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BigFix vs Symantec Endpoint Security 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.2
BigFix delivers fast ROI with efficient patch management, improved security, and reduced labor, enhancing efficiency and financial savings.
Sentiment score
5.4
Symantec Endpoint Security increases financial satisfaction by reducing downtime and enhancing threat response, offering competitive pricing and automation.
Symantec Endpoint Security filled gaps in our toolset, particularly with the ability to control network firewall on hosts remotely, which was greatly appreciated.
OT Technologist at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
BigFix provides excellent customer support, with minor first-level inconsistencies, improved overall quality, and valuable community resources.
Sentiment score
6.0
Symantec Endpoint Security customer service is highly rated, but post-acquisition support quality fluctuates with some language and delay issues.
On a scale from one to ten, with ten being the highest quality, enterprise support provides timely responses, typically within four to eight hours.
Technical Director at SYSTEX
Technical support from HCL is satisfactory unless there are customization requirements.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
In some cases, it rates as high as ten out of ten, while in others, it can be as low as eight.
Head of Information System at EEC
There is no support in the German language, which is a problem for many public tenders.
Cyber Security Pre-Sales at SoftwareONE
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.7
BigFix excels in scalability, handling deployments from small to large seamlessly, supporting hundreds of thousands of devices efficiently.
Sentiment score
6.9
Symantec Endpoint Security is scalable, efficient for large deployments, and adaptable, with minor integration and support challenges noted.
BigFix requires some minimum configuration requirements.
RPA Developer at Hexaware Technologies Limited
Symantec Endpoint Security is quite scalable, and it is very important for large clients.
Cyber Security Pre-Sales at SoftwareONE
The scalability of the servers is good, as it requires computational powers.
Senior Security Delivery Analyst at Accenture
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
5.9
BigFix is praised for its stability, requiring minimal intervention and maintaining performance during large-scale deployments and external challenges.
Sentiment score
7.6
Symantec Endpoint Security is praised for stability and reliability, despite occasional crashes and compatibility issues during updates.
I have encountered issues where I had to uninstall and reinstall the product on end users' computers to view the logs again.
OT Technologist at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees
Previously, we used to have multiple servers such as GUP servers and numerous servers for pushing updates, but we reduced it and transitioned almost 30,000 devices to CrowdStrike, which was easy to manage.
Senior Security Delivery Analyst at Accenture
 

Room For Improvement

BigFix needs updated documentation, UI improvements, enhanced integration, better patch support, and improved automation and scalability.
Symantec Endpoint Security suffers from high resource usage, management complexity, outdated interface, and ineffective virus detection and support.
Building a management console is quick and simple, taking only one to two hours for setup.
Technical Director at SYSTEX
The problem was related to the hardware configuration and hardware specifications.
RPA Developer at Hexaware Technologies Limited
In addition to reporting improvements, there should be a feature for application control to allow or disallow certain applications from being executed on endpoints.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
Device management is not very good and I am not enabling it in my organization due to security reasons.
System Administrator at Aljazera Market co
I would like to see improvements in the scanning part of the solution, specifically to enhance the CPU and hard disk usage during scanning and updates to prevent disruption during work hours.
Head of Information System at EEC
It is cumbersome to use, particularly in handling firewall management.
OT Technologist at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees
 

Setup Cost

BigFix offers flexible, competitive pricing options with various packages and potential discounts, despite additional costs like database licenses.
Symantec Endpoint Security's pricing is diverse, being both negotiable and adaptable for different budgets and organizations' needs.
The pricing is pretty good and now follows a subscription model similar to SolarWinds, making it easier for customers to subscribe and unsubscribe.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
It seems to be half the cost or more affordable than other solutions.
OT Technologist at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees
The pricing is very low compared to other companies like SentinelOne and others.
System Administrator at Aljazera Market co
I rate the pricing, setup cost, and licensing around nine out of ten.
Head of Information System at EEC
 

Valuable Features

BigFix is valued for ease, scalability, flexibility, real-time management, integration, single-console efficiency, and wide system adaptability.
Symantec Endpoint Security provides integrated, user-friendly protection for multiple platforms with advanced malware detection and comprehensive endpoint management.
The BigFix features that have proven most effective include inventory, software delivery, software distribution, software catalog, and both software and hardware management.
Technical Director at SYSTEX
I use this mainly to capture inventory for IBM products, and as BigFix was part of IBM, it gets easily integrated with IBM solutions.
RPA Developer at Hexaware Technologies Limited
BigFix supports something known as Patch Policies, which allows users to define that whenever critical patches are released, they should get evaluated against machines and automatically deploy them.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
Symantec Endpoint Security offers great features such as reporting capabilities with a customized dashboard that pulls in EDR timelines, threat maps, and compliance metrics into one view.
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Symantec Endpoint Security offers many valuable features, such as file explosion, application learning, DLP, injection detection, and EDR solutions for traffic control.
System Administrator at Aljazera Market co
The incident response capabilities allow me to resolve authentication and support issues promptly, ensuring the system operates without downtime.
Head of Information System at EEC
 

Categories and Ranking

BigFix
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
35th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (9th), Patch Management (5th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (9th)
Symantec Endpoint Security
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
18th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
146
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of BigFix is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Endpoint Security is 3.4%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symantec Endpoint Security3.4%
BigFix1.1%
Other95.5%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

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.
Kumbesh Rajagopal - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Delivery Analyst at Accenture
Management becomes easier with minimal complications, but improvement in support tools needed
Regarding areas of improvement for Symantec Endpoint Security, there are many changes, and the support portal tool is complicated compared to other tools. When trying to get service from Symantec, the process is complex. I'm not sure whether it's because of my project or something else. Though it is easy to manage, easy to get, easy to install, and works efficiently for managing policies, we faced a significant disadvantage. We wanted to add multiple hashes because of numerous new alerts coming, but we could only add them one by one, which is a considerable disadvantage in Symantec.
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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
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise66
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business69
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise63
 

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...
Which is better - Cortex XDR or Symantec End-User Endpoint Security?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
What do you like most about Symantec End-User Endpoint Security?
Symantec have everything – documentation, videos, data sheets.
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Symantec EPP, Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP)
 

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
Audio Visual Dynamics, Red Deer Advocate, Asia Pacific Telecom Co. Ltd., Kibbutz Ein Gedi, and AMETEK, Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Symantec Endpoint Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.