We performed a comparison between Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and pfSense 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 provides valuable features like VPN Blade, IPS Blade, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade. pfSense is appreciated for its capacity to block IP addresses, user-friendly dashboards, and open-source nature.
Check Point could enhance its support system, cluster creation on AWS, data protection visibility, DLP feature, user interface, integration with other security solutions, cost reduction, documentation, and on-prem deployment flexibility. pfSense could improve instructional videos, stability, mobile application, GUI usability, updates, threat handling, FIPs compliance, log analysis, VPN capacity, documentation, user-friendliness, configuration processes, and SD-WAN integration.
Service and Support: Some customers appreciate the technical support provided by Check Point, while others express dissatisfaction with response time and global support. pfSense's customer service garners both positive and negative reviews. Some users commend the technical support they receive, while others rely on community resources for assistance.
Ease of Deployment: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is praised for its easy, simple, and straightforward initial setup. Users find it interactive, user-friendly, and effortless to configure. However, it may require technical expertise and proper guidelines from customer support. pfSense is generally regarded as easy and straightforward to set up, with a simple installation process. The timeframe for completion varies from as little as 15 minutes to a few days, depending on the user's familiarity with firewall and network concepts.
Pricing: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is recognized for its high price, however, it provides strong security measures and good value. pfSense is an open-source option that offers reasonable pricing and no extra expenses. However, there is a lack of available information concerning the exact costs associated with pfSense's licensing.
ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security provides improved performance and benefits for organizations, resulting in a higher ROI range of 80% to 85%. pfSense is highly regarded for its cost-effectiveness and affordability, enabling substantial savings.
Comparison Results: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is the preferred option when compared to pfSense. Users find the initial setup of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security to be straightforward, and user-friendly. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers more valuable features including VPN, IPS, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade, which are highly appreciated for their compliance, intrusion protection, and productivity enhancement.
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."
"The web filtering feature and the intrusion protection system are the most valuable. It is a resilient appliance. I never had an issue with it in terms of any security breaches."
"The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"Check Point CloudGuard technical support is good."
"The scalability is very good; again, very user-friendly. I wouldn't even say "user-friendly" because, as long as you deploy it properly, you can kill an EC2 and it will spin up another one right away, within about a minute and a half. And it will be ready for production right away."
"Customers appreciate the CME plugin for automatically understanding assets within the cloud. This information appears in the manager, allowing users to tag the assets and adjust policies and rules accordingly."
"Its blades and VSLS (Virtual System Load Sharing) work fine."
"Identity awareness, URL filtering, IDS, DLP, Content Filtering, VPN, and Application Control are all excellent."
"A unique architecture makes this product stand out from other solutions."
"Any kind of cloud environment anywhere can be protected through this effortlessly."
"Additionally, the centralized reporting and management, accessible through a single pane of glass, offer consistency and efficiency across multi-cloud environments."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"I use pfSense because it gives me the flexibility to greatly expand basic firewall features."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"I am happy with the EPLS, the radius, and I am happy with the captive portal."
"It is effective. We have not had any problems."
"Is good at blocking IP addresses."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"Monitoring and reporting could be better."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"I would like to see a more intuitive dashboard."
"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."
"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"I haven't used CloudGuard Network Security in the past couple of years as I moved out of the network security role. However, based on my previous experience, there were improvements, especially in in-place upgrades. Regarding cost, it might be potentially cheaper considering resource utilization in Azure and VM costs, but licensing could be improved, possibly moving towards a simpler model."
"CloudGuard Network Security could be improved in the area of upgrading in place."
"The solution lacks the capability to scale effectively."
"Regarding CloudGuard Network Security's integration with various resources like application gateways and application-based security groups, there's room for exploring dynamic access in those areas. A significant concern is the upgrade process. Unlike an in-place upgrade, upgrading the tool in Azure requires deploying a new resource, which can be hectic and less reliable. We have to spend something new to have the tool's latest version."
"Check Point CloudGuard is not a feature-centric product because Check Point concentrates on security."
"The biggest room for improvement is that, for a long time now, they've moved everything over to R80 but they still maintain some of the stuff in the old dashboard. They need to "buy in" and move everything to the modern dashboard so that you don't have to go to one place and to another place, at times, to configure the environment. It's time they just finish what they started and put everything in the new, modern dashboard."
"There is room for improvement in addressing bugs and support issues."
"Its architecture and user interface need improvement. The user experience for this solution also needs to be improved, particularly in implementation, management, and operations."
"A malware blocker should be included. I do not know if it is included yet. However, until now, we have not experienced a large malware invasion."
"There is more demand for UTMs than a simple firewall. pfSense should support real-time features for handling the latest viruses and threats. It should support real-time checks and real-time status of threats. Some other vendors, such as Fortinet, already offer this type of capability. Such capability will be good for bringing pfSense at the same level as other solutions."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 119 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is rated 8.6, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security writes "The solution has good threat emulation, threat extraction, and reporting features". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is most compared with Azure Firewall, VMware NSX, Cisco Secure Firewall, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation and Cisco Secure Workload, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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