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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    HCL BigFix

    Score7.1 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

    Ansible

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AThe Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (acquired by Red Hat in 2015) is a foundation for building and operating automation across an organization. The platform includes tools needed to implement enterprise-wide automation, and can automate resource provisioning, and IT environments and configuration of systems and devices. It can be used in a CI/CD process to provision the target environment and to then deploy the application on it.

    $5,000

    per year

    Pricing
    HCL BigFixAnsible
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Basic Tower
    5,000
    per year
    Enterprise Tower
    10,000
    per year
    Premium Tower
    14,000
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    HCL BigFixAnsible
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    HCL BigFixAnsible
    Considered Both Products
    HCLSoftware
    No answer on this topic
    Red Hat
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    80%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    99%
    Would buy again
    181 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    148 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    80%
    Happy with the feature set
    4 Answers
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    179 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    112 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    140 Answers
    Features
    HCL BigFixAnsible
    Configuration Management
    Comparison of Configuration Management features of HCL BigFix and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
    Feature
    HCL BigFix
    -
    Ratings
    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
    8.6
    44 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Infrastructure Automation00 Ratings9.244 Ratings
    Automated Provisioning00 Ratings8.841 Ratings
    Parallel Execution00 Ratings8.840 Ratings
    Node Management00 Ratings8.432 Ratings
    Reporting & Logging00 Ratings7.841 Ratings
    Version Control00 Ratings8.738 Ratings
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    HCL BigFixAnsible
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    Enterprises
    ManageEngine Endpoint Central
    Score9.3 out of 10
    AWS Config
    Score7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    HCL BigFixAnsible
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    9.5
    (108 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.7
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.0
    (3 ratings)
    7.3
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    HCL BigFixAnsible
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
    Red Hat
    For automating the configuration of a multi-node, multi-domain (Storage, VM, Container) cluster, Ansible is still the best choice; however, it is not an easy task to achieve. Creating the infrastructure layer, i.e., creating network nodes, VMs, and K8s clusters, still can't be achieved via Ansible. Additionally, error handling remains complex to resolve.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    HCLSoftware
    • Software inventory.
    • Patch deployment.
    • Patch review.
    Incentivized
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    Red Hat
    • Debugging is easy, as it tells you exactly within your job where the job failed, even when jumping around several playbooks.
    • Ansible seems to integrate with everything, and the community is big enough that if you are unsure how to approach converting a process into a playbook, you can usually find something similar to what you are trying to do.
    • Security in AAP seems to be pretty straightforward. Easy to organize and identify who has what permissions or can only see the content based on the organization they belong to.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    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
    Red Hat
    • I can't think of any right now because I've heard about the Lightspeed and I'm really excited about that. Ansible has been really solid for us. We haven't had any issues. Maybe the upgrade process, but other than that, as coming from a user, it's awesome.
    • Give out Lightspeed for free.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Even is if it's a great tool, we are looking to renew our licence for our production servers only. The product is very expensive to use, so we might look for a cheaper solution for our non-production servers. One of the solution we are looking, is AWX, free, and similar to AAP. This is be perfect for our non-production servers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    It's overall pretty easy to use foe all the applications I've mentioned before: configuring hosts, installing packages through tools like apt, applying yaml, making changes across wide groups of hosts, etc. Its not a 10 because of the inconveinience of the yaml setup, and the time to write is not worth it for something applied one time to only a few hosts
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Great in almost every way compared to any other configuration management software. The only thing I wish for is python3 support. Other than that, YAML is much improved compared to the Ruby of Chef. The agentless nature is incredibly convenient for managing systems quickly, and if a member of your term has no terminal experience whatsoever they can still use the UI.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    HCLSoftware
    Recently we noticed the customer service on the support has dropped compared to when we first deployed the software.
    Incentivized
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    Red Hat
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    I spoke on this topic today!
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    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
    Red Hat
    AAP compares favorably with Terraform and Power Automate. I don't have much experience with Terraform, but I find AAP and Ansible easier to use as well as having more capabilities. Power Platform is also an excellent automation tool that is user friendly but I feel that Ansible has more compatibility with a variety of technologies.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    HCLSoftware
    • When there is a need to patch a Windows System it has worked
    Incentivized
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    Red Hat
    • POSITIVE: currently used by the IT department and some others, but we want others to use it.
    • NEGATIVE: We need less technical output for the non-technical. It should be controllable or a setting within playbooks. We also need more graphical responses (non-technical).
    • POSITIVE: Always being updated and expanded (CaC, EDA, Policy as Code, execution environments, AI, etc..)
    Incentivized
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