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AWS CloudFormation vs BigFix comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
255
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
AWS CloudFormation
Ranking in Configuration Management
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
BigFix
Ranking in Configuration Management
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (22nd), Patch Management (2nd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
 

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 AWS CloudFormation is 1.2%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 9.2%, up from 7.7% 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.
Mbula Mboma - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates efficient infrastructure deployment with visibility into resource connections
I primarily use AWS CloudFormation for deploying infrastructure efficiently. For instance, if I want to create load balancers with target groups and EC2 instances, I find CloudFormation simplifies the process of deployment and configuration, reducing the possibility of errors AWS CloudFormation…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I rate Intune 10 out of 10."
"Intune simplifies compliance. The ability to manage software updates and policies on endpoints has helped us meet contract requirements."
"The Autopilot feature is the most valuable because it saves significant time on managing devices."
"The navigation, the keys, and the settings are easy to find. It is easy to understand."
"It is very easy for me to configure all the things. Once I create policies and applications in Intune, it is very easy for us to enroll users."
"Stable solution at a good price."
"I find Microsoft Intune valuable primarily for its Windows management capabilities, along with its Android Enterprise and Apple device management for mobile devices."
"Intune makes our organization more secure and flexible. We can onboard new employees faster and more securely. We are a governmental organization with strict regulations, and Intune helps us comply with those requirements."
"I appreciate the flexibility of infrastructure as code. With CloudFormation, we can define ground rules, control usage limits, and scale our infrastructure up or down programmatically. Having this level of control through code on infra is a major benefit. That's the beauty of CloudFormation."
"Scripting does what we need to reinstall something from scratch."
"The integration of the solution is very good."
"CloudFormation has helped automate the infrastructure in AWS, making the process more efficient."
"There is a cost-benefit to using CloudFormation that comes about because of the automation that it provides."
"The most beneficial aspect lies in its capability to handle input acquisition and assessment."
"The most valuable features of AWS CloudFormation are all the resources documentation is located in one location, simple resource reverting, and ease of use of the full package for new users."
"With CloudFormation, there is no need to use complicated coding."
"The most valuable feature of BigFix is the software deployment."
"We've had no issues with stability."
"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."
"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."
"It's very straightforward."
"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."
"It allows us to quickly deploy capabilities that we need, whether it be security or non-security. We use it to keep systems up to date, deploy new drivers, find the information we need in the case of security incidents. The capability allows us to gather a lot of information very quickly and it also allows us to have a centralized reporting feature and a centralized deployment capability which is nice."
"The most valuable feature is the patching."
 

Cons

"The user interface should be more user-friendly, as it can sometimes be challenging to navigate. Microsoft often relocates features, making it difficult to consistently find what I need."
"There is room for improvement in the remediation and detection modules, which are currently about eighty percent fully functional."
"Deploying an app can be a complex process due to dependencies."
"We had an APNS certificate set to expire last week. We tried to renew it two days before it expired. We logged in to the APNS portal but could not find that certificate. We didn't know where it went. All the iOS devices stopped working. We contacted the Apple and Microsoft teams, and each blamed the other. This is something that Microsoft should take care of. Last week, we had so many escalations from high-profile users who couldn't access corporate data on their devices."
"There is still a gap between SCCM and Intune, especially in the reporting, inventory, and software deployment areas."
"Microsoft Intune's support for Mac devices is lacking and could be improved."
"I would like some integration with the Microsoft reporting platform Power BI."
"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. Trust your people. We promise not to break your stuff. Open it up just a tiny bit wider."
"AWS CloudFormation allows you to use the code templates written in JSON and YAML, but not directly in Python. Adding this feature would be beneficial."
"The Infrastructure Composer is not fully complete, making it necessary to tweak the code manually after generating it, which could be improved."
"There are some limitations with JSON, as the code is written in JSON, which doesn't support commands, looping, or conditionals. This can make the code difficult to read and share across teams. Moreover, the tool only supports AWS."
"As soon as they manage to parametrize the whole thing and to implement parameters at all levels, it will become automatically a lot more flexible."
"The solution must enable more hands-on designing of the templates."
"They could improve the product's capability to handle circular dependencies more effectively."
"Provisioning a large environment or a large number of services takes a bit more time than with Terraform."
"If you are a developer or a more technical person, it's very difficult to learn the complete syntax or because CloudFormation includes a new way to write infrastructure code."
"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."
"Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution to clients if there are too many."
"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 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."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"I would like better support on the backend."
"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 relevant language takes a little getting used to since it's not used anywhere else in the industry. It's just in the BigFix environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I have no comment on pricing of the solution."
"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."
"The cost is handled through our Office 365 license, so I have yet to be able to compare it directly with other tools in its class."
"The Intune license model is costly."
"Its licensing model is not complex, but it is very expensive compared to other solutions. They can bring more models and reduce the pricing. They should allow customers to select the features they want and price it accordingly."
"For Microsoft 365 E5 clients, cost is not an issue as this product is one of the benefits."
"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 solution's cost is normal, neither cheap nor expensive."
"If you compared serverless and container-based, serverless is less expensive. If you use certain instances the price can increase and become too expensive."
"AWS CloudFormation doesn't have any cost because it's only the resources that you deploy with the solution that'll incur costs."
"The tool's pricing depends on the page model."
"The price of the solution is good because it is scalable."
"This solution is free to use and does not require a license."
"There's no cost for launching any template using CloudFormation."
"The product is free."
"It might be about $23 a client."
"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."
"I can estimate the reduced cost of servers maintenance to approximatively $500,000."
"The price is very fair."
"So, the pricing is slightly more expensive than the others. I have to keep buying licenses every time I add a new device."
"Its price is very reasonable."
"We have a subscription-based contract with BigFix."
"There's not much big cost. We only have to pay the agents' cost for the server, and for the systems."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
7%
University
6%
Educational Organization
46%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software 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 AWS CloudFormation?
AWS Cloud automation reduces the time needed to create AWS resources.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS CloudFormation?
AWS CloudFormation is free. However, there may be unexpected costs if developers deploy services incorrectly without ...
What needs improvement with AWS CloudFormation?
Improvements are needed for sharing resources between template files, especially when using AWS ( /products/amazon-aw...
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...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
CloudFormation
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Nextdoor, Coinbase, Expedia
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
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS CloudFormation vs. BigFix and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.