Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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)
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
97
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)
27th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Security Incident Response (2nd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (20th), Ransomware Protection (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 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 1.6%, 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

"Prior to BigFix we used Altiris, which was distributed. We had to manage multiple servers, and duplicate the tasks that we did on each server. BigFix tremendously reduced the amount of work that we had to do on each server in a centralized manner. We could minimize the work that we had to do, and we had a lot more control over the tasks and what machines they ran on."
"Pre-packaged support for many third-party applications such as Adobe, Google, Mozilla, Sun (Java), WinZip, and others."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable aspect of BigFix is its ability to patch desktops. While we have complete control over servers and can easily push patches to them, desktops pose a greater risk for leaks and vulnerabilities if patches are not installed in a timely manner. By using BigFix, we have significantly improved our ability to patch desktops, whether they are laptops, desktops, or other mobile devices used by end-users."
"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."
"The best feature of BigFix is its multi-platform support."
"It has plugins development options, which are great."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"The most valuable feature is that it detects and stops malicious executables."
"The visibility provided has been great."
"I found the offline scanning to be particularly useful."
"Once the solution is installed and configured correctly it does not require a lot of hands-on attention until you need upgrading."
"We have another piece of that infrastructure that does what they call threat emulation. It's like sandboxing where it takes files that it doesn't know about, puts them in a VM-type environment, and it kicks them off to see if there's any malware or tendencies that might look like malware, that kind of thing."
"The product is pretty strong in terms of security and their features are very good in that respect."
"I feel that the initial setup was straightforward and not complex."
 

Cons

"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."
"The look and feel of the system are old-fashioned."
"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."
"We need a much better multi-tenant option."
"It can be improved speed-wise. They can make it a little bit light. If you do any query for servers in bulk, it can take some time. Similarly, creating a job can take some time."
"The product lacks AI, ML, and IIT."
"Needs to improve Network Access Protection (NAP) technologies to prevent computers with vulnerabilities from gaining access to networks."
"I would like to see more custom content."
"I'm not sure as to the logic of how we've decided to customize it. We've only really used it since February and therefore there may be more to do on that front. That's why it's hard to say if something is missing or if we just aren't utilizing it."
"I would like to see the user credentials feature improved. I would also like to see more reporting features and better ways to roll the reports out."
"I would personally give the tech support a rating of seven out of ten."
"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."
"CB Defense could be more compatible with Linux, and its cloud provision could be improved."
"What was rolled out to my company are mixed versions of Carbon Black CB Defense, so what I'd like to see in the next release is more synchronization, where it can detect the endpoint that's running an old version and suggest updates."
"In our company, we also wanted to have network detection, like a host-based IDS on VMware Carbon Black Endpoint, but we did not get it."
"There are many different controls that are needed to be put into place for upgrading that makes it difficult. Having to re-engineer your IT infrastructure to match their software, as opposed to having it integrate and work independently causes difficulties. When there is an update to any software everyone has to be involved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"So, the pricing is slightly more expensive than the others. I have to keep buying licenses every time I add a new device."
"The price is very fair."
"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."
"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."
"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 tool's price continues to go up. The cost per endpoint can vary, ranging from approximately 30 to 80 dollars per year. Compared to other products, pricing is in the middle. You need to buy an additional database license, but most users already have it."
"The price of the solution is high. There are not any additional fees from the standard license."
"VMware Carbon Black Endpoint is an expensive product."
"The pricing is very high."
"The platform is expensive."
"The cost is a considerable factor, but the benefit factor is the most important. When you compare it with other products, the price is high. Carbon Black will negotiate the price."
"I am not really involved in the pricing of this product. But, from my understanding, it is OK for us."
"Its pricing was very good, which is one of the reasons I went to it as an alternative. It is on a yearly basis. There are no additional fees."
"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."
"CB Defense is available on a yearly subscription and is priced by the number of endpoints."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solutions are best for your needs.
861,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Financial Services Firm
14%
Educational Organization
13%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
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?
While performing integration, we face many issues with IBM solution. We need detailed information about those issues that can help users to mitigate them. The problem was related to the hardware co...
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: July 2025.
861,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.