Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM comparison

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120,425 views|88,209 comparisons
90% willing to recommend
Check Point Software Technologies Logo
2,778 views|1,447 comparisons
96% willing to recommend
Fortinet Logo
14,279 views|8,060 comparisons
98% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jul 11, 2023

We performed a comparison between Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and Fortinet FortiGate-VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

Features: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers a range of important capabilities including VPN Blade, IPS Blade, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is highly regarded for its robust security features such as geofencing, firewalling, IPS, antivirus, and intrusion prevention systems.

For Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, there is a need for improvements in the support system, cluster creation on AWS, data protection visibility, DLP feature, user interface, integration, cost reduction, documentation, and flexibility in deployment. Fortinet FortiGate-VM needs enhancements in key activation, throughput, web application firewall integration, technical support, integration simplicity, customization, pricing model, and web-filtering configuration.

Service and Support: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has received both positive and negative feedback regarding its customer service. Some customers commend the technical support provided by the company, while others express dissatisfaction due to slow response times. Fortinet FortiGate-VM also has a combination of positive and negative reviews regarding its customer service. Some customers are content with the support they receive, while others believe that it requires improvement.

Ease of Deployment: Check Point's setup is user-friendly and straightforward, although some mention that it may require technical expertise and can be complex. The initial setup for Fortinet is generally easy and straightforward. The deployment time ranges from a few hours to a week, depending on the complexity and size.

Pricing: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is regarded as costly to set up, however, it provides excellent security and value. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is competitively priced and more affordable than certain alternatives. That said, expenses may rise when scaling or incorporating additional functionalities.

ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers a notable ROI range of 80% to 85% and delivers enhanced benefits and performance. Fortinet FortiGate-VM ensures stability and heightened security, garnering positive ratings for ROI from users. It is crucial to exercise caution while sizing to prevent any potential financial losses.

Comparison Results: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is the preferred product compared to Fortinet FortiGate-VM. Users find the initial setup of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security simple and user-friendly. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers valuable features such as VPN Blade, IPS Blade, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade, along with advanced threat prevention capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM Report (Updated: May 2024).
771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly.""It is quite easy to handle.""LinkGreat firewall capabilities""The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls.""The initial installation is very straightforward.""The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex.""The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security.""FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all of these features on one device because it can cause performance issues."

More Fortinet FortiGate Pros →

"The initial setup is pretty easy.""The tool's most valuable features are the REST APIs that help to automate the deployment and maintenance process. It helps us to reduce time to 15-25 minutes compared to the manual process which used to take around two to three hours.""The comprehensiveness of the CloudGuard’s threat prevention security is great, especially once they integrate Dome9 in the whole thing. That really ties the whole thing together, so you can tie your entire cloud environment together into one central location, which is nice. Previously, we had three or four different tools that we were trying to leverage to do the same stuff that we are able to do with CloudGuard.""Our clients choose CloudGuard as a natural progression of their solutions. They understand Microsoft and CloudGuard fits.""I like the tool's ability to manage cloud traffic locally without routing it through our data centers.""We are using gateways, and I appreciate the high-availability gateways they have. They stand out more than the competitors.""We find Check Point valuable because they are 100% focused on security. It totally closes the potential vulnerability channel. We can check our mail and our attachments and we can scan everything easily. We get an immediate report about the situation of the attachments. We can discover if the target's security attack was started from phishing, etc. We also enjoy using the additional features that protect our internal customer from targeted attacks.""The most valuable feature is threat prevention."

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"The most valuable feature is the UTM, which gives them an advantage over other firewalls.""The tool improved the security in our company's virtualized environment, as it was helpful in creating an additional layer of security for the organization and for the use of the internet.""The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to operate.""I have worked on some of the largest and smallest solutions that Fortinet sells and they all scale really well.""In terms of administration, it's perfect.""A top feature is the really good web interface and the classic Fortinet features, such as IPS, IDS, AV scanner, and spam filter.""The setup is simple.""The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are its flexibility and scalability. This solution is available as a license, which allows us to activate it based on the specific needs of the customer. This gives us and the customer a great deal of versatility and customization options."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM Pros →

Cons
"I feel that the reporting needs to be improved.""The pricing could always be better.""The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper.""The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response.""The renewal price and the availability could be improved.""The visibility of the network can be better. The GUI can be improved for better visibility of the network flow. Other solutions have better GUI in terms of network visibility.""It needs more available central management.""Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cons →

"In case the device is inaccessible due to some issue such as CPU or memory, there is no separate port or hardware partition provided for troubleshooting purposes.""The price of the solution could be reduced, it is expensive.""The initial setup is difficult. It took me three tries to get it right. The setup took two or three hours.""In future releases, I would like to see the data loss prevention (DLP) feature could scale along with the virtual machine scale sets.""I would like to see more focus on east-west traffic inspection and AWS.""We utilize logging systems, and geolocation is crucial for us as some applications must only be accessible from our country. However, there have been occasional issues with this feature.""The solution is not that flexible when deploying on-prem.""The convergence time between cluster members is still not perfect. It's far away from what we get in traditional appliances. If a company wants to move mission-critical applications for an environment to the cloud, it somehow has to accept that it could have downtime of up to 40 seconds, until cluster members switch virtual IP addresses between themselves and start accepting the traffic. That is a little bit too high in my opinion. It's not fully Check Point's fault, because it's a hybrid mechanism with AWS. The blame is 50/50."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Cons →

"The scalability feature of the solution has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required.""FortiGate's application load balancing has to be improved. They need to improve a lot on the load balancing and RAF side. They are far behind Citrix in that regard.""The performance could be better. Some features need to have quality control when the switch is working. The dedicated bandwidth for some users is not reliable.""I have had a data issue with physical devices that could improve.""One thing that can be better is added automation. And, on top of that, enhanced security when it comes to the automation itself.""In the next release, we would like to see full integration with VMware NSX virtualized networks.""The price is sometimes very expensive.​""There is always room for improvement in any solutions, including Fortinet's FortiGate-VM. Although the solution claims to have a superior throughput compared to other OEMs, upon closer examination and comparison, there is potential for significant improvement in this area. In today's rapidly evolving technology world, it is important to continuously strive for enhancement and development, and I believe Fortinet can make significant strides in this direction for the FortiGate-VM."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."
  • "These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive. Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco."
  • "Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
  • "Work through partners for the best pricing."
  • "The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
  • "Easy to understand licensing requirements."
  • "​We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW.​"
  • "The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "On average, it is normally on the lower end, being less expensive than Palo Alto or Cisco."
  • "It is more expensive than other solutions and would be more competetive in the market if it came down in price."
  • "We pay approximately ‎€150,000 ($166,000 USD) per year."
  • "Licensing is simply by the number of hosts that you are looking to protect within your environment. It makes it much easier to ensure that you are covering your environment."
  • "There is flexibility in the different licensing models that are offered."
  • "The pricing is pretty high, not just for your capital, for what you have to pay upfront, but for what you pay for your annual software renewals as well, compared to a lot of other vendors. Check Point is near the top, as far as how much it's going to cost you."
  • "Pricing of CloudGuard is pretty fair when you have a single account. It's comparable with other cloud providers. But for our use case, it got really pricey when we had to deploy multiple CloudGuards on multiple accounts in different regions, because you can't have CloudGuard protecting multiple regions. That's the big thing."
  • "The pricing and licensing have been good. We just had to do a license increase for our portion of it. We had that done within a couple of days. Given the fact that it's purely a software-based license, it ends up being even quicker than doing it for an on-prem firewall."
  • More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The pricing and licensing are not as expensive as its competitors."
  • "It is an expensive solution if you are migrating from an open source solution."
  • "If you are in a licensed solution, like Cisco or Palo Alto, it is cheaper. I do recommend using it with a license, because it is a security solution and it needs updates.​"
  • "​The basic pricing in Austria is OK, but asking for special offers, e.g., NPOs, NGOs, trade up, and/or trade in, is always useful.​"
  • "​It is on par with what you receive. It can be expensive upfront."
  • "It would be nice to have the ability to extend FortiGuard subscriptions at a reasonable yearly cost versus a bulk three year pricing.​"
  • "The price is expensive compared with other vendors, like Cisco and Huawei."
  • "The best part of Fortinet is the license is bundled together, so it is easy to use and apply."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate-VM Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
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    Top Answer:As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite… more »
    Top Answer:CloudGuard Network Security provides unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-prem. It's very… more »
    Top Answer:The price is fair for most of the customers. We don't find the price excessive. It's okay. We can sell it. It's not… more »
    Top Answer:It needs to cover additional kinds of infrastructure, like containers and serverless options. It's somewhat limited in… more »
    Top Answer:In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it… more »
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    Top Answer:An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
    CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security
    FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

    CloudGuard Network Security is a firewall solution that provides network security for cloud environments. It protects against cyber threats with multi-layered security for public, private, and hybrid clouds. 

    CloudGuard Network Security offers advanced threat prevention, firewall, VPN, and application security services, designed to secure cloud infrastructure, virtual networks, and cloud-based applications and workloads.

    CloudGuard Network Security Features

    CloudGuard Network Security has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Advanced threat prevention: The solution Includes anti-virus, anti-bot, and intrusion prevention to defend against known and unknown threats.
    • Firewall: It has a stateful inspection firewall and network address translation (NAT) to secure traffic flow between cloud resources and the internet.
    • VPN: CloudGuard Network Security offers secure and encrypted connectivity for remote users and between cloud resources.
    • Application security: It includes a web application firewall (WAF) and SSL inspection to secure web applications and protect against cyber attacks.
    • Cloud-native architecture: The solution is designed specifically for cloud environments and integrates with cloud-native services like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
    • Compliance and governance: It helps organizations comply with regulations such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR by providing detailed reporting and auditing capabilities.
    • Multi-layered security: CloudGuard Network Security provides a comprehensive security solution with multiple layers of defense for maximum protection.

    CloudGuard Network Security Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing CloudGuard Network Security. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Scalability and flexibility: The solution supports dynamic scaling and flexible deployment options to meet the changing needs of cloud environments.
    • Automated deployment and management: CloudGuard Network Security enables fast and efficient deployment and management of security services through a centralized, cloud-based management console.
    • Future-proof: Designed for the cloud and integrated with cloud-native services, CloudGuard Network Security helps organizations prepare for future cloud requirements and advancements.

    Reviews from Real Users

    CloudGuard Network Security is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are that it has good cloud security, is cost-effective, has no false positives, improves productivity, and much more.

    Bernard O., Technical Engineer at Harnssen Group Limited, says, "Check Point is one of the few solutions that pay attention to cloud security. Many others mostly focus on providing on-premises solutions."

    Another PeerSpot reviewer, Shrinkhala S., Senior Manager at Agriculture Skill Council of India appreciates the solution for many reasons: “There are no security lapses and 100% restriction of threat entrants in the system or server. It's a cost-effective solution with no false positive cases. The product helps in bringing productivity and enhanced customer experience for users.

    We have a happy workforce and more workforce retention and increased IT environment sustainability. There is 100% proactive detection of root causes and root sources. It is dynamic and agile, and its features and utilities continuously improve and evolve. It's the best-unified endpoint management solution for IT systems globally. The product is available for all kinds of business users.”

    "One of the main characteristics that CloudGuard Network Security has given us isgranularity and visibility,” explains Adriamcam, Consultant at ITQS.

    FortiGate Virtual Appliances allow you to mitigate blind spots by implementing critical security controls within your virtual infrastructure. They also allow you to rapidly provision security infrastructure whenever and wherever it is needed. FortiGate virtual appliances feature all of the security and networking services common to traditional hardware-based FortiGate appliances. With the addition of virtual appliances from Fortinet, you can deploy a mix of hardware and virtual appliances, operating together and managed from a common centralized management platform.

    Sample Customers
    1. Amazon Web Services 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Cisco 5. Dell 6. HP 7. Oracle 8. Verizon 9. AT&T 10. T-Mobile 11. Sprint 12. Vodafone 13. Orange 14. BT Group 15. Telstra 16. Deutsche Telekom 17. Comcast 18. Time Warner Cable 19. CenturyLink 20. NTT Communications 21. Tata Communications 22. SoftBank 23. China Mobile 24. Singtel 25. Telus 26. Rogers Communications 27. Bell Canada 28. Telkom Indonesia 29. Telkom South Africa 30. Telmex 31. Telia Company 32. Telkom Kenya
    Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance
    Security7 Networks, COOPENAE
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization20%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Security Firm10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider14%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business35%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise59%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business54%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise27%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise50%
    Buyer's Guide
    Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 121 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is rated 8.6, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security writes "Highly reliable, great visibility, and centralized management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is most compared with Azure Firewall, VMware NSX, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Cisco Secure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS and OPNsense. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.

    See our list of best Firewalls vendors.

    We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.