Decision Guides

Determine whether Big Picture fits your release management and licensing requirements.

Is Big Picture appropriate for your type of software?
What problems does it solve well, and where does it not?
How does Big Picture fit into regulated or enterprise environments?
How does Big Picture differ from other tools you may be considering?

Fundamentals

Evaluate Big Picture and understand its intended role.

Build vs. Buy Considerations When it makes sense to build internal update and licensing infrastructure versus adopting Big Picture.
When Big Picture Is Not a Fit Scenarios where Big Picture is intentionally not the right solution.
Competitive Matrix Side-by-side comparison of capabilities across Big Picture and common alternatives.

Use Cases

Real-world problems that Big Picture solves.

Managing Enterprise Releases When software vendors need to ship updates to enterprise customers who require control over deployment timing and approval.
License Compliance and Audits Organizations that must demonstrate license compliance and prepare for vendor audits need accurate, auditable records of license usage.
Coordinating Multi-Team Deployments Platform teams managing multiple products need to coordinate releases across teams while maintaining consistent policies and governance.
Vendor Software Visibility Enterprises that purchase software from multiple vendors need visibility into deployed versions, active licenses, and usage across their environment.
Regulated Environment Deployments Financial institutions, healthcare organizations, and government agencies require self-hosted infrastructure, air-gapped operation, or strict control over external dependencies.

Delivery Scenarios

Guidance for endpoint-resident software across languages and frameworks.

Hybrid Software and Desktop Agents Software that combines SaaS control planes with local agents, services, or clients.
CLI Tools and Developer Utilities Command-line tools, admin utilities, migration tools, and other installable helpers.
Electron, Tauri, and other Cross-Platform Desktop Apps Cross-platform desktop applications built with Electron, Tauri, or similar frameworks.
Offline and Intermittent Connectivity Environments with limited, outbound-only, or air-gapped connectivity.
Multi-Product ISVs Vendors managing multiple desktop products, editions, or add-ons.

Regulated Environments

Guidance for ISVs whose customers operate in regulated environments and expect strict controls around updates, licensing, telemetry, and auditability.

Healthcare Considerations for shipping software into healthcare and clinical environments.
Financial Services Constraints and expectations when selling into banks and financial institutions.
Government and Public Sector Deployment, security, and operational requirements common in government environments.
Common Regulatory Requirements Cross-industry overview of shared regulatory themes and how Big Picture addresses them.

Comparisons

Direct comparisons between Big Picture and tools it is commonly evaluated against. These focus on tradeoffs rather than feature checklists.

Comparison Guides include evaluations against:

Update frameworks: Squirrel, Sparkle, WinSparkle, and similar client-side update libraries.
Enterprise IT tooling: Intune, SCCM, winget, MSIX, and related deployment systems.
Update protocols: Omaha and protocol-level approaches to update orchestration.
Enterprise platforms: Flexera, RLM, Sentinel, Cryptlex, LicenseSpring, LimeLM, and related systems.

Reading order

If you are new to Big Picture:

Start with Fundamentals
Review Use Cases to see if Big Picture addresses your problems
Read the Delivery Scenario that most closely matches your software
Review Regulated Environments if your customers impose compliance constraints
Use Comparisons to validate tradeoffs against specific alternatives