Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

BigFix vs Microsoft Windows Server Update Services 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
7.3
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (6th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (23rd), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
Microsoft Windows Server Up...
Ranking in Patch Management
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of BigFix is 7.9%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is 5.5%, down from 11.3% 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.
Chuck Colby - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient patch management, potentially scalable, and free is using Microsoft servers
Whether to use the solution or not is going to be context-sensitive. If you have a strong Microsoft team, you can probably handle this. If, like my team, you also have a dozen other vendors to consider, it's not just the operating system. The pattern I've seen over time with WSUS is that it has the potential to be a fantastic product, yet it doesn't feel finished. People try to implement WSUS, and context is important. In my context, we're a small business without teams of Microsoft-certified people. We are just trying to use what's available to achieve a goal, and WSUS is fine, however, not the best product out there. The business in America often tries to do more with less. I would not recommend it to a team of my size. If a company had half a dozen or a dozen Microsoft-certified people, I'd say, run with it. For a team of my size, no, absolutely not. I would rate the overall solution a solid eight 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

"It is for multiple use cases. A lot of people are looking at it just for security, and that's really endpoint security. The endpoint management part of it in terms of being able to constantly do patching for Windows, Unix, macOS, Cloud, Raspberry, VMware, and all Linux flavors is important, and they are very good at that. They have support for virtually every OS on the market."
"The most valuable feature of BigFix is the reporting tool and patching Windows."
"BigFix is incredibly fast and accurate in patching, reporting, and remediation."
"Servers are patched more consistently than they have been previously."
"Prior to BigFix we used Altiris, which was distributed. We had to manage multiple servers, and duplicate the tasks that we did on each server. BigFix tremendously reduced the amount of work that we had to do on each server in a centralized manner. We could minimize the work that we had to do, and we had a lot more control over the tasks and what machines they ran on."
"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 allows for visibility into the OT, the industrial environments, that didn't exist before which is a big piece and has benefited my organization. Second, the speed at which people can patch is night and day versus SCCM scan or another similar solution."
"It is a one-stop tool that allows you to do everything. It supports reporting, vulnerability management, patch management, and configuration. All things can be done in one tool."
"We can easily download particular patches, and we can apply them on a group basis and policy basis."
"Setup is very simple and straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is the efficiency once configured."
"The tool's most valuable feature is Active Directory."
"I would rate the overall solution a solid eight out of ten."
"Instead of leaving each server to download their own updates, with WSUS you have a centralized management tool for all the updates alongside a log for all the servers. By creating and deploying a WSUS server that will download the updates from the internet and dispatch them to the other servers, you can have control over the entire deployment process."
"The solution can be used to update PCs and servers."
"The most important aspect is that we can centrally deploy the updates that are necessary for the organization. It's important."
 

Cons

"The reporting and dashboard parts have room for improvement."
"We need a much better multi-tenant option."
"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."
"The product is quite buggy and complicated to use."
"I would like to see much better web reporting because as it is now, it's convoluted, basic, it's not modern, and there are limitations to it."
"The main shortcoming of BigFix was integration with vulnerability management. If you had a vulnerability in your software and BigFix on the endpoint, you needed integration with Qualys, Tenable, or another vulnerability management solution to fix that. It was like, "Okay, we can identify issues, and get that information back from the endpoint, but what are we doing about it?""
"I would like better support on the backend."
"The sub-capacity licensing was a challenge for some of it. We had trouble getting it to calculate right."
"The reporting is not as practical as I would like it to be."
"There are some bugs in IIS."
"Some issues with scalability in larger organizations."
"More integration with different platforms would be an improvement."
"While the product is generally effective, I believe the integration with other applications could be enhanced."
"The database could be improved. In large environments, for example, we often get problems with reporting."
"Microsoft Windows Server Update Services could improve the ease of use."
"The product must improve its support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is high. There are not any additional fees from the standard license."
"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 price is very fair."
"The product is less costly when compared to other solutions, and this is a good solid solution for what we have paid."
"The cost is slightly high."
"There's not much big cost. We only have to pay the agents' cost for the server, and for the systems."
"The price of BigFix could be lower. However, I am always seeking a lower price."
"We have a subscription-based contract with BigFix."
"While it might be relatively more expensive for smaller companies, larger enterprises can find it robust and capable of delivering significant value."
"The solution is expensive, and the licensing costs are yearly."
"The product is not expensive."
"Because it is not open-source, it has to compete with open-source solutions. Relatively it is expensive to open-source."
"The integration is included in the Windows Server system, and there are no additional fees."
"This product comes included with Windows and can be used free of charge."
"Microsoft's operating model determines the solution's pricing, and we use it based on our enterprise agreement, which incurs an annual cost."
"Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is not an expensive solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Patch Management solutions are best for your needs.
859,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
23%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
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?
While performing integration, we face many issues with IBM solution. We need detailed information about those issues that can help users to mitigate them. The problem was related to the hardware co...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Windows Server Update Services?
It's a free service. You just buy the Windows Server operating system, and it is an internal feature.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Windows Server Update Services?
Sometimes, I encounter issues with the Windows internal database, which occasionally does not load, leading to the Pandit console stopping. I have to repair the database and perform export and impo...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Windows Server Update Services, Microsoft WSUS, WSUS, Microsoft Software Update Services, Software Update Services, Microsoft SUS, SUS, MS Windows Server Update Services
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Microsoft Windows Server Update Services and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.