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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 most valuable features of the solution are Windows patching and the hardware and software inventory."
"It is user-friendly."
"The technical support for BigFix is really amazing."
"BigFix is easy to use."
"It allows for visibility into the OT, the industrial environments, that didn't exist before which is a big piece and has benefited my organization. Second, the speed at which people can patch is night and day versus SCCM scan or another similar solution."
"Desktop patching is the most valuable feature, because with servers, we have complete control over them, and we can simply push patches to the servers."
"It's very straightforward."
"The most valuable feature for us is the ability to manage TWS, the relevance is really what sets it apart. Also, using it as a software deployment tool is the key for us."
"Carbon Black Defense has a higher detection ratio because it's cloud-based and it also does a lookup to virus total."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is one of the best EDR tools in the market."
"The product enables device controls, helping us protect the devices and prevent data leakages."
"The data analysis is the most valuable because of the whitelist database. It is different than standard IDS solutions."
"​Provides visibility into the chain of attack and threats that use valid operating system processes to execute attacks.​"
"The software uses very few resources; it is almost invisible to the end user."
"I like its reporting."
"The initial setup was fairly easy."
 

Cons

"I would like to see API connectivity, built-in API connectors to the standard toolsets, whether it's for your ServiceNow or your Qualys. More API connectivity to make it easier to integrate to other tools."
"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 look and feel of the system are old-fashioned."
"Maybe the online help could be improved. It'd be nice if you would have a lot more phrases and keywords that you could search for and find answers with the help."
"The product should become cloud-based. Also, the peer nesting ability of the product is a little backward."
"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."
"The relevant language takes a little getting used to since it's not used anywhere else in the industry. It's just in the BigFix environment."
"I'm looking for them to make big web UI improvements."
"The product's stability could be improved."
"Certain settings have limitations. For example, I cannot manually block some malware activities."
"With the on-prem one, the bug has been reported by the community in early January or February, something like that, at the beginning of the year, and it's still not addressed. They have released two versions since then, and yet neither of them addresses this specific issue."
"Performing a malware scan usually takes a lot of time, more than 24 hours."
"The tech support communicates, but it's just not with movement."
"The local technical support is very poor, but the support from headquarters is very nice."
"The UI interface needs improvement. The management needs further work in future versions."
"The product cannot perform an on-demand scan. They could add this particular feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compliance, inventory, and licensing are really pricey. They should lower the price. It discourages users from getting onboard."
"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."
"So, the pricing is slightly more expensive than the others. I have to keep buying licenses every time I add a new device."
"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 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."
"I can estimate the reduced cost of servers maintenance to approximatively $500,000."
"The product is less costly when compared to other solutions, and this is a good solid solution for what we have paid."
"You are charged per server and per workstation when using BigFix. ManageEngine is a lot cheaper than BigFix. There are some additional costs, such as support."
"​The cost/benefit factor has great relevance in Cb Defense implementations​."
"CB Defense is available on a yearly subscription and is priced by the number of endpoints."
"The pricing is very high."
"I am not really involved in the pricing of this product. But, from my understanding, it is OK for us."
"Carbon Black provides competitive pricing."
"The platform is expensive."
"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."
"This is a really expensive product and we pay licensing fees on a yearly basis."
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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
8%
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.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.