Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

BigFix vs vCenter Configuration Manager comparison

Sponsored
 

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
245
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
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (22nd), Patch Management (2nd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
vCenter Configuration Manager
Ranking in Configuration Management
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.2%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 9.1%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCenter Configuration Manager is 0.9%, down from 0.9% 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.
Nikhil Nikhil - PeerSpot reviewer
Compliance management has improved efficiency but licensing changes pose challenges
I am not using any advanced features or AI. I am employing a basic VMware vCenter setup for my infrastructure. Scalability has no major limitations, and the solution is efficient. Overall, it's satisfactory. I would rate the vCenter experience as seven out of ten due to concerns regarding license, pricing, and AI features.

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."
"The overall user experience is quite nice. I have no complaints from end users regarding their devices enrolled in Intune."
"Intune provides full visibility into all active mobile device users. If their devices are noncompliant with our security policies, I have the flexibility to update them remotely."
"The conditional access policies that we set up are very useful."
"The best part of Intune is device control. If we need to block a user from opening something in their organization's system, we can do it from Intune. If we want to restrict the movement of an organization's data to prevent users from copying the data into Outlook, WhatsApp, or their personal Gmail, we can limit that via Intune. It secures all corporate data."
"Microsoft Endpoint Manager is not expensive overall, especially for small environments."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune."
"The initial setup is not overly complex or difficult."
"I think BigFix is a very good solution, and I rate it ten out of ten."
"It has plugins development options, which are great."
"BigFix can manage lost devices, so you can wipe them remotely to ensure the IP doesn't get out in public. Unified endpoint security is a new perspective. I know that HCL is also collaborating with IBM, but I'm not sure if there is any cooperation between them and MaaS360 or other endpoint components."
"The best feature of BigFix is its multi-platform support."
"I’ve found patching to be the most valuable feature of the solution."
"BigFix helped us to identify the compliance of devices and has also improved the way that we manage our software inventory for reporting to vendors."
"The solution has many useful features. Its main advantage is simplicity - you can do everything from one console, regardless of the task. It supports many operating systems and is scalable to up to 250,000 clients."
"The tool's most valuable features are patching and integration with vulnerability scanners."
"The market share of VMware is huge. It is not even necessary to prove the capabilities attached to the product."
"My experience managing virtual environments using vCenter Configuration Manager has been quite smooth. Over time, I've observed that there's been a significant local competency built around the product, especially in India, where ESXi and VMware dominate the market. It's evident that vCenter Configuration Center is the preferred management tool in this context, and it's relatively easy to find expertise in the market."
"Configuration Manager simplifies management. Cloning via live migration is a useful feature."
"It has many valuable features that serve many purposes."
"It is a stable solution."
"The platform is straightforward and user friendly."
"There are a lot of features, but I've found vMotion and VRS most valuable."
"There are a lot of useful features, such as DRS, ease of use, and many configuration options."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in integrating additional features such as Purview and SharePoint activities into Intune."
"Although Intune is from the same provider, its integration with other Microsoft products, like Microsoft Defender or Microsoft Purview, could be improved."
"Customer service used to be better, but as we are nearing the end of the contract, the focus on investing in us as a customer has diminished. It is what one would expect in such a situation."
"Historically, Group Policy has simplified the management of various items, such as printer and drive mappings and while Intune offers workarounds, it lacks native support for these functionalities."
"Intune should improve its software inventory to provide better metering of which software is used throughout the company. This is especially needed for reporting third-party software solutions."
"They should make it easier to order it, however, that's generally true for everything from Microsoft."
"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."
"It would help if administrators could pinpoint the exact location of a stolen device to help law enforcement retrieve it and apprehend the suspect."
"The look and feel of the system are old-fashioned."
"I would like better support on the backend."
"It can be improved speed-wise. They can make it a little bit light. If you do any query for servers in bulk, it can take some time. Similarly, creating a job can take some time."
"The remote software installation could be better."
"They need better integration."
"The sub-capacity licensing was a challenge for some of it. We had trouble getting it to calculate right."
"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."
"I'd definitely like to see additional feature parody in the web UI versus the console. There are certain things that you can only do in the console and they're very cumbersome to do, like secure parameters, for example. That's definitely something that has a wide degree of utility but it needs to be easier to surface. At this particular juncture between the transition, between the legacy console and the web UI, it's hard to justify dealing with the cumbersome aspects of the legacy console when theoretically everything's been through the web UI."
"SAP CRM could improve by adding additional automation features."
"The interface itself is not very user-friendly."
"There could be an option for clients to manage the tool as well."
"There is room for improvement in operating and managing cluster environments and maintenance. And hardware environment visibility."
"The ease of setup and installations could be improved."
"The solution needs to add its own backup system because it has issues integrating with third-party solutions."
"When vCenter is in a Microsoft environment, there is a lot of licensing involved, where we face some difficulties."
"I would like there to be support for this solution in Iran."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is reasonable. When you have Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 license, it is already licensed in that license. So, you could say it is free."
"Intune's pricing is reasonable considering its benefits and the high costs it helps avoid."
"Microsoft Intune has a user-based subscription model. You can go for a monthly or a yearly payment."
"While Microsoft Intune boasts a wide range of features, its user-friendliness and bundled licensing cost are key considerations for me."
"The tool is cheaper than our company's other MDM tools."
"The price of Intune is often included as part of a bundle with other Microsoft licenses, which makes it somewhat cheaper."
"We don't pay for Intune because it is bundled with the premium subscription to Office 365. It includes Intune and Defender. I don't have to buy two extra products to manage my enterprise."
"Microsoft Intune's pricing is reasonable."
"I can estimate the reduced cost of servers maintenance to approximatively $500,000."
"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 cost is slightly high."
"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."
"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."
"So, the pricing is slightly more expensive than the others. I have to keep buying licenses every time I add a new device."
"Its price is very reasonable."
"The product is less costly when compared to other solutions, and this is a good solid solution for what we have paid."
"Their licensing costs are high. But I think for the scale that we are using, it's suitable. If you use it on a larger scale with many servers, you have to pay a lot of money for them. I think it's suitable for organizations that don't need expert people that want more money each year or each month because it's a straightforward solution. We prefer to pay for these products that are integrated and straightforward."
"The product price and licensing fees are reasonable, especially when compared to other products in the market."
"I have a license to cover four hosts."
"It's a large application. It consumes a lot of resources. Sometimes the price is too high for our customers. If they buy it directly from VMware, its hard to convince the customer that we will bring down the total cost of ownership, in the end."
"It is an expensive product."
"This product is not cheap. I have a yearly license for vCenter and the license is not cheap."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, it is reasonably priced compared to competitors."
"I am not knowledgeable with the pricing of the product."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Configuration Management solutions are best for your needs.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
52%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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?
Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution...
What do you like most about vCenter Configuration Manager?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vCenter Configuration Manager?
Nowadays, it is a bit expensive. It's costly, primarily due to the licensing aspect.
What needs improvement with vCenter Configuration Manager?
Regarding the licensing part, previously I was able to acquire the license with an eight-core configuration. Now it r...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
vCM
 

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
Bank Al Bilad, Thomas-Krenn.AG, Pronto!, Unimed Juiz de Fora
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. vCenter Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.