We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and OPNsense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Check Point NGFW is highly regarded for its extensive security functions, centralized control, and ability to virtualize. OPNsense is appreciated for its ability to scale, provide guest access, offer user-friendly dashboards, and provide a free version for users. Check Point NGFW needs enhancements in integration, hardware upgrades, cost, stability, load balancing, technical support, and reporting capabilities. OPNsense, on the other hand, requires improvements in its interface, bandwidth management, multi-provider internet protection, integration with Azure, a timeline for new features and updates, IPS solution, reporting capabilities, SSL inspection, and learning curve.
Service and Support: The service for Check Point NGFW has varying feedback, with certain customers appreciating its assistance and quick response, while others believe there is room for improvement. OPNsense boasts an exceptional community support network, although a few users encounter challenges in directly accessing support.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Check Point NGFW can be complex and challenging, especially for those who are unfamiliar with the product. It requires expertise and experience for certain configurations and migrations. The initial setup of OPNsense is described as straightforward and easy, even for clients without IT experience. It can be completed within a few hours, with slight variations depending on individual circumstances.
Pricing: The cost of setting up Check Point NGFW is deemed to be expensive, whereas OPNsense falls into the moderate range. Check Point provides flexible licensing choices, although some individuals find the procedure complex. OPNsense is a license-free open-source solution. In addition to the basic expenses, OPNsense requires additional costs for hardware, installation, and training.
ROI: Check Point NGFW provides cost savings, simplicity, and reliable security enforcement, resulting in a favorable return on investment. OPNsense achieves a return on investment in less than three months and eliminates recurring fees.
Comparison Results: Check Point NGFW is the preferred choice over OPNsense. Users appreciate its comprehensive security features, centralized management, and virtualization capabilities. It is known for its stability, ease of use, and scalability. Check Point NGFW is considered worth the price due to its superior security and reliability.
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"There are great templates, so you don't have to customize them if you don't want to. You do have the option to custom create some folders and some reports, however, with what is there, you don't really need to go through extra effort, as they already give you a lot of predefined views of reports and so forth."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"The product offers very good security."
"It is easy to use and performs very well."
"It blocks the vulnerabilities that can negatively impact us."
"All policies can be deployed and managed in a very simple way."
"Check Point's Quantum helps our clients in their overall cybersecurity practice."
"The Check Point API let me make 100 net rules in just 10 minutes, which saved us time."
"They have very good support. In critical scenarios, they provide us very quick solutions, are very well-trained, and have a good knowledge about the product. That is what we expect from them."
"We have between five and ten firewalls on-premises, and if we want to configure or push the same configuration to all of the firewalls, then the centralized management system is very helpful."
"I think the VSX has been the most valuable feature for us."
"Newer versions are much more stable."
"The most valuable feature for us is the VSX, the virtualization."
"We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience."
"URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me."
"The most valuable features of OPNsense are the GUI and frequent updates."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"The technical support is very good."
"It's open source."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"The graphic user interface is very good and it is user-friendly which makes the product easy-to-use."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"The firmware needs improvement because there are bugs when a new release comes through. Sometimes, the configuration changes, and it's a bit harder to see where the fail is. The first time that you have the firmware, it tends to have some issues, and it's better to wait a bit to update the equipment."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"The routing rules and some more network settings should be listed on the Check Point Smart Console instead of GAIA Web GUI."
"No product is perfect and there is always room for improvement."
"Unfortunately, as is the case with many big companies, new features seem to always be more important than fixing the last little bugs that affect only a minor customer base."
"Check Point should quickly update and expand its application database to have what Palo Alto has."
"It would be best if the security management server console access is simpler for ease of management."
"The tool is somewhat more expensive than its competitors."
"The level and availability of training should be improved."
"Potential improvements could be made around simplifying VPN functionality and configuration."
"While they do have paid options that actually gives better features, for most of the clients, if they tend to take a paid option will instead opt for Fortinet."
"The only thing that I would like to see improved is the Insight or the NetFlow analysis part. It would be good to have the possibility to dig down on the Insight platform. Right now, we can easily do only a few analyses. If this page becomes more powerful, it surely will be a well-adopted platform."
"I would like to see better SD-WAN performance."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"There is room for improvement in SSL inspection."
"The support for OPNsense is good because we have documents available on the internet. The support could improve a little."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"The IPS solution could be more reliable."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 277 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while OPNsense 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 OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and KerioControl. See our Check Point NGFW vs. OPNsense report.
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