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BigFix vs Heimdal Patch and Asset Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Patch Management
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (9th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (35th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (9th)
Heimdal Patch and Asset Man...
Ranking in Patch Management
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of BigFix is 4.8%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Heimdal Patch and Asset Management is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BigFix4.8%
Heimdal Patch and Asset Management0.6%
Other94.6%
Patch Management
 

Featured Reviews

JC
Technical Director at SYSTEX
Comprehensive client management and software distribution made efficient
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 simple, taking only one to two hours for setup. However, a demo or trial may take over a week or two for completion.
Melvin Ong - PeerSpot reviewer
Country Manager at PT Symcaw Solutions Indonesia
Has plug-and-play capability once configured and good reporting system
The tool's most valuable features have been its plug-and-play capability once configured and its reporting system is good. The most improved feature of asset auditing is its physical logging of all software. This allows us to understand what software and applications are installed on endpoints. We can easily check which software applications are installed in the network infrastructure during client processing or audits.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The patch management and the BigFix Inventory have been the most valuable features."
"I think BigFix is a very good solution, and I rate it ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is patch management, a must have, even for Linux and iOS."
"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."
"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."
"Patch management, because it very much improved the patch compliance and has the capability to manage Windows and non-Windows clients."
"The most valuable point is when you deploy an application, you have to make sure that the application has been deployed to all computers and that is working perfectly. This solution works well at deployments."
"The tool's most valuable features have been its plug-and-play capability once configured and its reporting system is good. The most improved feature of asset auditing is its physical logging of all software. This allows us to understand what software and applications are installed on endpoints. We can easily check which software applications are installed in the network infrastructure during client processing or audits."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Sometimes the workstations communicate back to the BigFix server two or three days in a week or something similar. Sometimes there can be a delay reporting back to the server for a variety of reasons, such as users turning their computer off when they go home. When the user comes back and turns the computer back on BigFix needs to synchronize and sometimes it can take some time, approximately one week. The communication between the agent and the server should be faster, there is room for improvement in this area."
"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."
"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."
"There is no support for patch management on SLES on IBM pSeries (only the Intel platform is supported)."
"The sub-capacity licensing was a challenge for some of it. We had trouble getting it to calculate right."
"I would like to see more integration with external data."
"The tool needs to be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It might be about $23 a client."
"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."
"The price of the solution is high. There are not any additional fees from the standard license."
"Compliance, inventory, and licensing are really pricey. They should lower the price. It discourages users from getting onboard."
"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."
"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."
"When purchasing, buying with other IBM tools provided us with a very good discount in pricing."
"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."
"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Agriculture
9%
University
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise66
No data available
 

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 pretty good and now follows a subscription model similar to other major software solutions, making it easier for customers to subscribe and unsubscribe.
What needs improvement with BigFix?
The reporting still needs improvement since customers want specific reporting, such as N-1 month patching reports. In addition to reporting improvements, there should be a feature for application c...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Thor Foresight Enterprise
 

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
Brother, Symbion, CPH West
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys, Microsoft, Vicarius and others in Patch Management. Updated: January 2026.
879,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.