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AWS Systems Manager vs BigFix 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
7.0
Number of Reviews
286
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
AWS Systems Manager
Ranking in Configuration Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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)
 

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 AWS Systems Manager is 10.7%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 9.1%, up from 7.9% 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.
GeraldMusaga - PeerSpot reviewer
Has valuable automation capabilities and a straightforward setup process
I advise others to evaluate specific needs and tasks to see if Systems Manager aligns with organizational requirements, particularly in operational and application management. It is beginner-friendly with extensive features that can be learned gradually based on the user's needs and tasks. Integration with other AWS services like Lambda is seamless and enhances its functionality. I would rate it an eight out of ten.
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

"Intune can wipe devices. For example, if a disgruntled employee wants to leak the data on their company phone, Intune can terminate their access and wipe the entire device with a click."
"EAM is a godsend."
"It provides control over all mobile devices that are being connected to the corporate network."
"One of our clients migrated the model workplace based on Intune, achieving a 78 percent cost reduction, which is quite a lot."
"The most useful features in Microsoft Intune are the policy enforcement and conditional access. These features make our operations easier from a company perspective."
"The security-related tools are excellent; these features allow us to secure devices, lock them down, and ensure compliance."
"The automatic patch management feature in the Intune Suite is helpful."
"The many policies available in Microsoft Intune for managing our devices are valuable."
"With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems manually."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the change management option. It tracks every action on my AWS accounts in a centralized way, acting like a control tool for me. This is especially useful when working with Kubernetes and AWS ECS services. Additionally, my colleagues and clients often use the application management tools for configuration, parameters, and installations."
"It is beginner-friendly with extensive features that can be learned gradually based on the user's needs and tasks."
"When we do the automation in the cloud, we use the SSM agent. This helps us to test our automation and documents, and monitor the cloud."
"AWS Systems Manager's most valuable feature is its ability to dynamically export and import values in various AWS accounts"
"The solution is user-friendly"
"AWS Systems Manager's most valuable feature is its ability to dynamically export and import values in various AWS accounts."
"The solution's ability to scale is good."
"Software distribution and patch management are the most valuable."
"It's easy to use, not complicated."
"The most valuable feature is patch management, a must have, even for Linux and iOS."
"Vulnerability scanning and patch automation."
"It is pretty secure, and it gives extensive vulnerability features as compared to other applications. It supports multiple languages, and the security checks are pretty high as compared to other tools in the market."
"We rely on BigFix as part of our consulting engagements. It's more efficient from a visibility and discovery standpoint on the initial phase, the consulting engagement. It also increases our efficiencies on the remediation phase of our engagements."
"I would advise someone considering this product to go for it. It's easy to use, cheaper than the value, and there is tons and tons of support from the BigFix community. With almost every challenge we have someone who has encountered it, and you will have a solution right away."
"The use of fast query has been extremely valuable providing insight in real time of the endpoints."
 

Cons

"The time we have to wait to deploy policies has room for improvement."
"They could also make it easier to use because there are some other products that may be easier to use in terms of the look and feel of the dashboard."
"There should be more support for macOS. Even though macOS is supported by Intune and Microsoft is working very hard to get more features into Intune to manage macOS, that's one thing they can give a lot more attention to."
"The tool's tunnel gateway is not very good, making it an area where improvements are required."
"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."
"It could offer more attributes for authentication."
"Microsoft Intune can be improved by making it even more seamless for users to download their certificates."
"Once it's configured it is unobtrusive, but it does take some hands-on to configure and deploy it properly."
"Additional features can be added as per customer requirements."
"It could be agentless if there's room for improvement in the AWS Systems Manager. Currently, you have to install agents, although, for most of the latest EC2 images, the agents come preinstalled. If it could be at the level of Ansible, which is agentless, that would be fantastic. When you compare the solution to Ansible, one of the most widely accepted tools, the agentless feature stands out. So, if the AWS Systems Manager could become agentless, that would be a significant improvement."
"Every AWS service comes with some associated costs."
"One area that could be enhanced is dynamic configuration management. Additionally, improving integration with other AWS services like Lambda and CloudFormation would be beneficial."
"AWS does not have EKS cluster backup."
"The AWS UIs are not the most intuitive. Also, the usability needs room for improvement."
"The current challenge is that we can't pull any incidents from other accounts."
"I'd like to see more automation for monitoring and managing things like AWS CloudWatch and AWS Config. It would be a significant improvement if it could automatically handle these tasks and address issues as they arise."
"I would like to see more integration with external data."
"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."
"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."
"Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution to clients if there are too many."
"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."
"I would like better support on the backend."
"I would like to see improvements in the Web UI program and also a BigFix console for Mac OS."
"The reporting and dashboard parts have room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not a cheap solution. The price for a device when you start using it at a large scale can be improved. It is covered under our enterprise agreement. We pay once a year. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"Microsoft Intune is expensive."
"The clients pay for a license and each can have a different type of license, such as an E3 or E5."
"I have no comment on pricing of the solution."
"We are partners, so we receive some discount. However, from the customer's perspective, Microsoft Intune's pricing is competitive with non-Microsoft technology, and the price is good compared to other market competitors."
"The overall pricing of Microsoft Intune is good for companies that have big IT budgets, 3,000 or more users and devices."
"It is average. Some of the costs are quite high depending on what the customer currently uses, but overall, it is not bad. I would not say that I would not recommend Intune based on the cost. I definitely would, but they can definitely improve on the cost. So overall, its cost is not bad."
"Intune is cost-effective as it is included in some of the Office 365 packages."
"As we were doing a government project so the government got the project at a very nominal cost."
"The platform provides excellent value for the capabilities it offers when compared to third-party tools for similar tasks."
"Most of the features are free. I'm not entirely certain, but I believe the pricing is generally very low. Some services that are part of Ops Manager might have associated costs."
"An AWS cloud engineer can bring down the costs."
"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 of BigFix could be lower. However, I am always seeking a lower price."
"You are charged per server and per workstation when using BigFix. ManageEngine is a lot cheaper than BigFix. There are some additional costs, such as support."
"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."
"You get what we call the Platform Edition, which you get for free. The patch service is maybe $0.50 per workstation per month. Then there's the basic server cost, which is about $1.50 per server per month. You also get into Lifecycle which does power management, OSD remote control, and those types of things, and that might be about 10 times the price - which works out to about $13 per server and, maybe $5 per workstation per month."
"The price of the solution is high. There are not any additional fees from the standard license."
"There's not much big cost. We only have to pay the agents' cost for the server, and for the systems."
"When purchasing, buying with other IBM tools provided us with a very good discount in pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

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 Systems Manager?
With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems m...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Systems Manager?
Every AWS service comes with some associated costs. While using AWS Systems Manager, we continually monitor to optimi...
What needs improvement with AWS Systems Manager?
There isn't anything specific I remember at the moment.
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 ...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Amazon Elastic Container Registry
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
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 Systems Manager vs. BigFix and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.