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BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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
271
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
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) (26th), Patch Management (2nd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Configuration Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (7th), Patch Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.3%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 9.1%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 12.3%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Q&A Highlights

reviewer1603851 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 23, 2021
 

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.
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.
MikeNelson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements
While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six 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

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is that it is more of a one-stop shop, providing an easier experience."
"The feature of remotely wiping devices in Microsoft Intune is what I prefer the most."
"Once it is well integrated with the rest of the environment, it makes everything easy."
"Microsoft Intune's autopilot has been nice to have."
"I particularly appreciate the administration and security features, which can be deployed easily."
"The features of Microsoft Intune that I appreciate the most are its user-friendly interface and robust security options."
"The ability to work from all over the planet is valuable. You just need a functioning and working Internet connection."
"The core management feature in Intune is invaluable to us, especially considering the challenges we often face with System Center when pushing external updates."
"The most valuable point is when you deploy an application, you have to make sure that the application has been deployed to all computers and that is working perfectly. This solution works well at deployments."
"It's very straightforward."
"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."
"Software distribution and patch management are the most valuable."
"The best feature of BigFix is its multi-platform support."
"BigFix has always been easier to use when managing servers, especially when you deal with so many servers. We have 7,000. That's a lot of services to manage, and it's convenient to patch them all at once."
"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."
"We receive the patches automatically, and BigFix spreads them automatically to our endpoints."
"I like Mircosoft's technical support. Microsoft has a few updates, like some of the critical KBs. They are published within the interval time, and in case of an escalation on the client missions, we will raise a ticket with the Microsoft team. They will create a hotfix or a critical update. They will chat with us, and that is one thing I like about Microsoft. Whenever any issues occur at my organization, they will help you out soon as possible within the SLA."
"Technical support was helpful and responsive."
"Valuable features include configurations enforcement, compliance data gathering, and deployment of a standardized OS."
"Automation of operating system, application, and update deployments massively reduces IT operations effort."
"I find the product valuable for deployment recovery and it has done much more than that."
"Patching is very effective and reporting is very good."
"SCCM does everything from A to Z for a Windows operating system."
"The ability to make collections and deploy to them has been great."
 

Cons

"I rate Microsoft support four out of 10. Support is one area where Microsoft needs to improve a lot. I recently raised a ticket for a Microsoft Azure issue, and it took two and a half weeks for support to reply. They need to improve support across their entire catalog of products."
"Microsoft Intune's app deployment presents challenges for non-MSI and non-store apps, particularly EXEs, requiring the use of a Win32 wrapper tool and adding overhead to the process."
"The reporting could be improved, as it's pretty poor compared to other products of this type."
"The initial setup is a little bit complex."
"Customer service used to be better, but as we are nearing the end of the contract, the focus on investing in us as a customer has diminished. It is what one would expect in such a situation."
"The reporting functionality of Microsoft Intune is limited compared to Microsoft System Center, which offers many more reporting options."
"Sometimes, customers compare it with AirWatch, but the concept of Intune is different from other solutions. It's an application management app. It gets a bit difficult to explain it to customers, but it's not a product limitation. It takes a presale document or presentation to explain it to customers."
"There is improvement needed in integrating with the installed Office solutions versions, such as Office 2019. The Office 365 integrates without a problem."
"I'd like to see better integration, with the different applications within BigFix. Instead of sometimes feeling like four or five different applications, they need to be integrated a little better within themselves."
"We would like to see a different license plan, e.g. to include features from lifecycle with Patch Management, as an example."
"The remote software installation could be better."
"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."
"Implementing a business solution with BigFix has some issues, primarily concerning the time required for distribution to clients if there are too many."
"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."
"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."
"Sometimes there is a lag time for our users."
"In spite of us being a premier customer we find the support unsatisfactory."
"The ability to integrate MDM would be great."
"With Microsoft Premier Support, you get what you pay for. There's Third Tier Support that you pay for. If you pay for that, you get excellent support, and if you don't pay for that, then you get the less experienced staff."
"Initial setup was complex. There's a lot that goes into it."
"The assets have reached their end-of-life, and patching them is a complex and laborious task. It would be highly advantageous if there were an integrated solution that provided distinct options for each end-of-life asset, streamlining the process and facilitating comprehension."
"The solution does not support remote devices so the CMG is still required."
"Their compliance reporting is not accurate, and they admitted it on the phone when we had a call with them. We were trying to understand why their numbers didn't match on our compliance reports. It is not accurate and you cannot depend on the compliance reports. The numbers just don't match, and we can't figure out why. We called Microsoft and they said, "Yeah, that's a known issue." But there is no word that they're working on it."
"The analysis is something that can be integrated. Their report analysis can be improved a little bit due to the fact that most of the time complaints policies are saved by the admins. It's something that we need to look into and search for."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing needs improvement."
"For organizations that are a Microsoft shop, the pricing is compelling."
"I am satisfied with the pricing."
"I liked the tool's pricing until P2 came into effect. I am unsure about the current value versus the cost of the new licensing model."
"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."
"Previously the price was $4 per month per user. Now it's $2.25 per user per month."
"Intune is linked with Microsoft. We can deploy the Microsoft E365 license to users by Intune. There are different types of licenses, such as device administrator licenses, E5 licenses for device enrollment manually, and P1 and p2 licenses for device enrollment automatically. These are the licenses required for the administration."
"It's bundled with Business Premium and an E3 license, which is beneficial. If you have to pay extra, it's pricey, but with the bundled package, it's acceptable. They recently increased the Business Premium pricing, which we don't appreciate. The price increase and yearly commitment are causing some problems for us."
"It might be about $23 a client."
"I can estimate the reduced cost of servers maintenance to approximatively $500,000."
"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 license is subscription-based."
"The price of BigFix could be lower. However, I am always seeking a lower price."
"The cost is slightly high."
"We have a subscription-based contract with BigFix."
"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."
"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."
"Its price is okay because it is part of our licensing."
"Along with buying a license for MECM, we also have to buy a service called CMG (Cloud Management Gateway) which is a virtual machine in the cloud with which you can link your MECM to the Azure tenant so as to manage teleworkers."
"We have a support license from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager and the overall price of the solution is reasonable."
"Pricing and licensing are a downside of SCCM. It's expensive. I'd have to confirm this, but I think they changed the licensing to core-based instead of socket-based. It's not cheap, because you have to buy the software, you have to buy SQL. Another thing we learned from talking to Microsoft is that they provide you a license for SQL if you run it on the same box as the primary server. If you run it outside that box, you have to buy SQL. Microsoft does recommend you running it on the same box because of performance. But then, in order to run SQL, SCCM, and everything on the same box, you better have some resources. It's an expensive solution. There's no doubt about it."
"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."
"The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for."
"The solution is expensive. Microsoft Configuration Manager would likely be considered high-priced for small businesses because they may not fully utilize all of its features and capabilities."
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Answers from the Community

reviewer1603851 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 23, 2021
Nov 23, 2021
SCCM is very robust but you need more time and people to manage it. For a company of 200 employees only can use something easier to manage such as PDQ deployment S/W. it's a lot cheaper and easier to manage. Kumar.
2 out of 5 answers
KM
Jun 18, 2021
SCCM is very robust but you need more time and people to manage it.  For a company of 200 employees only can use something easier to manage such as PDQ deployment S/W. it's a lot cheaper and easier to manage. Kumar.
MW
Jun 21, 2021
Hi Ihsan,  Hope you are doing well, As per my experience to deploy SCCM for 200 users is not worth it, you want to be blessed use Quest product KACE System Management Appliance, easy to manage and upgrade (patching/managing end point managing and many more).  https://www.itcentralstation.c... Thank you. 
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
33%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 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 ...
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...
How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. Wh...
What do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages effi...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
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
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.