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BigFix vs GFI LanGuard comparison

 

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

BigFix
Ranking in Patch Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (5th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (14th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
GFI LanGuard
Ranking in Patch Management
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of BigFix is 13.1%, up from 12.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GFI LanGuard is 4.0%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management
 

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.
Ted Mbugua - PeerSpot reviewer
Scalable, light on resources, and useful visibility
The most valuable features of GFI LanGuard are the vulnerability assessment, it provides us with substantial insight into what applications are running on the endpoint systems and what vulnerabilities are there in the running applications. The second would be the assets tracking. I'm able to see in the network whether my endpoint server is operating and if all the other IT equipment is running in the environment. Additionally, GFI LanGuard is not heavy on system resources. It gives a competitive advantage over others.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"BigFix helped us to identify the compliance of devices and has also improved the way that we manage our software inventory for reporting to vendors."
"The older version of the tools that I use also included the connectivity aspect, and the fact that the tool now has it separate from the collection of usage data makes the deployment of these tools much easier."
"BigFix is a great product. The flexibility of putting together your own relevance and retrieving custom data from any one of your agents is a valuable feature. It is one of my favorite features because if a boss asks me, "How many of these devices do we have?", I can put together a report in two seconds."
"We receive the patches automatically, and BigFix spreads them automatically to our endpoints."
"The most valuable features are patch management, software installation, and asset management."
"It's enabled us to have a highly successful endpoint patching program for the past decade. It's been enormously successful there. It's also become a core part of many of our business processes, from compliance monitoring of endpoints, encryption management, key escrow, and local administrator password escrow. It's built into our inventory. It's very much everywhere."
"What I like most is that it is a powerful solution."
"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."
"I like that the solution can block users from unnecessarily putting devices on the network."
"This product is a great solution at a great price as long as it is only going to be used for a local area network."
"The most useful features of GFI LanGuard are vulnerability assessment and patching solutions."
"The most valuable features in GFI LanGuard are patch management and vulnerability assessment."
"It is helpful to patch and scan vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable features of GFI LanGuard are the vulnerability assessment, it provides us with substantial insight into what applications are running on the endpoint systems and what vulnerabilities are there in the running applications. The second would be the assets tracking. I'm able to see in the network whether my endpoint server is operating and if all the other IT equipment is running in the environment. Additionally, GFI LanGuard is not heavy on system resources. It gives a competitive advantage over others."
"The most valuable feature is that I am able to patch third-party solutions."
"The initial setup was easy."
 

Cons

"I would request them to build a robots, or an easier way for integration with the other tools, like ITSM tools."
"One aspect that could be improved is the speed of the console. Sometimes it can be slow, which is something that needs to be addressed."
"I would like better support on the backend."
"There is no support for patch management on SLES on IBM pSeries (only the Intel platform is supported)."
"The deployment has room for improvement and can be more streamlined."
"I'd definitely like to see additional feature parody in the web UI versus the console. There are certain things that you can only do in the console and they're very cumbersome to do, like secure parameters, for example. That's definitely something that has a wide degree of utility but it needs to be easier to surface. At this particular juncture between the transition, between the legacy console and the web UI, it's hard to justify dealing with the cumbersome aspects of the legacy console when theoretically everything's been through the web UI."
"We would like to see a different license plan, e.g. to include features from lifecycle with Patch Management, as an example."
"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."
"GFI LanGuard has some technical limitations with machines."
"The documentation on how to use this solution in a Linux environment is not clear, which is something that should be improved because it is complicated."
"When you want to uninstall software from an endpoint, sometimes it becomes very problematic."
"The only drawback with GFI LanGuard is that you cannot directly integrate it from the Outlook email; instead, you have to first log in to the site to make changes."
"GFI LanGuard can improve by adding asset tracking."
"The version we are using only allows one person to use it at a time and does not allow multi-users."
"If GFI LanGuard had a cloud version it would be better for people that are working from home."
"GFI LanGuard can improve by adding more modules, such as asset control or asset inventory."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compliance, inventory, and licensing are really pricey. They should lower the price. It discourages users from getting onboard."
"Its price is very reasonable."
"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."
"The cost is slightly high."
"The price is very fair."
"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."
"We have a subscription-based contract with BigFix."
"The product is less costly when compared to other solutions, and this is a good solid solution for what we have paid."
"GFI LanGuard has very fair pricing compared to other similar solutions out there."
"GFI LanGuard cost approximately $1,000 annually to use the solution."
"I rate the pricing of GFI LanGuard a four out of five."
"GFI LanGuard isn't expensive."
"We are a gold partner and we receive favorable discounts. The price of GFI LanGuard is competitive. When you evaluate other solutions, such as ManageEngine."
"On a scale of one to five, with one being expensive and five being competitive, I would rate the price as a four."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
51%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Photography 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?
BigFix could improve its asset management capabilities to discover assets, including hardware. More improvements could be made in asset management.
What do you like most about GFI LanGuard?
The most valuable feature of GFI LanGuard is its email spam feature.
What needs improvement with GFI LanGuard?
The only drawback with GFI LanGuard is that you cannot directly integrate it from the Outlook email; instead, you have to first log in to the site to make changes. Instead of directly white listing...
What is your primary use case for GFI LanGuard?
Internally, as a user, I use GFI LanGuard for email and web monitoring.
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Endpoint Manager
LanGuard
 

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
BayView Medical Clinic, FrugalBrothers Software, Zaw, National Theatre, American Red Cross
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. GFI LanGuard and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,369 professionals have used our research since 2012.