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BigFix vs Puppet Enterprise comparison

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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

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
236
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)
Puppet Enterprise
Ranking in Configuration Management
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Puppet Enterprise is 0.8%, down from 3.1% 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.
Erik  Ableson - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution that is more suited for larger companies with mature CI/CD structures and image management processes
Puppet Enterprise is more suitable for clients working up much more structured deployment images they manage internally. Before choosing Puppet Enterprise, users should think seriously about what they're trying to accomplish and ensure they put the right pieces in place. Overall, I rate Puppet Enterprise an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The performance of Microsoft Intune is good."
"Users can make screenshots, and devices only need the minimal version of iOS."
"Intune has significantly benefited our organization by providing comprehensive visibility into our device ecosystem."
"The solution is stable."
"The aspects I find most valuable are the managing the data and applications. I can also restrict the users to install any applications. I can also wipe the data if the phone was missplaced or stolen. These are the basics for me."
"I can reach devices or computers over the internet. I don't need to worry about the network connectivity between the offices. I can manage any device. That is the most important part."
"For our clients, the conditional access feature along with different compliance policies that they can set is valuable."
"I am easily able to manage devices and assets, especially laptops and desktops."
"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."
"The architecture for patching and the 100% correct reporting makes BigFix stand apart from other solutions."
"The most valuable feature of BigFix is the reporting tool and patching Windows."
"Vulnerability scanning and patch automation."
"Pre-packaged support for many third-party applications such as Adobe, Google, Mozilla, Sun (Java), WinZip, and others."
"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."
"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."
"BigFix technical support is good."
"The versatility is great."
"Anything that we manage through Puppet always runs perfectly."
"The most valuable features are the agent, high load balancing, and overall robustness and features."
"The main purpose for this automation tool would be: deploying, controlling, ordering change for the system and IT Infrastructure."
"Puppet Enterprise has good functionalities."
"Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution."
"Puppet3 and 4 series provides optimum deployment solutions for infrastructure and applications."
"Puppet Enterprise has reduced the time of production changes or environment changes."
 

Cons

"They need to integrate more with security options."
"Due to the abundance of features, there's a lot to organize, which makes managing and setting up the solution challenging. The setup is immense, and it would be good to see improvement in this area."
"We would like to see the ability to use multiple personas on a device, similar to Samsung Knox, included in future updates."
"I would like to see Intune improve its handling of hybrid domain joins. We continue to experience issues with machines losing their hybrid domain join status."
"There are a few security features that are not available in Microsoft Intune, when compared to other products."
"It would really be helpful to have the option to manage server operating systems as well, like Windows Server, at least. That way, we could scrap the use of SCCM, which requires a lot of on-premises infrastructure."
"I'm still playing around with it and haven't had any issues with the product yet, but support can definitely be improved."
"Since GMS is unavailable in China, we currently rely on device administrator enrollment for managing Android devices there."
"Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution to clients if there are too many."
"The self-service application seems to need some work to replace the client UI. There are a lot of pop-ups if you use a baseline as the object that you're setting to a workstation. Unless you're using web UI, the message is not customizable in the user notification."
"I would like to see the integration of user security between the different products to be improved. There's separate security for compliance, separate security for web reports, and the console, and you have to manage those things separately."
"I remember doing restarts a few times. So, making sure that it is rock solid from an executable perspective is important."
"The reporting and dashboard parts have room for improvement."
"In-place and OS upgrades can be improved."
"The console interface is not friendly, and requires training before using it in production."
"The solution could improve by adding support drivers for different systems and equipment. When you have a lot of different computers if they could fix how to install any updates, firmware, or drivers for different systems or servers it would be good."
"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."
"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."
"There's a lot of scope for enhancement on the DevSecOps side. They should definitely include features for compliance, for both the Linux and Windows side of the devices, as well as for network devices. Compliance is something they need to work on."
"It's a bit of a pain point to make sure that everything works once we've upgraded it because Puppet has been evolving pretty fast."
"The solution has really complex code, you have to understand the Ruby language. However, once you know the code then you can move ahead without any problems."
"Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it."
"At the beginning the initial setup was kind of complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Intune is a cost effective choice. It is less expensive than other products on the market."
"It is cheap, but as compared to Google, it is costly. Google is cheaper, but quality-wise, Microsoft Intune is better."
"The product is offered as part of a Microsoft standard bundle. The pricing can be competitive to Airwatch, and Maas360."
"If you're ever going to buy an Office 365 environment, then pricing is reasonable given all that it does, but if you're not, then you might find the pricing expensive."
"The pricing for Intune and the competitor products are all within the same range, there is no true advantage when it comes to cost."
"The pricing is competitive, but it is not cheap."
"The cost of the license and the features are justified for myself as a technical person."
"I am satisfied with the pricing."
"The price of BigFix could be lower. However, I am always seeking a lower price."
"It might be about $23 a client."
"When purchasing, buying with other IBM tools provided us with a very good discount in pricing."
"The cost is slightly high."
"Its price is very reasonable."
"The license is subscription-based."
"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."
"So, the pricing is slightly more expensive than the others. I have to keep buying licenses every time I add a new device."
"Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses."
"Puppet Enterprise’s pricing is competitive."
"Depending on the size of the organization there is a point when the price of Puppet Enterprise should be lower. However, they provide really good functionality, features, and capabilities."
"The main thing that we noticed when we switched from the enterprise version to the community version was the difference in cost — the infrastructure is pretty expensive."
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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
51%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Educational Organization
53%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
 

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?
BigFix could improve its asset management capabilities to discover assets, including hardware. More improvements coul...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Puppet Enterprise?
Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses.
What needs improvement with Puppet Enterprise?
Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it.
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Puppet
 

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
Los Alamos National Laboratory, GitHub, IP Commerce, Cedexis, Spiceworks, Server Density, Swisstopo, Chockstone, Constant Contact, NICS, Citrix
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Puppet Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.