What users are saying about

BigFix vs Ansible

BigFix
7 Ratings
Ansible
129 Ratings

BigFix

7 Ratings
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Score 7.1 out of 100

Based on 7 reviews and ratings

Ansible

129 Ratings
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Score 8.9 out of 100

Based on 129 reviews and ratings

Likelihood to Recommend

BigFix

BigFix is well suited for patch review and deployment, but there are key features that can definitely be improved. An example is that if a specific patch is deployed, but a cumulative update that contains that patch is not deployed, the system still shows the patch as outstanding or not implemented.Another area for improvement is the customization of BigFix. The tool has many uses and can be extremely helpful, but the amount of knowledge required to customize the solution is significant and customized scripts or "fixlets" need to be created. If common things could be pre-packaged and provided to the customer community, it would allow for an easier deployment and use of the tool.

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Mark Hannon | TrustRadius Reviewer
Mark Hannon
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Ansible

That is a big task for all the functionality now in Ansible Collections - Ethernet Networking, Fibre Channel Networking, Wireless networking, LB/ADC configuration & changes. Storage config and changes, VMware provisioning and changes, Windows Desktop provision when paired w/ a tool like Zuul, Workflow integration w/ ServiceNow (SNOW), Testing framework such as Molecule really all you to ensure what you have in your playbooks is solid...prior to deployment not when released to your consumers; Critical. Consistent runbooks instead of managing tons of scripts allows for cross-team training and functionality in a true disaster scenario. Additionally, conversion tools from other IT automation offerings Puppet and Chef, integration into Cloud environments. The list grows daily so jump in the water is just right!

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Feature Rating Comparison

Endpoint Security

BigFix
6.0
Ansible
—
Anti-Exploit Technology
BigFix
5.0
Ansible
—
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
BigFix
9.0
Ansible
—
Centralized Management
BigFix
7.3
Ansible
—
Hybrid Deployment Support
BigFix
6.2
Ansible
—
Infection Remediation
BigFix
5.0
Ansible
—
Vulnerability Management
BigFix
5.8
Ansible
—
Malware Detection
BigFix
4.0
Ansible
—

Pros

BigFix

  • It is easy to add systems into BigFix and keep good inventories.
  • The inventory properties can be customized to facilitate various reporting demands.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Ansible

  • Agentless. For our implementation, this is the single biggest factor. If we have to touch the machine and install an agent before we can start managing it, that's already too much effort and slows us down.
  • Re-entrant. This is not unique to Ansible, but certainly a huge improvement over custom scripts and such. Because it's such a huge effort to make scripts re-entrant, most of our scripts did not allow an elegant way to recover on failure. Manually cleaning up the half-attempt and re-trying is still too cumbersome, and being able to just re-run Ansible is a great improvement!
  • Infrastructure as code. This is new to Ansible, and there are still a few minor bugs with their AWS modules, but it's been a huge help being able to define our infrastructure in an Ansible playbook, commit it to source control, and use one tool for all our DevOps tasks.

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John Grosjean | TrustRadius Reviewer
John Grosjean
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Cons

BigFix

  • Reports that it does have could be fine-tuned and provide more percentages and charts for executives.
  • The ability to use agentless deployments would be nice.

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David Baca | TrustRadius Reviewer
David Baca
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Ansible

  • Ansible Tower is a paid service, which can be annoying at times. But that is understandable, as it requires an additional level of support from the Ansible team to develop.
  • There is a decently large learning curve for someone not familiar with setting up Unix environments. However, there is a very large support community with tons of documentation, so it's not a dealbreaker.

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Dylan Cauwels | TrustRadius Reviewer
Dylan Cauwels
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Usability

BigFix

No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Ansible

Ansible 8.0
Based on 1 answer
I would say that a baseline of understanding about how to work with Kubernetes/OpenShift and YAML files is a prerequisite to using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Once those baselines are established, being able to use this platform is much simpler. Red Hat has done a great job in documentation and making Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform something useful for DevOps to quickly get pipelines and configurations up and running quickly.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Performance

BigFix

No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Ansible

Ansible 8.7
Based on 10 answers
Ansible is very friendly to start with. With just a few configurations, you have full management to your servers. You can configure it and implement it in seconds. You can also set up a cron job to make sure it gets implemented. It suits our need perfectly. Support can be a bit hard.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Support Rating

BigFix

BigFix 5.9
Based on 3 answers
While some support calls are quickly responded to, many times our engineers have been pointed to collaborative web sites such as Bigfix.me for solutions or the option of engaging professional services has been proposed. While this may seem like a good way to drive business, it is not seen as efficient a support process as could be provided to the customer base.

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Mark Hannon | TrustRadius Reviewer
Mark Hannon
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Ansible

Ansible 8.6
Based on 5 answers
There is a lot of good documentation that Ansible and Red Hat provide which should help get someone started with making Ansible useful. But once you get to more complicated scenarios, you will benefit from learning from others. I have not used Red Hat support for work with Ansible, but many of the online resources are helpful.

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Chris Saenz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Chris Saenz
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Alternatives Considered

BigFix

We used Spiceworks in small scales. BigFix is more enterprise-ready and able to support a large environment like ours. It also offers functions that are not available in Spiceworks.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Ansible

Ansible is a great product, which we really love as it is compatible running along side and with other DevOps tool. The integration features allows other teams to participate in our shared objective. Ansible is easy to use as many programmers are familiar with Python and RHEL. We selected Ansible because its easy barrier to entry and pricing model for new users with not many nodes to manage. We will continue to develop and on-board teams and monitor the scaling abilities of Ansible.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Return on Investment

BigFix

  • We've been using BigFix for some time and it has helped us with vulnerability remediation.
  • It has reduced our risk level tremendously compared to just using WSUS.

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David Baca | TrustRadius Reviewer
David Baca
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Ansible

  • We have been able to deploy solutions to client issues without impacting uptime.
  • Most system administration tasks have been automated so I am now free to work on architectural improvements or customer support.
  • Our customer support has improved thanks to Ansible as it has allowed me more time away from repetitive system activities so I may assist with customer questions and application testing.

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James McCoy | TrustRadius Reviewer
James McCoy
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Pricing Details

BigFix

General

Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—
Entry-level set up fee?
No

BigFix Editions & Modules

—
Additional Pricing Details
—

Ansible

General

Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—
Entry-level set up fee?
No

Ansible Editions & Modules

Edition
Basic Tower$5,0001
Enterprise Tower$10,0001
Premium Tower$14,0001
  1. per year
Additional Pricing Details
—

Rating Summary

Likelihood to Recommend

BigFix
6.6
Ansible
9.2

Usability

BigFix
—
Ansible
8.0

Performance

BigFix
—
Ansible
8.7

Support Rating

BigFix
5.9
Ansible
8.6

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