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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
7.3
Number of Reviews
265
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) (22nd), 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 May 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.3%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 9.2%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 17.4%, down from 18.2% 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.
Surya Chapagain - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to manage and simple to learn
We use Red Hat a lot. I open tickets for the Red Hat cases, however, with Ansible, I haven't opened any cases. My manager worked with them a bit. If we have a problem with some file and we need to get Red Hat to analyze the issue and the file is 100GBs, we'll have an issue since we need to provide a log file for them to analyze. If it is around 12GB or 13GB, we can easily upload it to the Red Hat portal. With more than 100GBs, it will fail. I heard it should cover up to 250GB for an upload, however, I find it fails. Therefore, Red Hat needs to provide a way to handle this.

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 feature of Microsoft Intune is that it is more of a one-stop shop, providing an easier experience."
"Stable product that's easy to set up compared to other MDM products."
"I find Microsoft Intune valuable primarily for its Windows management capabilities, along with its Android Enterprise and Apple device management for mobile devices."
"The interface is user-friendly, and the reporting tool works in real-time."
"I like how Microsoft Intune lets me lock down the email profile and make it accessible only on certain devices."
"The system itself is great."
"The most valuable feature for us is the security, including risk analysis and patch management."
"The feature I like the most is that we can perform remote tasks. If we want to retire or wipe out personal data or corporate data from a device, we can use Microsoft Intune remotely, and with the click of a button, data is removed automatically. Nothing needs to be done from the end-user side."
"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."
"I’ve found patching to be the most valuable feature of the solution."
"What I like most is that it is a powerful solution."
"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."
"BigFix technical support is good."
"Software distribution and patch management are the most valuable."
"The most valuable features of the solution are Windows patching and the hardware and software inventory."
"My company provides support services to a lot of customers and companies. We have reduced a huge amount of man-effort. Along with the man-effort, we have reduced the timeline to fix the compliance and security gaps. We have an unbroken record. The documentation clearly says that we have done the patching of newly released patches, including Microsoft and third-party patches, in up to 80% of the computers, within 72 hours of the release of the production. That was a very massive benefit that we have seen. When I talk about the 80% endpoints, it is 100 or 200. I am talking about 25,000 endpoints."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is valuable due to the simplicity of the YAML language."
"The most valuable feature is that Ansible is agentless."
"The most valuable feature of Ansible is repeatability because when you're working at the DoD, you want things to be cookie-cutter and replicable."
"Feature-wise, the solution is a good open-source software offering broad support. Also, it's reliable."
"Ansible Galaxy is helpful for roles and Git Submodules: No dependency in managing playbooks. Also, fact caching in redis for host/role grp information speeds up execution. Finally, variable management is easy."
"The initial setup is easy and takes a few hours to complete."
"I like being able to control multiple systems and push out updates quickly with just a couple of clicks of a button and commands. I like the automation because it is a time saver."
"The API for exposing all our infrastructure services is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Intune's app deployment presents challenges for non-MSI and non-store apps, particularly EXEs, requiring the use of a Win32 wrapper tool and adding overhead to the process."
"There is room for improvement in integration and security as well."
"The pricing could be improved."
"It needs incorporation of Knox, ZeroTouch, etc."
"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."
"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."
"More integration with monitoring tools is needed."
"The UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."
"I would like to see much better web reporting because as it is now, it's convoluted, basic, it's not modern, and there are limitations to it."
"I'd like to see better integration, with the different applications within BigFix. Instead of sometimes feeling like four or five different applications, they need to be integrated a little better within themselves."
"BigFix is actually a little bit on the expensive side in Turkey because of the dollar's exchange rate in our currency."
"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 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."
"Its pricing should be improved. It is too costly."
"BigFix can improve the way machines report back to the console. In the external relay management environment, it has become more of a hybrid environment with most of the machines not being on-site. The need of having public-facing reporting items interconnected is becoming more and more crucial. In general, the reporting could use some enhancement."
"The stability is generally pretty good. The one thing that we came across is the battle between load on endpoints and load on our servers and relays versus how quickly, effectively and reliably actions can be taken. I'd like to not have to take an action on a system while I'm working with someone and then have to say whether something will happen between five seconds or thirty minutes from that point."
"From Red Hat Insights point of view, the product is not on top as it is not responding as per the demand...Like on cloud platforms, you can see the main parts of Red Hat Insights, along with the inventory of all your apps. So, that is missing in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform."
"Because Ansible is establishing SSH sessions to perform tasks, there is a limit on scalability."
"The tool should allow us to create infrastructure. It has everything when it comes to management, but it lacks the provisioning aspect."
"There should be consistency. I know that it is always changing, but when we are trying to get some users to do something in basic Ansible that they are not really interested in doing but their job requires them to do it, they start finding inconsistencies."
"They should think of this product as an end-to-end solution and begin to develop it that way."
"There is always room for improvement in features or customer support."
"Some of the modules in Ansible could be a bit more mature. There is still a little room for further development. Some performance aspects could be improved, perhaps in the form of parallelism within Ansible."
"What we need is model-driven, declarative software infrastructure management. However, things tend to break with new versions, requiring a lot of work to fix…The focus should be on improving the support for Ansible in the area of AI coding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While I can't provide insights from a business perspective, it's worth noting that the pricing may differ significantly, and the discount we received might not be reflective of standard business rates."
"Its price is fair. It's a normal price. It isn't too expensive or too cheap."
"If you ask the accountant or the finance department, they'll tell you that it is way too expensive, but when I look at the cost and compare it with the value you actually get, it's more than fair."
"The licensing costs we leave up to the customer and these vary from one to another."
"I recently got to know that the AD P1 license is compulsory to use Intune Autopilot, which was surprising for me. Earlier, this was not the case. It is the wrong thing to do. We now need to purchase AD P1 licenses for us and for our customers. I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing."
"The price for Intune is fair."
"The pricing for Intune and the competitor products are all within the same range, there is no true advantage when it comes to cost."
"Intune is moderately expensive. You can get the license bundled with Office 365 E3 or E5 licenses. The E5s are a bit expensive, but you get some cheaper solutions with Intune."
"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."
"The price is very fair."
"When purchasing, buying with other IBM tools provided us with a very good discount in pricing."
"Its price is very reasonable."
"We have a subscription-based contract with BigFix."
"I can estimate the reduced cost of servers maintenance to approximatively $500,000."
"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 could be lower. However, I am always seeking a lower price."
"The pricing is pretty standard."
"It’s an open-source tool."
"The pricing for us is huge because we use twenty thousand nodes, so that is a huge infrastructure, but if someone is using a small infrastructure, then the pricing is not so much."
"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"The solution is inexpensive compared to other products."
"Ansible is a lot more competitive than any of the others. Its setup was also straightforward. In fact, we just implemented Ansible on OpenShift, so that is how we are running the Ansible Automation Platform now."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
44%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Educational Organization
27%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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 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: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.