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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Consul

    Score9.6 out of 10
    N/AHashiCorp Consul is a tool for discovering and configuring services in the IT infrastructure. It provides service discovery, health checking, key/value stores and support for multiple data centers out of the box.

    $0

    always free

    HCL BigFix

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/ABigFix, now supported by HCL Technologies since the acquisition of BigFix from IBM in 2018, is an endpoint management solution providing endpoint visibility and IT asset discovery, automated endpoint patching (BigFix Lifecycle and BigFix Patch) policy enforcement (BigFix Compliance), and software asset discovery for licensed and unlicensed software (BigFix Inventory).N/A
    Pricing
    ConsulHCL BigFix
    Editions & Modules
    Open Source (self-managed)
    $0
    always free
    HCP Consul (Cloud)
    $0.027/hr
    Per Hour
    Enterprise
    Self-Managed Custom Deployments
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ConsulHCL BigFix
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ConsulHCL BigFix
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    HCLSoftware
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    80%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    80%
    Happy with the feature set
    4 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    ConsulHCL BigFix
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Avast CloudCare
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    Action1
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    ManageEngine Endpoint Central
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    ConsulHCL BigFix
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.1
    (5 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.8
    (2 ratings)
    6.0
    (3 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ConsulHCL BigFix
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    Consul can provide a light-weight, lightning-fast and robust solution for the following:
    • Network mesh
    • Service DNS
    • Global key-value store (values can be complex objects as well)
    • Utility for blue-green deployments
    • Service health checking
    Consul can be used in any or a combination of these scenarios. Regardless if you are a network administrator or a regular software engineer, Consul can add value to your work.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    HCL BigFix is well-suited:
    1. Patch Management for Diverse Devices: HCL BigFix is ideal for organizations with a diverse range of devices, including laptops, desktops, cloud, virtual machines, and mobile devices. Its endpoint management functionality enables seamless patching across various operating systems such as Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS, and Linux.
    2. Comprehensive Patch Management: With HCL BigFix, organizations can achieve comprehensive patch management across their IT infrastructures. It ensures that all endpoints, regardless of the operating system, receive timely and secure patches, reducing vulnerabilities and enhancing overall security.
    3. Troubleshooting and Monitoring: HCL BigFix excels in providing a dashboard that effectively displays problematic and functional machines. This feature allows IT teams to quickly identify and address issues, improving overall troubleshooting efficiency.
      However, there are some scenarios where HCL BigFix may be less appropriate or areas for improvement: 1. Coverage Expansion: It is important for HCL BigFix to continue expanding its coverage to include all possible resources installed within the IT infrastructure. Ensuring comprehensive coverage can enhance its effectiveness. 2.On-Site and OS Upgrades: Optimizing the process of on-site and operating system upgrades can help streamline the deployment process further. Improvements in this area would contribute to a smoother and more efficient upgrade experience. 3.Communication Speed: Enhancing the speed of communication between the HCL BigFix agent and the server can help improve the overall responsiveness and efficiency of the solution.
    4. Pricing Optimization: Adjusting the pricing of HCL BigFix to be more cost-effective would make it more accessible and attractive to organizations of different sizes and budgets.
    Read full review
    Pros
    IBM
    • Key-Value database management.
    • Service discovery.
    • Centralized configuration database with native high availability.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • Software inventory.
    • Patch deployment.
    • Patch review.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    IBM
    • The GUI: The GUI interface for Consul has gotten a lot better over the years. Since Consul is so easy to interact with via API, this isn't a showstopper, but for those that are less command line inclined it's always nice to be able to refer them to an easy to use and understand web interface
    • It's chatty: Consul is extremely chatty. Sometimes it's particularly chatty at 2am with no indication as to why and eats up quite a bit of resources. Just be sure to provision your systems that typically take a heavy load with a little extra for Consul
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • The patching function is difficult for RedHat Linux servers, and can be improved.
    • The site configuration and access control appears to be cumbersome.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    IBM
    Consul's API is extremely user friendly. While their web interface isn't quite as "mature", it's still pretty easily navigated for the average person. Together they make a pretty easy to pick up and use tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    IBM
    I've never used paid support from HashiCorp, but I consider its support a good one, since they provide a lot of free resources for the community and there are good user groups supporting you on several sorts of issues. Also, HashiCorp is known as a company with a strong relationship with the community, that is easily noticed by the events HashiCorp promotes over the world.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    Recently we noticed the customer service on the support has dropped compared to when we first deployed the software.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    Consul was easier to configure out of the box than Serf and gave us more initial options. Its easy to use tools and support were by far superior to Serf in many ways. Support alone was one of those areas that Serf could take an example from Consul to keep its customers happy.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    We have significantly enhanced our ability to patch desktops, including laptops, desktop, cloud, virtual machines and other mobile devices used by end-users. BigFix's endpoint management functionality allows us to seamlessly patch a wide range of operating systems, such as Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS, and Linux systems, ensuring comprehensive patch management across IT infrastructures. We have established a track record of delivering secure and hassle-free patching solutions to our clients
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • It contains a native web UI, which in contrast to its counterparts, is handy, very intuitive and - most importantly - very informative. It leaves no room for doubt about your services "forest" health. So, for that purpose, the learning curve was almost down to non-existent. Our team managed to work seamlessly with Consul being our services API
    • Our management staff had a difficult time understanding what Consul was really all about. For technical staff it is pretty simple to understand the huge value such a tool can pose to our suite of solutions, but once our management staff took the grasp of its valuable handy set of tools, we didn't take long to start using it and keeping track of our Swarm overall health, with was a constant concern for the entire company before.
    • For load balancing purposes, we were relying pretty much on guesses before we decided to use Consul. One would check a certain node overall health and decide if we would need to spring a new instance at AWS or Digital Ocean.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • When there is a need to patch a Windows System it has worked
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Consul Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshot

    HCL BigFix Screenshots

    Screenshot of HCL BigFix Inventory DashboadScreenshot of HCL BigFix Inventory - Spend OverviewScreenshot of DEX ScoreScreenshot of Modern Client ManagementScreenshot of Tenable Vulnerability