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BigFix vs ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus comparison

 

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

BigFix
Ranking in Patch Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (5th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (14th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
ManageEngine Patch Manager ...
Ranking in Patch Management
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of BigFix is 10.7%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus is 8.2%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management
 

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.
AdeolaEkunola - PeerSpot reviewer
A quite straightforward solution that works easily with different operating systems
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. When the use of the solution for customers grows, there is a need for more endpoints, and it may grow up to 500 endpoints, and the solution's use may even be scaled up further. It is possible to do what is needed to scale up the solution for the IT environments of any of our company's customers. Before scaling up, one needs to buy the license and consider the IT architecture to see if there are any modifications required in the solution. Around three of my company's customers who manage enterprise-sized businesses with a minimum requirement of 700 endpoints at least use the solution.

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."
"I like the inventory and life cycle management feature."
"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."
"It has improved reliability upon delivery of software and has also helped reduce software expenses. The extensibility of BigFix helps to create custom solutions where we may have considered purchasing something instead."
"Vulnerability scanning and patch automation."
"From a security standpoint, it allows us to make sure that we're not leaving ourselves vulnerable to exploits and things like that. That's the biggest advantage that we see to the product from a security standpoint."
"It's very straightforward."
"It is for multiple use cases. A lot of people are looking at it just for security, and that's really endpoint security. The endpoint management part of it in terms of being able to constantly do patching for Windows, Unix, macOS, Cloud, Raspberry, VMware, and all Linux flavors is important, and they are very good at that. They have support for virtually every OS on the market."
"The initial setup was easy."
"ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus covers almost all my end devices, and I can easily look over my device's hardware status."
"The ability to deploy patches seamlessly is the solution's most valuable aspect. It allows us to not only deploy patches but to monitor the deployment of those patches."
"The fetch repository is a good feature."
"The automated patch deployment feature is really helpful. I can schedule it anytime, even on weekends, without needing to restart systems. The centralized management and unified console are great. It shows me which PCs are out of date or which users are breaching our policies. I can test patches before deploying them."
"You can create remote sessions for client systems."
"I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable features are patch management and mobile device management."
 

Cons

"The BigFix Inventory could have an increased scope regarding the tools that can be detected. It does not cover all the possible software installed in Asset."
"I would like to see the Self Service section made more user-friendly."
"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."
"BigFix could improve its asset management capabilities to discover assets, including hardware."
"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."
"There is no support for patch management on SLES on IBM pSeries (only the Intel platform is supported)."
"IBM has not focused on the Web Reports capabilities."
"The product lacks AI, ML, and IIT."
"They should add better features for managing hardware."
"If a report shows that testing did not work for one version but succeeds for another, a comparison would be beneficial."
"I experienced issues with server 2012, which required an upgrade to 2016 for better functionality before moving to Azure."
"The solution should have a customer label where we can label those servers or include those servers for specific customers."
"The cloud version should have option to add all the endpoints using the agent. Not only for Windows, but also the Linux version. There are some versions which are not compatible with SaaS Manager. So some customers do not want to use the latest version of Linux latest version of CentOS. Actually, CentOS is not available. But some are using and patch manager is compatible for some versions only, not older older versions. So there are some pros and cons that are referred to patch management."
"The user interface of ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus needs to be made more user-friendly, simplified, and less complicated."
"I think ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus could improve its testing capabilities. If they could test different SQL versions and server versions in their sandbox, it would be better. For example, it didn't work well with Server 2012, but it works fine with 2016 and up."
"I find the user interface a little bit intimidating and not very appealing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 license is subscription-based."
"Its price is very reasonable."
"The price is very fair."
"You get what we call the Platform Edition, which you get for free. The patch service is maybe $0.50 per workstation per month. Then there's the basic server cost, which is about $1.50 per server per month. You also get into Lifecycle which does power management, OSD remote control, and those types of things, and that might be about 10 times the price - which works out to about $13 per server and, maybe $5 per workstation per month."
"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 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."
"When purchasing, buying with other IBM tools provided us with a very good discount in pricing."
"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis, and the charge for support is extra."
"The solution cost is around $5,000 per year."
"ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus is a little bit cheaper."
"The price of this product is reasonable."
"I rate the product price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"Its price needs improvement."
"Patch Manager is cost-effective."
"I rate the price of the product a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
52%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus?
ManageEngine's licensing model recently changed from being endpoint-based to server-based, which might affect costs during the next renewal. I cannot disclose specific pricing details.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus?
Patching over the Internet should be improved. If I am traveling, I should have an Internet patching option for control, visibility, and vulnerability management for roaming users. Additionally, in...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Endpoint Manager
No data available
 

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
IKEA Honda UNICEF The University of Georgia Evander
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,466 professionals have used our research since 2012.