We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and Fortinet Fortigate based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet’s lack of an option to deploy firewalls on multiple endpoints is a definite downside. Although Fortinet received better feedback for its support, Check Point is the winner in this comparison.
"It is easy to control from the central management system. For example, if we have 10 firewalls, and we want to push that same configuration among them, we can use this solution's central management system to do that simultaneously. So, there is time saving in that way. The time savings does depend on the situation. For example, if I am running half an hour of work on each firewall, that will take around 300 minutes. However, if I do this work from the central management system, then it will only take 30 minutes to push the same configuration to those same 10 devices."
"It has allowed us to grow in a safe way and in accordance with our particular needs."
"The support offers the best services I have experienced. It's better than any other IT vendor."
"The uncomplicated configuration ensures that mistakes are avoided and rules are easily audited."
"The application authentication feature of Check Point is the most valuable as it helps us keep users secure."
"We like the centralized management for configuring multiple firewalls. It also gives us the Antivirus, threat prevention, and vulnerability tests. These four features protect the environment with security checks. Vulnerability tests allow us to configure changes that can protect the environment."
"The security posture assessment with two-factor authentication has saved more time and commercial costs by avoiding deploying having to deploy another solution."
"It has various features, like Threat Prevention and Antivirus. It is easier to use and have knowledge of a single device rather than multiple devices/technologies when doing an installation. It is also easy to use because of having Antivirus and Threat Prevention features within the same firewall."
"It is easy to manage, and it doesn't need much knowledge from the team. It is a stable device, and there are many features that are included out of the box."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"FortiGate SD-WAN facilitated a smooth transition for our customers between their two internet service providers, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity without any downtime."
"The SD-WAN feature is the most valuable. This feature evolved from link load balancing. It has helped us in terms of our uptime and privatizing applications whenever we experience an outage. The SD-WAN feature has been a plus for us. Two-factor authentication has allowed us to add more users in terms of remote working. We have two-factor authentication for remote workers to authenticate them before they get on the network."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable."
"It is a good source for firewall protection."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Quota."
"Debugging could be improved when compared to the competition."
"The only thing that we've seen is instances where console and administrative interfaces get locked up or freeze, and we have to get the machine rebooted."
"Geo-blocking would be very useful. There are too many attempts to infiltrate by non-country users. I can block access by IP address or IP network, however, a country-level blocking would be more useful and much quicker to implement."
"The VPN setup could be simplified. We had to engage professional services for that. That's not a problem, but compared to other products we've used, it was a little more complex."
"They should integrate all blades to use a single policy rather than multiple."
"I'd like to see more use of applications and URLs in security policies moving forwards."
"The VPN part was actually one of the most complex parts for us. It was not easy for us to switch from Cisco, because of one particular part of the integration: connecting the Check Point device to an Entrust server. Entrust is a solution that provides two-factor authentication. We got around it by using another server, a solution called RADIUS."
"The virtual environment is not stable at all. We have some customers who are using the virtual environment feature, and sometimes it crashes. We have many tickets open and the response is not as good as expected. We have to wait months for a resolution."
"The Web-filter in this solution is not very good."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"Technical support needs to be improved."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 277 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Check Point NGFW writes "Good antivirus protection and URL filtering with very good user identification capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and Azure Firewall, whereas Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and SonicWall TZ. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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First of all, Check Point checks the rules to be configured before installing them in the firewall and this prevents the user from making mistakes and putting the company at risk.
Check Point is no longer expensive. It has many models and competes in performance and price vs. Fortinet.
Now web interfaces, like Fortinet, may have more bugs per top 10 OWASP.
We are using both but the GUI and clustering on the FortiGate side look better/easier/more comfortable.
And I do agree with others - Check Point is expensive and Fortinet FortiGate has many models offering less expensive implementation.
I have experience on both from Disti and channel experience. Please find below my comments (nothing new as such).
-Check Point GUI is a bit complicated,
-Application and Web filtering are better than Fortigate.
-IPS and AV are more effective than Fortigate. Overall more stable than any other firewall
Support: not up to the level like Fortigate and lack of trained resources (in the gulf).
Check Point is expensive.
Fortinet has many models and is more affordable than Check Point. It also provides outstanding support. GUI is more user-friendly.
We had this same discussion recently with my organization. It came down to the security of the platform.
Fortinet has had a number of breaches over the last 2 years and this was a key factor in our decision.
The challenge with Check Point will be the transition from our existing firewall and taking advantage of the various features across our organization.