Automox has helped our IT team keep their sanity
January 16, 2023

Automox has helped our IT team keep their sanity

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Automox

We purchased Automox to replace a finicky multi WSUS server setup when I first joined my company. We deployed it using our Endpoint Protection. It took less than two weeks for myself and one of my Systems engineers to have it fully deployed across two domains and begin the securing process. We found that our WSUS servers had about a 60% deployment rate. Some servers hadn't been successfully patched in a year or more, along with 30+ linux servers that hadn't been patched ever. It took a month of maintenance windows to get all our servers up to date. Workstations we rolled out automated patching right out of the gate. We've been able to lock down use of USBs, eliminate use of weak ciphers, roll out use of community strings to secure SNMP, limit Windows build versions until we've had time to test, setup automated cleanup on a handful of servers, and deploy out Chrome enterprise. It allows a team of 3 to manage security of over 1000 servers. It's been easier to manage and was far easier to deploy than other solutions. Support has been great as well. They respond to tickets often within an hour.
  • Patching
  • Compliance Policies
  • Script automation
  • Nested Groups for Policies
  • Add a software store
  • Serverless patch management
  • Script deployment
  • Vulnerability information
  • 3rd party patching
  • Was $40k per year less than SCCM
  • Saved 720 hours per year in maintenance windows
  • Reduced deployment time for software upgrades
I've used a number of other patching products at previous employers. Automox, while it does not have all the bells and whistles of SCCM, Tanium, or BigFix such as software self service or automated deployment through network scanning, software catalogs, or warranty check integrations; it is far easier to get running and keep running. It requires no servers to store the management, patches, or software catalogs. While SCCM and Tanium take weeks to months to get fully configured its takes hours or days to have Automox running. The big 3 often have month long crash courses after onboarding. Automox takes a matter of an hour or two to become accustomed to all its menus and how to handle policies. Automox and Action1 are probably a bit closer in their out of the box capabilities and ease to deploy. Automox offers more granular control over patches, supports much more complex scripting and automation via scheduling. Automox also supports Windows, Mac, and Linux vs Action1s Windows only approach. When it came down to time to configure, money, device support, and ease of use Automox came out on top.

Do you think Automox delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Automox's feature set?

Yes

Did Automox live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Automox go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Automox again?

Yes

Automox is well suited to small-medium businesses that do not have a need for a large platform that takes months to setup but can do everything you can imagine under the sun. Automox is designed to be easy to setup, easy to deploy, and easy to maintain your fleet of devices with limited admins needed. In order to gain the full benefits of the platform it does require that at least someone on your team has at least a basic functional knowledge of scripting. That's what is used for compliance settings, software deployments, and automated scripts. Patching polices can be made as all-encompassing or as granular as you need. Automox may not work as well in an environment that has more requirements that they don't want to find additional tools for such as user self service for software installations, staggered patching for limited bandwidth sites, endpoint monitoring built in, or need a platform that integrates with an MDM such as Intune.

Evaluating Automox and Competitors

Yes - WSUS, it was unreliable, kept breaking, and would randomly remove devices. It could not span across multiple domains requiring us to manage multiple WSUS servers separately. Remote users often would not get any patches if they were not connected to the VPN regularly. Patching was questionable at best and there was no accurate reporting.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Prior Experience with the Product
Product usability was the largest factor. We needed something that could easily be learned and we could be up and running in no time. Automox was capable of that and made creation of polices easy and self-explanatory.
Would have run testing of Automox and BigFix side by side to show how much easier Automox was to configure and actually patch with. It took 2 months of fighting with the BigFix server to finally convince upper management it was more work than it was worth. We had tested BigFix first as it came in about $5k a year under Automox. This meant that we had to wait to get to test Automox.

Using Automox

Its super easy to learn. It has a few key menus to list Devices, Software, Manage, and Reports. Once you learn how to use their filters its easy to find what you need. Most of their functionality runs on scripting. Namely PowerShell, Bash, Shell and Python.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Patching
  • Policy Scheduling
  • Setting Policies across nested groups
  • Setting groups by OU