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BigFix vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 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
7.2
Number of Reviews
277
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) (23rd), Patch Management (2nd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.2%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 9.1%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 16.8%, down from 18.5% 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.
Muralitharan KS - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient server management and detailed reporting with flexible deployment capabilities
We are primarily using Ansible for automation purposes as it is a configuration management tool. It is utilized for various activities such as DNS activity, changes to web servers, virtual host settings, and other day-to-day tasks, all of which are templated in Ansible Ansible allows us to manage…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate the stability of Microsoft Intune nine out of ten."
"The navigation, the keys, and the settings are easy to find. It is easy to understand."
"It has improve our organization through the remote management of non-domain joined devices."
"Its security is most valuable. It gives us a way to secure devices, not only those that are steady. We do have a few tablets and other devices, and it is a way for us to secure these devices and manage them. We know they're out there and what's their status. We can manage their life cycle and verify that they're updated properly."
"This product offers an alternative solution to other UEM (Unified Endpoint Management) solutions."
"This solution saves us a lot of time once it's implemented."
"The thing I appreciate most about Microsoft Intune is that the management of the devices was very simplified. We have all machines connected to it at all times, whether they are in the office or working from home."
"What I like the most about Microsoft Intune is its ability to manage mobile devices. Through integration with System Center, it can also manage desktops and laptops."
"Having higher visibility on patching level, on patching successful, and non-successful has been a way that BigFix has improved my organization. Also, the ability to customize the content to do what we need it to do is very powerful and very flexible for us. Finally, in the area of custom interfaces like REST API really gives us the ability to provide for our external customers."
"The most valuable features of the solution are Windows patching and the hardware and software inventory."
"It covers multiple operating systems and helps with patch management."
"I’ve found patching to be the most valuable feature of the solution."
"We are able to go from patching thousands of machines by twenty to thirty people to one person."
"Patch Management for a variety of operating systems makes it valuable as we can rely on a single tool for obtaining patch compliance of the entire compute infrastructure."
"The best feature of BigFix is its multi-platform support."
"We receive the patches automatically, and BigFix spreads them automatically to our endpoints."
"The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors."
"The user interface is well-built and very easy to navigate around."
"Ansible provides great reliability when coupled with a versioning system (git). It helps providing predictability to the network by knowing exactly what's being pushed after validating it in production."
"The playbooks and the code the solution uses are quite useful."
"Having the Dashboard from an admin point of view, and seeing how all the projects and all the jobs lay out, is helpful."
"Feature-wise, the solution is a good open-source software offering broad support. Also, it's reliable."
"One of the most valuable features is automation. We are doing automation infrastructure, which allows us to automate regular tasks. This solution provides us with a service catalog, like building new services and automating daily tasks."
"There are new modules available, which help to simplify the workflow. That is what we like about it."
 

Cons

"Although Intune is from the same provider, its integration with other Microsoft products, like Microsoft Defender or Microsoft Purview, could be improved."
"Data leak prevention can be integrated into it. Currently, it does not have data leak prevention."
"There is room for improvement in integration and security as well."
"It would be awesome if Microsoft opened their API so we could filter more properties. If we have to do anything outside of Intune that requires a third-party solution to talk back to it, we're very limited in what we can do."
"Reporting needs improvement."
"Enhancements for managing MacOS more comprehensively would be beneficial."
"An issue we have run into with Microsoft Endpoint Manager is that we cannot patch third-party products like Adobe and Chrome with it."
"There can be some added features, such as an improved dashboard. Any new feature that could be a benefit to our customers would be good."
"Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution to clients if there are too many."
"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."
"I would like to see more emphasis on using the web console, to have the same power as the full fat client console that they do they now. It's a lighter way to log in and it would be faster for our operators to do their work. The console tends to take a long time for a large number of clients."
"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."
"I'm looking for them to make big web UI improvements."
"The reporting and dashboard parts have room for improvement."
"They don't have a proper mobile device management capability. They're working on it, however, that's the one thing that needs improvement so that you can have full unified endpoint management."
"Some of the Cisco modules could be expanded, which would be great, along with not having to do so much coding in the background to make it work."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is not the best at server provisioning. Terraform is better."
"Improvements should be made in terms of execution speed, which is, I believe, the most lacking feature. Aside from that, re-triggering a failed task is another useful feature."
"We are not using the Dashboard a lot because we have higher expectations from it. The default Dashboard from Tower doesn't give that much information. We really want to get down into more than if the job succeeded or what was the percentage of success. We want to get down to task-level success. If, in a job, there are ten tasks, we want to see this task was a success, and this was not, and how many were not. That's the kind of granularity we are looking for, that Tower does not give right now."
"The solution requires some Linux knowledge."
"What I would like to see is a refined Dashboard to see, when I log in: Here are all my jobs, here are how many times they've executed; some kind graphical stitching-together of the workflows and jobs, and how they're connected. Also, those "failed hosts," what does that mean? We have a problem, a failed host can be anything. Is SSH the reason it failed? Is the job template why it failed? It doesn't really distinguish that."
"There are some options not available in the community edition of the solution."
"The area which I feel can be improved is the custom modules. For example, there are something like 106 official modules available in the Ansible library. A year ago, that number was somewhere around 58. While Ansible is improving day by day, this can be improved more. For instance, when you need to configure in the cloud, you need to write up a module for that."
 

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."
"It is not expensive."
"On a scale of one to ten with one being the cheapest, the cost of Microsoft Intune is a five."
"I am not that aware of the pricing, but as compared to other MDM solutions, Microsoft is providing a lot of things at the organizational level. So, it is quite reasonable as compared to other MDM solutions."
"Pricing depends on the features. Microsoft offers special packages if there are more than 10,000 users, and you may be able to get a reduced rate."
"The pricing is not cheap, especially with inflation. They've had to increase their prices. It's not excessive, but alright."
"The price of Microsoft Intune is reasonable."
"Cost is not my department, but the product is included in the E5 license that we already pay for every user, so no additional cost is incurred."
"There's not much big cost. We only have to pay the agents' cost for the server, and for the systems."
"So, the pricing is slightly more expensive than the others. I have to keep buying licenses every time I add a new device."
"When purchasing, buying with other IBM tools provided us with a very good discount in pricing."
"We have a subscription-based contract with BigFix."
"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."
"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."
"Compliance, inventory, and licensing are really pricey. They should lower the price. It discourages users from getting onboard."
"Its price is very reasonable."
"Everything is generally fair. No one ever likes to pay a lot of money, but we are getting the value. We also get support with it. It has been fair and worthwhile."
"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution."
"The solution is inexpensive compared to other products."
"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."
"You don't need to buy agents on servers or deploy expense management when using the solution, which affected our decision to go with it."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
23%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 is the difference between Red Hat Satellite and Ansible?
Red Hat Satellite has proven to be a worthwhile investment for me. Both its patch management and license management h...
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Ansible
 

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
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.