We performed a comparison between BigFix and Chef based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Configuration Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most valuable features are the ones that make sure that the deployment is of a standard operating system and the Zero Touch deployment, which is very useful. This allows users to have an out of box experience."
"It is quite policy-enabled, so you can build pretty much any policy to manage remote endpoints."
"We use a local Active Directory, but we weren't able to manage all our on-site systems without a solution like Intune, and we needed to deploy software like VPNs and other things. It's seamless now to to this through Intune."
"The best feature is that we don't need to worry about downtime. We don't need to worry about the network connections of our office or the virtual private network. Everything is being done through the internet. Using Intune Autopilot, we can configure and deploy everything to the devices."
"It is a stable solution."
"It works well if you have a Microsoft environment."
"Intune can wipe devices. For example, if a disgruntled employee wants to leak the data on their company phone, Intune can terminate their access and wipe the entire device with a click."
"It's normally able to meet 100% expectations of our customers."
"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."
"I’ve found patching to be the most valuable feature of the solution."
"The most valuable feature of BigFix is the software deployment."
"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."
"In terms of vulnerability management, it gives tough competition by providing a single management console with multiple benefits."
"The best feature of BigFix is its multi-platform support."
"The most valuable features of the solution are Windows patching and the hardware and software inventory."
"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 has been very easy to tie it into our build and deploy automation for production release work, etc. All the Chef pieces more or less run themselves."
"It streamlined our deployments and system configurations across the board rather than have us use multiple configurations or tools, basically a one stop shop."
"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."
"The product is useful for automating processes."
"Automation is everything. Having so many servers in production, many of our processes won't work nor scale. So, we look for tools to help us automate the process, and Chef is one of them."
"The scalability of the product is quite nice."
"The most valuable feature is its easy configuration management, optimization abilities, complete infrastructure and application automation, and its superiority over other similar tools."
"Stable and scalable configuration management and automation tool. Installing it is easy. Its most valuable feature is its compliance, e.g. it's very good."
"We haven't really gone through all the features of Intune. We are just discovering them. Every day, we see a new feature that we want to apply, but what will be great for Intune is to be able to deploy apps in a simple fashion. We should be able to easily install various apps on the Windows platform, iOS, and Android. Currently, we have to write some scripts. It's not as straightforward as we would like it to be. It should be simplified so that we can do it just with three clicks—next, next, finish—without needing to write a script."
"It would be great if Intune offered better data protection controls for BYOD Windows PCs."
"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."
"I would like some integration with the Microsoft reporting platform Power BI."
"There can be delays in the deployment of new policies."
"The solution could improve its flexibility."
"It would be great to see on-premises mailboxes and for the solution to have geofencing capabilities."
"It needs incorporation of Knox, ZeroTouch, etc."
"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."
"I would like to see more emphasis on using the web console, to have the same power as the full fat client console that they do they now. It's a lighter way to log in and it would be faster for our operators to do their work. The console tends to take a long time for a large number of clients."
"To make it a ten they should improve the licensing. Second, if they could have one environment for everything it would be nice. For you to install compliance you need to install the server, and then you add the modules. For you to install inventory you install the server and then you add the modules. It's not easy to do. When I was doing it before I learned it, it was not straight forward."
"The new EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) feature, Detect, is new and still needs a few updates."
"I would like to see the integration of user security between the different products to be improved. There's separate security for compliance, separate security for web reports, and the console, and you have to manage those things separately."
"Sometimes there is a lag time for our users."
"One aspect that could be improved is the speed of the console. Sometimes it can be slow, which is something that needs to be addressed."
"I would like better support on the backend."
"I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation."
"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."
"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"The time that it takes in terms of integration. Cloud integration is comparatively easy, but when it comes to two-link based integrations - like trying to integrate it with any monitoring tools, or maybe some other ticketing tools - it takes longer. That is because most of the out-of-the-box integration of the APIs needs some revisiting."
"They could provide more features, so the recipes could be developed in a simpler and faster way. There is still a lot of room for improvement, providing better functionalities when creating recipes."
BigFix is ranked 5th in Configuration Management with 91 reviews while Chef is ranked 16th in Configuration Management with 18 reviews. BigFix is rated 8.6, while Chef is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of BigFix writes "Very stable and easy to deploy with excellent patch compliance". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Chef writes "Useful for large infrastructure, reliable, but steep learning cureve". BigFix is most compared with Microsoft Configuration Manager, Microsoft Windows Server Update Services, Tanium, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus, whereas Chef is most compared with Jenkins, AWS Systems Manager, Microsoft Azure DevOps, Microsoft Configuration Manager and SaltStack. See our BigFix vs. Chef report.
See our list of best Configuration Management vendors.
We monitor all Configuration Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
