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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.2
BigFix delivers fast ROI with efficient patch management, improved security, and reduced labor, enhancing efficiency and financial savings.
Sentiment score
1.0
GFI LanGuard enhances security, compliance, and ROI by streamlining patch management, identifying vulnerabilities, and providing actionable insights.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
BigFix provides excellent customer support, with minor first-level inconsistencies, improved overall quality, and valuable community resources.
Sentiment score
4.0
GFI LanGuard's customer service is responsive and helpful, though some regions experience inconsistent technical support quality.
On a scale from one to ten, with ten being the highest quality, enterprise support provides timely responses, typically within four to eight hours.
Technical support from HCL is satisfactory unless there are customization requirements.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.7
BigFix excels in scalability, handling deployments from small to large seamlessly, supporting hundreds of thousands of devices efficiently.
Sentiment score
6.7
GFI LanGuard offers scalable flexibility for diverse setups, integrating seamlessly and effectively supporting environments up to 400 users.
BigFix requires some minimum configuration requirements.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
5.9
BigFix is praised for its stability, requiring minimal intervention and maintaining performance during large-scale deployments and external challenges.
Sentiment score
8.3
GFI LanGuard is stable and insightful, though remote client challenges on MPLS networks can arise but are manageable.
 

Room For Improvement

BigFix needs updated documentation, UI improvements, enhanced integration, better patch support, and improved automation and scalability.
GFI LanGuard needs improved network management, better Linux documentation, remote work support, cloud options, and enhanced third-party integrations.
In addition to reporting improvements, there should be a feature for application control to allow or disallow certain applications from being executed on endpoints.
Building a management console is quick and simple, taking only one to two hours for setup.
BigFix requires some minimum configuration requirements.
 

Setup Cost

BigFix offers flexible, competitive pricing options with various packages and potential discounts, despite additional costs like database licenses.
Enterprise buyers find GFI LanGuard pricing competitive, with annual costs between $1,000-$2,500 and initial licenses at $21,000.
The pricing is pretty good and now follows a subscription model similar to SolarWinds, making it easier for customers to subscribe and unsubscribe.
 

Valuable Features

BigFix is valued for ease, scalability, flexibility, real-time management, integration, single-console efficiency, and wide system adaptability.
GFI LanGuard provides comprehensive vulnerability assessment, patch management, and reporting, with user-friendly interface and resource efficiency, improving network security.
BigFix supports something known as Patch Policies, which allows users to define that whenever critical patches are released, they should get evaluated against machines and automatically deploy them.
I use this mainly to capture inventory for IBM products, and as BigFix was part of IBM, it gets easily integrated with IBM solutions.
The BigFix features that have proven most effective include inventory, software delivery, software distribution, software catalog, and both software and hardware management.
 

Categories and Ranking

BigFix
Ranking in Patch Management
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (7th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (27th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
GFI LanGuard
Ranking in Patch Management
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of BigFix is 7.1%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GFI LanGuard is 2.2%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BigFix7.1%
GFI LanGuard2.2%
Other90.7%
Patch Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
Long-term partnership improves customer satisfaction and delivers efficient endpoint management
BigFix supports something known as Patch Policies, which allows users to define that whenever critical patches are released, they should get evaluated against machines and automatically deploy them. Their software distribution is very efficient because they use a pull mechanism rather than a push mechanism, allowing each machine to download from the closest repository and install themselves. The same assessment mechanism applies for real-time vulnerability remediation, allowing identification, evaluation, and automatic remediation across machines. Compliance metrics typically measure the patch percentages deployed against the number of endpoints, which could be various device types including virtual machines and mobile devices. Measurements are taken against each device type, looking into compliance percentages for browsers such as Chrome and Edge based on their versions.
Ashish-Gautam - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable and reasonably priced but has some technical limitations
I use GFI LanGuard to save bandwidth and provide protection from attacks GFI LanGuard has some technical limitations with machines. I've been using GFI LanGuard for six months. GFI LanGuard is stable. GFI LanGuard is scalable. GFI's technical support is good. The initial setup was easy. GFI…
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867,445 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Photography Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise66
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

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 pretty good and now follows a subscription model similar to other major software solutions, making it easier for customers to subscribe and unsubscribe.
What needs improvement with BigFix?
The reporting still needs improvement since customers want specific reporting, such as N-1 month patching reports. In addition to reporting improvements, there should be a feature for application c...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GFI LanGuard?
I have not encountered the pricing aspect since I am from the technical side; only the sales team handles the pricing part.
What needs improvement with GFI LanGuard?
The product is currently on-premise, and I think the cloud option is still yet to come. If a customer has their own cloud, we can host it there, but the SaaS model is not available, and most compan...
What is your primary use case for GFI LanGuard?
My experience with GFI LanGuard involves patch management where, whenever we visit customers, they request patches for both third-party applications and OS systems. When it is on-premise, we can pr...
 

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: July 2025.
867,445 professionals have used our research since 2012.