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BigFix vs Qualys Patch Management 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
8.3
Qualys Patch Management boosts security, reduces vulnerabilities by 80%, saves 90% time, and improves efficiency and resource allocation.
With Qualys, we can save around 70 percent of time and between 30 to 40 percent of money.
We have a 50 percent return on investment due to reduced operational complexity and increased efficiency in patching and detection.
We have achieved significant time savings of 90 percent, primarily due to comprehensive oversight and visibility of security issues.
 

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
7.4
Qualys Patch Management provides efficient support with quick resolutions, though users occasionally report delays or inconsistency in assistance.
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.
The support team is experienced and responsive.
The support team is responsive and provides detailed information.
Whenever we raise a request and mention the priority of the ticket, they respond immediately via email or call.
 

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
8.5
Qualys Patch Management excels in scalability with high user ratings but may face challenges in cost and usability.
BigFix requires some minimum configuration requirements.
It scales efficiently across different machines globally, ensuring patches are deployed smoothly.
Qualys Patch Management is a globally scalable product, easily handling increasing workloads and users.
They introduce new modules as needed, making Patch Management highly scalable.
 

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
8.1
Qualys Patch Management is highly stable and reliable, with minimal downtime and effective management of rare technical issues.
I would rate the stability of Qualys Patch Management nine point five out of ten.
The stability of Qualys Patch Management is impeccable.
Overall, it is reliable.
 

Room For Improvement

BigFix needs updated documentation, UI improvements, enhanced integration, better patch support, and improved automation and scalability.
Qualys Patch Management needs better integration, accuracy, and support, faster deployments, and improvements in interface, reporting, and pricing.
Building a management console is quick and simple, taking only one to two hours for setup.
The problem was related to the hardware configuration and hardware specifications.
In addition to reporting improvements, there should be a feature for application control to allow or disallow certain applications from being executed on endpoints.
There is a limitation where Qualys may not always offer solutions for remediation, particularly for end-of-life or end-of-service applications.
It would be better if Qualys Patch Management identifies whether the process has failed at the first instance and provides a retry button or retry mechanism, allowing retries for failed patches.
For critical options, they could make them red, green for medium, and blue for less significant options.
 

Setup Cost

BigFix offers flexible, competitive pricing options with various packages and potential discounts, despite additional costs like database licenses.
Qualys Patch Management is seen as cost-effective for its robust features and scalable pricing, despite varying opinions on support.
The pricing is pretty good and now follows a subscription model similar to SolarWinds, making it easier for customers to subscribe and unsubscribe.
We get many more features at the same price as other solutions such as Microsoft SCCM.
The pricing is reasonable and less expensive than the previous tool.
Qualys Patch Management is expensive.
 

Valuable Features

BigFix is valued for ease, scalability, flexibility, real-time management, integration, single-console efficiency, and wide system adaptability.
Qualys Patch Management offers automated patching, comprehensive reporting, and seamless integration, enhancing efficiency and asset management for multi-OS environments.
The BigFix features that have proven most effective include inventory, software delivery, software distribution, software catalog, and both software and hardware management.
I use this mainly to capture inventory for IBM products, and as BigFix was part of IBM, it gets easily integrated with IBM solutions.
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.
We leverage this functionality to deploy scripts that adjust registry values, effectively patching vulnerabilities and enhancing the security of our machines.
We have been able to apply workarounds for zero-day vulnerabilities efficiently.
It provides insight into the organization's security posture and keeps databases updated with new CVEs.
 

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)
Qualys Patch Management
Ranking in Patch Management
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
33
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 Qualys Patch Management is 4.3%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Qualys Patch Management4.3%
BigFix7.1%
Other88.6%
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.
Revathi VeeraRaghavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides a centralized platform for managing assets and vulnerabilities, enabling assessment, prioritization, and remediation
Qualys Patch Management system requires several improvements. Firstly, the inability to download asset patches and the lack of third-party application integration limit patch accessibility. Additionally, rollback options are unreliable, and pre-deployment patch testing is crucial. Reporting needs enhancement, particularly with group-based compliance percentages and clearer, VMDR-like reporting in the Patch Management module. Furthermore, detection speed should be improved, as patches are released 24 hours after QIDs are published. The user interface could be more functional, with dashboards for patch compliance visualization and simplified error code language. Finally, the Mac patch catalogue needs expansion, and automated workflows, policy enforcement, and testing procedures should be streamlined for seamless, user-independent operation.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

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 Enterprise5
Large Enterprise18
 

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 Qualys Patch Management?
From a pricing perspective, I find Qualys to be a bit higher, but it is worth it. Compared to other tools, it is on the costly side, but I believe it is worth the investment.
What needs improvement with Qualys Patch Management?
Regarding improvements in Qualys Patch Management, I did not quite understand the downsides they were expecting. Initially, I was confused about where to find and how to use the available features....
What is your primary use case for Qualys Patch Management?
Automated Vulnerability Remediation at Scale Key Objectives: Rapid Identification of Vulnerabilities:Using Qualys VMDR (Vulnerability Management, Detection, and Response) to detect CVEs across a ...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Endpoint Manager
No data available
 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Qualys Patch Management and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.