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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
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)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
 

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 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 16.6%, down from 18.9% 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.
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

"For Windows services, there are multiple options within Intune to modernize it to be more internet-facing and dynamic."
"I would recommend Microsoft Intune to others; it is a very good and scalable solution."
"The security compliance capabilities make it widely adopted across organizations."
"We like Intune's Autopilot functionality, which enables one-touch deployment. Dynamic grouping is another feature we find valuable working in academia. We have people in buckets based on their roles in the university, such as faculty, staff, alum, or grad. Sometimes, they will fit into multiple places, and dynamic grouping helps with that."
"Its price is reasonable. It is a part of our M365 suite."
"Configuration profiles, remediation, scripts, and auto-pilot features are very good."
"Intune makes our organization more secure and flexible."
"Since implementing this solution, our company has grown substantially, and our talent pool has significantly expanded."
"I like the inventory and life cycle management feature."
"The tool's most valuable features are patching and integration with vulnerability scanners."
"The solution is unbelievably scalable."
"I recommend BigFix to others."
"It has plugins development options, which are great."
"Before we had BigFix, we had problems with some malware. BigFix allows us to immediately patch all instances of endpoints that were vulnerable to antivirus and initiate scans. That's key."
"It has improved reliability upon delivery of software and has also helped reduce software expenses. The extensibility of BigFix helps to create custom solutions where we may have considered purchasing something instead."
"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."
"I like the fact that Ansible is agentless."
"The easy-to-read syntax for YAML files and the interoperability between modules are valuable."
"There are so many models that I don't have to create one."
"The most valuable feature is that Ansible is agentless."
"There are new modules available, which help to simplify the workflow. That is what we like about it."
"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."
"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."
"Role-based access control and agentless architecture are the main features which may attract users."
 

Cons

"I would like to see Intune improve its handling of hybrid domain joins. We continue to experience issues with machines losing their hybrid domain join status."
"We face multiple scenarios where IT decision-makers request specific policy implementations, however, due to product limitations, we cannot fulfill these requests."
"We do not utilize Microsoft customer service and technical support since it is generally a waste of time."
"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."
"There could be some kind of feature that supports a workgroup environment or a separate environment without the Entra ID."
"Once it's configured it is unobtrusive, but it does take some hands-on to configure and deploy it properly."
"Microsoft Intune lacks live location tracking capabilities."
"The solution can have some compliance problems in general and the end-point user can bypass easily the company policies in Intune."
"The solution should have some kind of a local caching methodology, where the patches can be taken locally into a localized relay server, and from there, the patch can be applied, so that there is not much usage of the network required."
"I self-taught for this online, so the initial setup was a little difficult to pick up at first. I had to create a couple of testing environments and destroy them in order to learn how to use it. There was a lot of trial and error, a lot of reading of the manuals."
"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."
"It could use better integration with Hypervisor products like VMware."
"The look and feel of the system are old-fashioned."
"The deployment has room for improvement and can be more streamlined."
"The BigFix Inventory could have an increased scope regarding the tools that can be detected. It does not cover all the possible software installed in Asset."
"I would like to see the integration of user security between the different products to be improved. There's separate security for compliance, separate security for web reports, and the console, and you have to manage those things separately."
"Because Ansible is establishing SSH sessions to perform tasks, there is a limit on scalability."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to see improvements in the dashboards. More detailed dashboards would be beneficial because there is a lack of dashboards on Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform."
"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."
"It would be good to make the solution more user-friendly,"
"On the Dashboard, when you view a template run, it shows all the output. There is a search filter, but it would be nice to able to select one server in that run and then see all that output from just that one server, instead of having to do the search on that one server and find the results."
"Networking needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Intune is inexpensive. It also comes bundled in some Office 365 licenses, so you can choose to purchase it separately or as a package."
"Intune is linked with Microsoft. We can deploy the Microsoft E365 license to users by Intune. There are different types of licenses, such as device administrator licenses, E5 licenses for device enrollment manually, and P1 and p2 licenses for device enrollment automatically. These are the licenses required for the administration."
"We work in the charity sector, so a lot of our clients get Microsoft Premium licenses or Business Premium for free. They get ten licenses free, and a lot of our clients do not have more than ten staff members. They are getting the tool for free, so its cost is not an issue."
"Intune's pricing is competitive. For example, the license of Blackberry's Enterprise Mobility Suite was costly, but Intune is affordable. It is included as an additional feature when you buy security enhancements for your organization. For example, let's say I have fifty users in my organization and all of them are using Microsoft cloud services, like Teams, Office 365, and OneDrive."
"The cost is somewhat on the higher side, particularly when considering certain price points, especially in markets like India."
"The price is reasonable, but they should lower it a bit to make it more competitive. It's cheaper than AirWatch and other products, but I still feel like Microsoft can make a base version or with Exchange online or a la carte only Intune version which will be useful. A customer who doesn't want to go full-fledged E3 or E5 can take out or consume an Intune solution only for their purpose, and we want to target that customer."
"Our Office 365 Business Premium license, including Office 365 and Intune Management, offers excellent value."
"The overall pricing of Microsoft Intune is good for companies that have big IT budgets, 3,000 or more users and devices."
"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."
"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 the solution is high. There are not any additional fees from the standard license."
"Compliance, inventory, and licensing are really pricey. They should lower the price. It discourages users from getting onboard."
"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."
"It might be about $23 a client."
"The price of BigFix could be lower. However, I am always seeking a lower price."
"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."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"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."
"I am using the community edition of the solution which is free."
"Users have to pay a per-node cost of around $ 100 per node."
"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."
"The pricing is okay."
"It is a little pricey but it is affordable. It is not that bad."
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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
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.