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BigFix vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 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
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)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
 

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 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 18.3%, up from 18.2% 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.
Surya Chapagain - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to manage and simple to learn
We use Red Hat a lot. I open tickets for the Red Hat cases, however, with Ansible, I haven't opened any cases. My manager worked with them a bit. If we have a problem with some file and we need to get Red Hat to analyze the issue and the file is 100GBs, we'll have an issue since we need to provide a log file for them to analyze. If it is around 12GB or 13GB, we can easily upload it to the Red Hat portal. With more than 100GBs, it will fail. I heard it should cover up to 250GB for an upload, however, I find it fails. Therefore, Red Hat needs to provide a way to handle this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a very helpful solution."
"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 very easy to use. It has a very easy interface."
"Configuration profiles, remediation, scripts, and auto-pilot features are very good."
"The overall user experience is quite nice. I have no complaints from end users regarding their devices enrolled in Intune."
"Intune's most valuable feature is its centralized management capability."
"The features I found most valuable in Intune are its user visibility and troubleshooting options."
"We have one MDM that works with Windows, iOS, and Android."
"The technical support for BigFix is really amazing."
"It enables us to patch our systems quickly and within expectations and to increase our volume as needed. It has also helped us compress our patch sites. We used to do it monthly but now we do it weekly."
"Vulnerability scanning and patch automation."
"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."
"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 BigFix features that have proven most effective include inventory, software delivery, software distribution, software catalog, and both software and hardware management."
"I like the inventory and life cycle management feature."
"It is pretty secure, and it gives extensive vulnerability features as compared to other applications. It supports multiple languages, and the security checks are pretty high as compared to other tools in the market."
"It allows control over thousands of servers, whether virtual or physical."
"There are new modules available, which help to simplify the workflow. That is what we like about it."
"There are no agents by default, so adding a new server is a matter of a couple lines of configuration (on a new server and the configuration master)."
"It is agentless. I don't have to think about which client system my unit has understanding in or not, because I can execute from my system. It will go and configure it, and any module that it is looking for will be shipped out."
"The automation manager is very good."
"It has an easy-to-use interface. It is REST API driven, and it integrates with Active Directory. It provides the ability to grant permissions to other users who would not necessarily have those permissions via the GUI so that they could run other people's jobs. For example, you could have the Oracle team grant permissions to the Linux team so that they can use each of those playbooks or each other's code. It is called shift-left."
"The solution is very simple to use."
"The biggest thing I liked about Ansible is the check mode so that we can verify, after we've pushed, that the config there is actually what we intended."
 

Cons

"The interoperability or communication with a different platform can be better. It is a two-way street. It is not only about Microsoft. The other platforms also have to be willing to share some information, but that absolutely can be improved."
"The reporting is subpar. That's the only issue we have with Intune. We use another solution for that purpose."
"It would be beneficial to have a more straightforward understanding of Intune's capabilities, presented in a simplified manner."
"Lacking ability to leverage more iOS device management internally."
"It doesn't economize when you scale up. We have over 14,000 employees, and we have between 7,500 and 8,000 city-owned or personal devices being used to conduct city business. Its price can be improved. It is not a cheap solution."
"It would be interesting to integrate the server side of Intune. Some group policy updates we have on the Windows Server side and possibly some on the client side could also be included."
"Customer service is not really good. I would give it a six out of ten. The main issue is the time it takes to get someone involved who truly understands what the product does."
"Reporting needs improvement."
"Sometimes there is a lag time for our users."
"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."
"I would like to see improvements in the Web UI program and also a BigFix console for Mac OS."
"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."
"The new EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) feature, Detect, is new and still needs a few updates."
"I would request them to build a robots, or an easier way for integration with the other tools, like ITSM tools."
"The deployment has room for improvement and can be more streamlined."
"I would like to see for it to be a little easier for new users to be able to learn and create relevant statements. In my opinion, that's the hardest part for bringing on new people that haven't had BigFix experience. Being able to have easier ways to build relevance in ActionScript would be the biggest improvement I'd like to see."
"If we have a problem with some file and we need to get Red Hat to analyze the issue and the file is 100GBs, we'll have an issue since we need to provide a log file for them to analyze. If it is around 12GB or 13GB, we can easily upload it to the Red Hat portal. With more than 100GBs, it will fail. I heard it should cover up to 250GB for an upload, however, I find it fails. Therefore, Red Hat needs to provide a way to handle this."
"Ansible has just been upgraded, and the only issue that we are seeing at the moment is that the user interface can be slow. We're currently investigating the refresh period with Red Hat when you click a job and run a job. It seems that the buffer no longer runs in real-time. We haven't discovered whether that's partially an issue with our environment, but Red Hat has come back and said that they're working on a couple of bugs in the background. We've upgraded to that version in the last six months, and that's the only issue that we've seen."
"There should be better Windows support. We have had to develop a lot of our own roles because of the Windows platform. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux ones existed but not the Windows versions, so I have had to develop a bunch of Windows ones."
"More library support for microservices architecture and Kubernetes would be helpful."
"There have been some differences between the operating systems that we have noticed. It could be down to cryptographic policies, but we have noticed some speed issues. They should work on the speed of deployment on different operating systems."
"What I would like to see is a refined Dashboard to see, when I log in: Here are all my jobs, here are how many times they've executed; some kind graphical stitching-together of the workflows and jobs, and how they're connected. Also, those "failed hosts," what does that mean? We have a problem, a failed host can be anything. Is SSH the reason it failed? Is the job template why it failed? It doesn't really distinguish that."
"From Red Hat Insights point of view, the product is not on top as it is not responding as per the demand...Like on cloud platforms, you can see the main parts of Red Hat Insights, along with the inventory of all your apps. So, that is missing in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform."
"Ansible could use more public relations and marketing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its licensing model is not complex, but it is very expensive compared to other solutions. They can bring more models and reduce the pricing. They should allow customers to select the features they want and price it accordingly."
"We are partners, so we receive some discount. However, from the customer's perspective, Microsoft Intune's pricing is competitive with non-Microsoft technology, and the price is good compared to other market competitors."
"While Microsoft Intune boasts a wide range of features, its user-friendliness and bundled licensing cost are key considerations for me."
"Cost is not my department, but the product is included in the E5 license that we already pay for every user, so no additional cost is incurred."
"The E5 license is expensive."
"There is a license required to use the solution. If you're core users in Office 365, for example, you have Outlook email and E3 license, this is only email. You have to buy an EMS license to have Microsoft Intune. It is expensive."
"The price is very reasonable."
"With our standard E5 agreement with Microsoft, there have been no pricing concerns. Introductory professional services, like a fast-track service, were included with our E5 membership, and there have been no additional costs."
"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 price of BigFix could be lower. However, I am always seeking a lower price."
"It might be about $23 a client."
"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."
"The product is less costly when compared to other solutions, and this is a good solid solution for what we have paid."
"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."
"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."
"When purchasing, buying with other IBM tools provided us with a very good discount in pricing."
"Like many Red Hat products, they have a no-cost version of the web application (AWX, formerly Ansible Tower), but you are on your own to install and it is a little more complicated than just installing Ansible."
"I am using the community edition of the solution which is free."
"The pricing is pretty standard."
"The cost is determined by the number of endpoints."
"We have to be mindful of how we use Ansible because of the licensing model. I am not saying that it is unfair or we do not find value in it. Because we are trying to automate so many different things, we have to be mindful of what we are doing and how we are doing it because we are trying to stay in compliance with it."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution."
"The cost is high, but it still works well."
"The pricing for us is huge because we use twenty thousand nodes, so that is a huge infrastructure, but if someone is using a small infrastructure, then the pricing is not so much."
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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%
Educational Organization
32%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
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?
BigFix could improve its asset management capabilities to discover assets, including hardware. More improvements coul...
What is the difference between Red Hat Satellite and Ansible?
Red Hat Satellite has proven to be a worthwhile investment for me. Both its patch management and license management h...
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Ansible
 

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
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,340 professionals have used our research since 2012.