduced the amount of work that we had to do on each server in a centralized manner. We could minimize the work that we had to do, and we had a lot more control over the tasks and what machines they ran on."
"The dashboard is customizable."
"The management capabilities, allow an IT organization to get quite a good picture of attempted cyber attacks."
"The most valuable feature of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is the low consumption of system resources. The solution uses a lot of AI and machine learning."
"We have a complete overview of all our PCs and it's very easy to handle and to use the interface. It has a lot of benefits for us."
"From a single pane of glass, you can easily manage all of your endpoints."
"Its ability to react to cyber data attacks is awesome. That is pretty much the use of it. What blows your mind is the ability to access your assets remotely and see what is actually going on with them. You can not only see them in a console. You can also react very rapidly to your assets that are compromised."
"Cortex XDR's most valuable feature is its intelligence-based dashboards."
"The tool is designed to scale for large enterprises and handle large volumes of data."
 

Cons

"I'd definitely like to see additional feature parody in the web UI versus the console. There are certain things that you can only do in the console and they're very cumbersome to do, like secure parameters, for example. That's definitely something that has a wide degree of utility but it needs to be easier to surface. At this particular juncture between the transition, between the legacy console and the web UI, it's hard to justify dealing with the cumbersome aspects of the legacy console when theoretically everything's been through the web UI."
"It could use better integration with Hypervisor products like VMware."
"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."
"I would like to see improvements in the Web UI program and also a BigFix console for Mac OS."
"I would like to see a web UI SDK so we could take what is provided currently and be able to build our own customized web UI for particular customers that want to sell service."
"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."
"BigFix should improve its compatibility with other platforms, such as Linux."
"The sub-capacity licensing was a challenge for some of it. We had trouble getting it to calculate right."
"There's an overall lack of features."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve by offering remote management. It would be useful to look at the client's issue to fix it."
"It automatically detects security issues. It should be able to protect our network devices while operating autonomously."
"There are some false positives. What our guys would have liked is that it would have been easier to manipulate as soon as they found a false positive that they knew was a false positive. How to do so was not obvious. Some people complained about it. The interface, the ESM, is not user-friendly."
"The product's pricing needs improvement. They could provide more discounts. Additionally, the dashboard and control panel could be enhanced."
"It is a complex solution to implement."
"Currently, we are monitoring all USB drives and ports but we would like to improve our device control capabilities."
"They've been having some issues with updating their endpoint agents, and it has been quite frustrating."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I can estimate the reduced cost of servers maintenance to approximatively $500,000."
"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 product is less costly when compared to other solutions, and this is a good solid solution for what we have paid."
"Its price is very reasonable."
"The price of BigFix is better than the solutions. You are able to pay monthly or annually. There are not any hidden costs with BigFix. There is an additional cost for the SQL database."
"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."
"We have a subscription-based contract with BigFix."
"The license is subscription-based."
"The price of the solution is high for the license and in general."
"Compared to CrowdStrike, Cortex XDR is an expensive solution."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"The pricing is a little bit on the expensive side."
"Traps pays for itself within the first 16 months of a three-year subscription. This is attributed to OPEX savings, as security teams spent less time trying to identify and isolate malware for analysis as a result of a reduction in malware incidents, false positives, and breach avoidance."
"I don't recall what the cost was, but it wasn't really that expensive."
"The price is on the higher side, but it's okay."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
47%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
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?
Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution to clients if there are too many. Building a management console is quick and si...
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How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
 

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
CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.