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BigFix vs Chef 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
6.8
Number of Reviews
294
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
7.3
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (26th), Patch Management (3rd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
Chef
Ranking in Configuration Management
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (20th), Release Automation (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.9%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 8.7%, up from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 2.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license
The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.
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.
Aaron  P - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy configuration management, optimization abilities, and complete infrastructure and application automation
In terms of improvement, Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation. There is also an issue with shared resources like cookbooks lacking context, which could lead to problems when multiple companies use them. Chef should aim for wider availability, better flexibility, clearer documentation, and improved management of shared resources to prevent conflicts. Many companies are now moving to Ansible, so I would recommend better documentation, easier customer use, and simpler integration. I have concerns about the complexity of migrating to different servers and would prefer a simpler process.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature that we need occasionally but is really important is the ability to remotely wipe a device, control it, and perform similar functions."
"Remote Wipe and Autopilot is one of the best features."
"For our office workers who are not based in Norway, when we order the PC, we can do some of the settings for them. These are standardized settings. We can set them up exactly as they are in Norway so that they're the same."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature."
"As an IT administrator, I appreciate Intune's ability to implement granular device-level policies for our organization's employees."
"The ability to push applications on devices is valuable. You do not have to manually install applications one by one. If you like to use ten different applications, you do not have to manually go and download them one by one. Intune can compile a package for you, and then you can just push them from the admin center."
"Intune provides a centralized management solution, although its suitability depends on specific needs and comparisons with alternatives like Jamf, Kandji, or ManageEngine."
"One of the most valuable features of Microsoft Intune is the detection and remediation script capability."
"The most valuable features of the solution are Windows patching and the hardware and software inventory."
"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."
"The most valuable and essential features of BigFix are all of them, they are needed when serving the purpose of the desktop operation framework. We cannot run operations without patching or without having an appropriate mechanism for deploying software, et cetera. The features all serve their purpose for our use case."
"It is user-friendly."
"It is a one-stop tool that allows you to do everything. It supports reporting, vulnerability management, patch management, and configuration. All things can be done in one tool."
"It's enabled us to have a highly successful endpoint patching program for the past decade. It's been enormously successful there. It's also become a core part of many of our business processes, from compliance monitoring of endpoints, encryption management, key escrow, and local administrator password escrow. It's built into our inventory. It's very much everywhere."
"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 has improved my organization because we can automate a lot of tasks. We went from manually patching machines or doing our best and having very little visibility into it to us being able to set it and forget it and getting really good results on first-pass patching."
"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."
"It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for."
"One thing that we've been able to do is a tiered permission model, allowing developers and their managers to perform their own operations in lower environments. This means a manager can go in and make changes to a whole environment, whereas a developer with less access may only be able to change individual components or be able to upgrade the version for software that they have control over."
"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."
"Manual deployments came to a halt completely. Server provisioning became lightning fast. Chef-docker enabled us to have fewer sets of source code for different purposes. Configuration management was a breeze and all the servers were as good as immutable servers."
"This solution has improved my organization in the way that deployment has become very quick and orchestration is easy. If we have thousands of servers we can easily deploy in a small amount of time. We can deploy the applications or any kind of announcements in much less time."
"It streamlined our deployments and system configurations across the board rather than have us use multiple configurations or tools, basically a one stop shop."
"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."
 

Cons

"Improvements can be made by allowing server integrations since it is an area where the product currently has shortcomings."
"At the moment, we need more flexibility. We have some offices migrating to Windows 11 remotely. Sometimes, it is difficult to manage image installation because we have to collect some information before starting image deployment. Currently, Intune cannot collect the information needed for deploying new images."
"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."
"Sometimes, the process is unsuccessful when we attempt to reset a device and wipe the data using Intune."
"A major challenge is making all the products work within device management solutions like Intune. It would be beneficial if Microsoft removed support for older products much earlier in the process."
"Enrollment into the Microsoft Intune service can still get easier, especially for legacy-managed systems, such as how we get it from a GPO or an SCCM configuration into Intune."
"The synchronization could be improved."
"The solution can have some compliance problems in general and the end-point user can bypass easily the company policies in Intune."
"The reporting and dashboard parts have room for improvement."
"I would like to see a web UI SDK so we could take what is provided currently and be able to build our own customized web UI for particular customers that want to sell service."
"I would like the dashboard to be improved to show the problematic machines and good machines."
"The product lacks AI, ML, and IIT."
"The scalability of the web UI product doesn't scale to the size that we need for our implementation so it needs to expand. I would also like to see the capability to develop on the back of the web UI capability. There are lots of web features and integrations that we could do with web UI that it would be nice to be able to put on top of what's already there, rather than waiting for IBM to develop what we need."
"The product is quite buggy and complicated to use."
"Its pricing should be improved. It is too costly."
"I would like better support on the backend."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"They could provide more features, so the recipes could be developed in a simpler and faster way. There is still a lot of room for improvement, providing better functionalities when creating recipes."
"If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best."
"I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten."
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is somewhat on the higher side, particularly when considering certain price points, especially in markets like India."
"The price is very reasonable."
"Pricing can be improved."
"I liked the tool's pricing until P2 came into effect. I am unsure about the current value versus the cost of the new licensing model."
"I would rate the price a four out of ten with ten being the most expensive."
"Microsoft offers some licensing where it's included at no extra cost when customers are already using the licenses. In such a case, it's a really good value. If you have to buy the licensing for it, it's probably on par with other solutions. It isn't substantially more or less expensive. The great thing is that it is included in some of Microsoft's licensed packages. So, some customers don't have to spend additional money for it. Typically, most providers that support Intune do charge a management fee of some sort or some fee. Certainly, we're no exception."
"It's bundled with Business Premium and an E3 license, which is beneficial. If you have to pay extra, it's pricey, but with the bundled package, it's acceptable. They recently increased the Business Premium pricing, which we don't appreciate. The price increase and yearly commitment are causing some problems for us."
"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."
"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."
"So, the pricing is slightly more expensive than the others. I have to keep buying licenses every time I add a new device."
"The cost is slightly high."
"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."
"It might be about $23 a client."
"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."
"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."
"Purchasing the solution from AWS Marketplace was a good experience. AWS's pricing is pretty in line with the product's regular pricing. Though instance-wise, AWS is not the cheapest in the market."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
"The price is always a problem. It is high. There is room for improvement. I do like purchasing on the AWS Marketplace, but I would like the ability to negotiate and have some flexibility in the pricing on it."
"We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."
"When we're rolling out a new server, we're not using the AWS Marketplace AMI, we're using our own AMI, but we are paying them a licensing fee."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"The price per node is a little weird. It doesn't scale along with your organization. If you're truly utilizing Chef to its fullest, then the number of nodes which are being utilized in any particular day might scale or change based on your Auto Scaling groups. How do you keep track of that or audit it? Then, how do you appropriately license it? It's difficult."
"I wasn't involved in the purchasing, but I am pretty sure that we are happy with the current pricing and licensing since it never comes up."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
15%
Retailer
9%
University
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?
While performing integration, we face many issues with IBM solution. We need detailed information about those issues ...
What do you like most about Chef?
Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code.
What needs improvement with Chef?
Chef does not support the containerized things of Chef products. In the future, Chef could develop a docker container...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
No data available
 

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
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Chef and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.