We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW 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 NGFW is praised for its extensive security features, centralized management, and virtualization capabilities. Fortinet FortiGate-VM receives appreciation for its stability, reliability, and user-friendly interface.
Check Point NGFW needs enhancements in integration, hardware upgrades, cost and pricing, stability and security, setup process, load balancing capabilities, technical support, and reporting. Fortinet FortiGate-VM requires improvements in key activation, log management, cloud management, IPsec failover, monitoring tool, setup and configuration, performance, firmware updates, log settings, GUI capabilities, costs, technical support, and integration.
Service and Support: The customer service for Check Point NGFW has garnered varying opinions, with some customers appreciating its helpfulness and responsiveness, while others believe there is room for improvement. Fortinet FortiGate-VM's support has received a mix of feedback. Certain customers commend its prompt response times and expertise, while others highlight concerns regarding delayed responses.
Ease of Deployment: Check Point NGFW's initial setup can be complex and may require expertise and experience for certain configurations and migrations. Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers a generally straightforward and easy setup process, aided by Fortinet's support and assistance.
Pricing: Check Point NGFW has a high setup cost, yet offers flexible licensing options. Fortinet FortiGate-VM has competitive pricing and includes support without extra charges.
ROI: Check Point NGFW provides cost savings, simplicity, and strong security enforcement, resulting in a favorable ROI. Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers stability and enhanced security, guaranteeing a positive ROI when purchased initially.
Comparison Results: Check Point NGFW is the preferred choice when comparing it to Fortinet FortiGate-VM. Check Point NGFW stands out for its extensive security features, such as URL filtering, intrusion prevention systems, identity and access management, and application control capabilities. Additionally, it offers centralized management and virtualization options, as well as stability, user-friendliness, and scalability.
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"The security on offer is very good."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"A strong point of FortiGate is the graphical interface is complete and easy to use."
"Configuration and deploying are easy."
"The dashboard provides a quick overview of the security status, including key metrics, alerts, and recent events."
"Check Point has a centralized console that makes it possible to manage all the deployed equipment. It also has a built-in VPN service that lets users connect through VPN to our organization, which facilitates teleworking while cutting off unauthorized access to the organization's internal network."
"Check Point NGFW provides a bunch of different products or Blades, as they call it in Check Point. The firewall engine is what we use the most but we also use the IPS IDS and Anti-Bot features. The solution provides many features."
"It has allowed us to grow in a safe way and in accordance with our particular needs."
"It is user-friendly and straightforward to manage, which simplifies our overall network security management."
"Its most significant strength lies in its superior threat detection engines."
"It provides end-to-end resolution."
"It’s easy to integrate the solution with our network infrastructure."
"The IPS module is my favorite because of the security advantage reached with a few clicks and its automatic updates."
"In terms of specific features, I like FortiGate's load balancing, interface, and priority on the network."
"One top feature is the ability to use the appliance as a WLAN controller for up to 10 access points with the new 5.6 firmware."
"It provides an ease of management and configuration as well."
"The VM it's very quick for deployment. If we need to have a POC for a customer, if we don't have any hardware physically at our premises, at our store, in our office, we can download the VM from Fortinet and install all the VM to their environment in order to run it. If we have a customer that says "let's start tomorrow" we are able to do that in a way that's not possible with a hardware version."
"I find the simplicity to be most valuable."
"The initial setup was quite straightforward."
"Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers."
"The initial setup is complex."
"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."
"With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic."
"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."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."
"A lack of integration between our data centers."
"It's my understanding that the initial setup is a bit complex. There's a bit of a learning curve if you're trying to set it up for the first time and you aren't familiar with the product."
"It would be ideal to manage everything from one central place."
"All the advanced features of automation, especially the first installation of tunnels, need improvement."
"With the increase of volume of traffic, the required resource/hardware to properly run goes up. Therefore, the hardware engineering to architecture flow has to be more efficient."
"The firewall can improved to make it more user-friendly."
"The pricing for the Check Point products should be reconsidered - we found it to be quite expensive to purchase, and to maintain (the licenses and the support services need to be prolonged regularly)."
"The management of memory in the hardware needs to improve. They have had a lot of issues with memory leakage."
"The biggest improvement they could make is having one software to install on all three levels of their products, so that the SMBs, the normal models, and the chassis would all run the same software. Now, while there is central management, everything that has to be configured on the gateway itself works differently on the three kinds of devices."
"I have had a data issue with physical devices that could improve."
"Right now, we have two data centers that are a thousand kilometers apart. It would be nice to be able to string them together."
"The tool is expensive."
"In the next releases, it would be nice to see central cloud management."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"The scalability feature of the solution has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Areas for improvement would be application control and web filtering."
"We are experiencing a failed login issue. There should also be improvements in functionalities we store to enhance our services."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM 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-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". 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-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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