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BigFix vs Perforce Puppet comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 14, 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
6.7
Number of Reviews
301
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
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (27th), Patch Management (4th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
Perforce Puppet
Ranking in Configuration Management
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigFix is 8.3%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Puppet is 1.7%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Intune9.4%
BigFix8.3%
Perforce Puppet1.7%
Other80.6%
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.
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.
Erik  Ableson - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution that is more suited for larger companies with mature CI/CD structures and image management processes
Puppet Enterprise is more suitable for clients working up much more structured deployment images they manage internally. Before choosing Puppet Enterprise, users should think seriously about what they're trying to accomplish and ensure they put the right pieces in place. Overall, I rate Puppet Enterprise an 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 absolutely a positive investment."
"I like the fact that it's integrated with the rest of the Microsoft products, so customers can manage it from their Office 365 portal or Azure portal."
"Windows Autopatch is the most valuable because it removes the burden of patch management."
"We can implement a MAM policy in this Intune and protect the device through mobile application development without touching it. The interface is easy to use and understand."
"I like the group policy management feature, which performs application monitoring and device enrollment."
"At the moment, Autopilot is the most valuable feature."
"Microsoft Intune is easy to use, and it is able to enforce policies towards multiple devices. It is able to bring multiple classes of devices into the same security posture. I found that very useful."
"One of the main features of the solution is it allows the management of many devices in different ways."
"The solution has many useful features. Its main advantage is simplicity - you can do everything from one console, regardless of the task. It supports many operating systems and is scalable to up to 250,000 clients."
"BigFix technical support is good."
"It's easy to use, not complicated."
"Being able to intelligently create reports, gather data, export CSVs and give that to the leadership of some of the client groups that my team supports has helped my organization."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of BigFix is the reporting tool and patching Windows."
"It's good for reporting hardware and software."
"Desktop patching is the most valuable feature, because with servers, we have complete control over them, and we can simply push patches to the servers."
"The main purpose for this automation tool would be: deploying, controlling, ordering change for the system and IT Infrastructure."
"Puppet3 and 4 series provides optimum deployment solutions for infrastructure and applications."
"Puppet Enterprise has good functionalities."
"Anything that we manage through Puppet always runs perfectly."
"The versatility is great."
"The agent-based feature helps me by being stable."
"Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution."
"Puppet Enterprise has reduced the time of production changes or environment changes."
 

Cons

"The solution could improve its flexibility."
"There should be more predictability in the release cycle. We don't feel we have any control over when new updates come out, and whether there are changes to the backend functionality or to the user interface. Updates just happen."
"Customer service is not really good. I would give it a six out of ten. The main issue is the time it takes to get someone involved who truly understands what the product does."
"The product needs to upgrade itself when the server is overloaded."
"From my level of analysis, the feature I would prefer to see added to Microsoft Intune is extensive support. Anything that helps to diagnose the problem and solve it would be useful."
"We would like to see the ability to use multiple personas on a device, similar to Samsung Knox, included in future updates."
"Microsoft Intune lags market leaders, such as Apperian, in its MAM capabilities."
"Currently, BitLocker does not support BYOD enrollment, which is a product limitation."
"IBM has not focused on the Web Reports capabilities."
"License management isn't quite as easy as it should be to deal with the licensing. You need to take the server down to import the new licenses which I find to be annoying."
"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."
"In order to derive maximum benefit from BigFix, it is essential that we configure all of its features and implement them effectively. If the automation could be improved we would be able to mitigate the risks associated with zero-day threats."
"The new EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) feature, Detect, is new and still needs a few updates."
"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."
"There is no support for patch management on SLES on IBM pSeries (only the Intel platform is supported)."
"I would eventually like to see a SaaS offering, a cloud-hosted BigFix instance where we only have to put a relay in our environment."
"It's a bit of a pain point to make sure that everything works once we've upgraded it because Puppet has been evolving pretty fast."
"At the beginning the initial setup was kind of complex."
"Clients with less technical expertise may find Puppet complex to configure. Our team may struggle if technical team members leave the organization, leaving others uncertain about using the tool."
"The solution has really complex code, you have to understand the Ruby language. However, once you know the code then you can move ahead without any problems."
"There's a lot of scope for enhancement on the DevSecOps side. They should definitely include features for compliance, for both the Linux and Windows side of the devices, as well as for network devices. Compliance is something they need to work on."
"Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it."
"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."
"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable, but they should lower it a bit to make it more competitive. It's cheaper than AirWatch and other products, but I still feel like Microsoft can make a base version or with Exchange online or a la carte only Intune version which will be useful. A customer who doesn't want to go full-fledged E3 or E5 can take out or consume an Intune solution only for their purpose, and we want to target that customer."
"It is reasonable. When you have Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 license, it is already licensed in that license. So, you could say it is free."
"I rate Intune an eight out of ten for affordability. It's bundled with the 365 licensing, which is competitive overall."
"Microsoft Intune has a user-based subscription model. You can go for a monthly or a yearly payment."
"The cost of the license and the features are justified for myself as a technical person."
"Cost is not my department, but the product is included in the E5 license that we already pay for every user, so no additional cost is incurred."
"The product is relatively pricey, but considering its benefits, I'd say it's fair. The benefits outweigh the expensive licensing fees, especially for large organizations, but medium-sized and smaller businesses may be unable to afford it."
"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."
"The price is very fair."
"When purchasing, buying with other IBM tools provided us with a very good discount in pricing."
"The price of the solution is high. There are not any additional fees from the standard license."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It might be about $23 a client."
"The license is subscription-based."
"The main thing that we noticed when we switched from the enterprise version to the community version was the difference in cost — the infrastructure is pretty expensive."
"Depending on the size of the organization there is a point when the price of Puppet Enterprise should be lower. However, they provide really good functionality, features, and capabilities."
"Puppet Enterprise’s pricing is competitive."
"Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business116
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise151
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise66
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Puppet Enterprise?
Regarding the cost, I find it expensive, always. I don't know how much the license would cost per year or per user ap...
What needs improvement with Puppet Enterprise?
I don't know what could be improved in Perforce Puppet to make this tool better for the next release. I can't think o...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Puppet
 

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
Los Alamos National Laboratory, GitHub, IP Commerce, Cedexis, Spiceworks, Server Density, Swisstopo, Chockstone, Constant Contact, NICS, Citrix
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Perforce Puppet and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.