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

BigFix vs VMware Carbon Black Endpoint 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

BigFix
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
22nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (6th), Patch Management (2nd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Security Incident Response (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Ransomware Protection (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of BigFix is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is 1.7%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 15, 2019
 

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.
Nikunj Kamboj - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates well with our existing SIEM tool and helps in identifying suspicious activities
The solution's integration with our existing security infrastructure is good. Whenever we have any alert in VMware Carbon Black Endpoint, we can easily that alert in our SIEM tool and check logs from the SIEM tool itself. VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is just a secondary security tool for us, and we are just monitoring the alerts from it. The solution's behavioral analytics feature helps in identifying suspicious activities pretty well. Whenever we have even a small thing, we get an alert. The solution is deployed on the cloud in our organization. Performance-wise, the solution is doing great in terms of connecting to the host directly. Performing a malware scan usually takes a lot of time, more than 24 hours. A malware scan is something that we do only on Carbon Black for the old endpoint devices and servers. It used to take sometimes three days to perform. I would recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution 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 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."
"Vulnerability scanning and patch automation."
"We found the implementation partner to be very supportive in terms of explaining and training the in-house resources and deploying the solution."
"One of the biggest benefits BigFix has had for our organization is the ease and efficiency to perform many different tasks, across pillars and platforms, all from one pane of glass."
"I like the inventory and life cycle management feature."
"The technical support for BigFix is really amazing."
"DOWNLOADING-PATCHES; It has also helped to reduce network traffic when it comes to downloading patches. By only having to download the patch once to the central location and then utilizing the relay structure to then download the patch to a specific site and then everything gathering at local, it greatly reduces the bandwidth of multiple endpoints."
"We are able to use BigFix through API connections to automate and reduce resources and time. The product's been great for us. It's increased the security posture ten-fold and it's increased our visibility across our endpoints enormously."
"The solution is stable."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"The product is pretty strong in terms of security and their features are very good in that respect."
"It significantly speeds up incident response times by alerting analysts immediately upon detecting potential issues."
"It gives you all of the information in a short and sweet fashion."
"Some of the valuable features I have found are the online documentation of the solution is well organized and thorough. I like the simplicity of bypass and the visualization of the active components."
"The biggest feature out of CarbonBlack is its ability to dive in with more depth. You can look at the entire kill chain and understand, not only if an alarm or identified incident is truly a true security issue versus a false positive, and it allows us to backtrack and figure out why it actually happened and how it got into the environment."
"The most valuable feature is that it detects and stops malicious executables."
 

Cons

"Around the scalability concern, I would like to see the ability to run teamed, clustered, or hierarchical root servers, in order to provide a more robust, high availability system. The single monolithic root server model does somewhat bother me."
"It could use better integration with Hypervisor products like VMware."
"IBM has not focused on the Web Reports capabilities."
"I would like to see improvements in the Web UI program and also a BigFix console for Mac OS."
"BigFix should improve its compatibility with other platforms, such as Linux."
"Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution to clients if there are too many."
"License management isn't quite as easy as it should be to deal with the licensing. You need to take the server down to import the new licenses which I find to be annoying."
"The tool should be more friendly in terms of Web UI and should be having better vulnerability scanning mechanisms so a third-party application is not required to fulfill that aspect."
"The solution needs expanded endpoint query tools."
"A search bar in the investigation page and some AI-related tasks like outgoing alerts, or recent tactics that are being used in the market, must be embedded in the tool so that it's easier to find alerts."
"The local technical support is very poor, but the support from headquarters is very nice."
"The pricing could be more reasonable."
"Right now, Carbon Black CB Defense doesn't support cloud computing and Kubernetes."
"I am not sure whether Carbon Black CB Defense can be considered as a stable solution or not."
"Adding an application and a device control feature would be a great help for this solution."
"Report generation can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There's not much big cost. We only have to pay the agents' cost for the server, and for the systems."
"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."
"Compliance, inventory, and licensing are really pricey. They should lower the price. It discourages users from getting onboard."
"It might be about $23 a client."
"The price of BigFix could be lower. However, I am always seeking a lower price."
"The price of the solution is high. There are not any additional fees from the standard license."
"We have a subscription-based contract with BigFix."
"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’s price is less expensive than other vendors."
"We have branches, we have different companies, but we cannot buy less than 100 licenses. This does not make sense to me... It should be more flexible. I can understand their saying, "Okay, to be a customer you need 100," but to add on to that number it should be something very straightforward. If I need to add five, for example, I shouldn't need to add 100."
"VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is an expensive product."
"It's reasonable in price"
"Overall, it was cost-effective too."
"This is a really expensive product and we pay licensing fees on a yearly basis."
"Price-wise, VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is a highly-priced solution. Regarding the licensing cost of the solution, one needs to opt for an annual subscription."
"​The cost/benefit factor has great relevance in Cb Defense implementations​."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solutions are best for your needs.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 23, 2019
Apr 23, 2019
BigFix and Carbon Black are really two different products from a functionality standpoint and are not really competing products. Carbon Black Defense is essentially an anti-malware (with more smarts and they refer to it as Next-gen AV) BigFix does not provide anti-malware functionality. BigFix has multiple components that you would use to protect your environment BigFix Patch: As the name sug...
2 out of 8 answers
MP
Apr 15, 2019
These are complementary solutions. Cb Defense is a combination of next-gen AV and EDR capabilities. BigFix is used to identify assets, distribute software, Patch OS� and applications, provision systems, keep systems continuously compliant and much more. Many enterprises use BigFix to find which endpoints need Cb, distribute Cb agents, keep them updated and fix what Cb finds either by quarantining the endpoint, patching it, distributing a new application or wiping and reimaging it.
MW
Apr 15, 2019
Hey Nick, We chose MS SCCM not Bigfix at the end. Thanks
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
52%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 to choose: an endpoint antivirus, an EDR solution or both?
I can recommend Carbon Black, an award-winning next-gen anti-virus (NGAV) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) security solution. The CB Predictive Security Cloud platform combines multiple hi...
What's the difference between Carbon Black CB Response and Carbon Black CB Defense?
Carbon Black offers two different levels of Endpoint Detection and Response. One is the VM Carbon Black Cloud Endpoint Standard (CB Defense), and the other is the Carbon Black Endpoint Detection an...
What do you like most about Carbon Black CB Defense?
VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is a highly stable solution.
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Carbon Black CB Defense, Bit9, Confer
 

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
Netflix, Progress Residential, Indeed, Hologic, Gentle Giant, Samsung Research America
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. VMware Carbon Black Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.