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BigFix vs Symantec Endpoint Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 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
6.2
Symantec Endpoint Security offers significant ROI through reduced incidents, improved efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and minimal administrative needs, enhancing satisfaction.
Symantec Endpoint Security filled gaps in our toolset, particularly with the ability to control network firewall on hosts remotely, which was greatly appreciated.
 

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
6.5
Symantec Endpoint Security's customer service is efficient, while technical support responses vary, affected by locality and language issues.
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.
In some cases, it rates as high as ten out of ten, while in others, it can be as low as eight.
There is no support in the German language, which is a problem for many public tenders.
 

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
7.7
Symantec Endpoint Security is scalable and adaptable, handling diverse workloads and seamlessly integrating, despite minor complexity and licensing challenges.
BigFix requires some minimum configuration requirements.
Symantec Endpoint Security is quite scalable, and it is very important for large clients.
The scalability of the servers is good, as it requires computational powers.
 

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
7.7
Symantec Endpoint Security is stable for many, but some report resource issues, crashes, and support challenges on certain platforms.
I have encountered issues where I had to uninstall and reinstall the product on end users' computers to view the logs again.
Previously, we used to have multiple servers such as GUP servers and numerous servers for pushing updates, but we reduced it and transitioned almost 30,000 devices to CrowdStrike, which was easy to manage.
 

Room For Improvement

BigFix needs updated documentation, UI improvements, enhanced integration, better patch support, and improved automation and scalability.
Symantec Endpoint Security faces challenges with virus detection, resource consumption, complex management, integration, and needs improved threat protection and support.
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.
Device management is not very good and I am not enabling it in my organization due to security reasons.
I would like to see improvements in the scanning part of the solution, specifically to enhance the CPU and hard disk usage during scanning and updates to prevent disruption during work hours.
It is cumbersome to use, particularly in handling firewall management.
 

Setup Cost

BigFix offers flexible, competitive pricing options with various packages and potential discounts, despite additional costs like database licenses.
Symantec Endpoint Security provides a reasonably priced solution with discounts for specific sectors, offering value despite cheaper alternatives.
The pricing is pretty good and now follows a subscription model similar to SolarWinds, making it easier for customers to subscribe and unsubscribe.
It seems to be half the cost or more affordable than other solutions.
The pricing is very low compared to other companies like SentinelOne and others.
I rate the pricing, setup cost, and licensing around nine out of ten.
 

Valuable Features

BigFix is valued for ease, scalability, flexibility, real-time management, integration, single-console efficiency, and wide system adaptability.
Symantec Endpoint Security provides comprehensive, user-friendly protection with seamless management, offering robust threat detection and prevention across platforms.
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.
Symantec Endpoint Security offers many valuable features, such as file explosion, application learning, DLP, injection detection, and EDR solutions for traffic control.
The incident response capabilities allow me to resolve authentication and support issues promptly, ensuring the system operates without downtime.
One important feature is the EDR function, necessary for many public customers due to upcoming laws in Germany, which is available through Symantec Endpoint Security Complete.
 

Categories and Ranking

BigFix
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
27th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (7th), Patch Management (4th), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (4th)
Symantec Endpoint Security
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
145
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of BigFix is 1.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Endpoint Security is 3.7%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symantec Endpoint Security3.7%
BigFix1.2%
Other95.1%
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

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.
Kumbesh Rajagopal - PeerSpot reviewer
Management becomes easier with minimal complications, but improvement in support tools needed
Regarding areas of improvement for Symantec Endpoint Security, there are many changes, and the support portal tool is complicated compared to other tools. When trying to get service from Symantec, the process is complex. I'm not sure whether it's because of my project or something else. Though it is easy to manage, easy to get, easy to install, and works efficiently for managing policies, we faced a significant disadvantage. We wanted to add multiple hashes because of numerous new alerts coming, but we could only add them one by one, which is a considerable disadvantage in Symantec.
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Top Industries

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

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 Business69
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise62
 

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...
Which is better - Cortex XDR or Symantec End-User Endpoint Security?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
What do you like most about Symantec End-User Endpoint Security?
Symantec have everything – documentation, videos, data sheets.
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Endpoint Manager
Symantec EPP, Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP)
 

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
Audio Visual Dynamics, Red Deer Advocate, Asia Pacific Telecom Co. Ltd., Kibbutz Ein Gedi, and AMETEK, Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about BigFix vs. Symantec Endpoint Security and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.