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.
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"It is a safe product."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"Anti-Spam web content filterinG."
"The integration with Active Directory is one of the good features. Most of the customers are now looking for the Single Sign-on feature. So, being able to integrate Active Directory with the firewall is useful. It is also easy."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"Monitoring using SmartConsole and all its features is extremely easy, and I find SmartEvent an excellent monitoring tool for spotting threats and user behaviour."
"The Capsule solution and application filters are the most valuable. It is pretty straightforward to implement, and it also has good stability and scalability. Their technical support is also really good."
"The SSL spectrum proved to be the most valuable for our incoming connections."
"Check Point CloudGuard is quick to deploy and easy for the customer to use."
"When browsing, it scans sites to ensure that they are safe and that no harm can be caused."
"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."
"The security configuration features have enhanced the reliable coordination of programs and data safety."
"Moving into the cloud without having to change a lot of our internal processes and retrain staff is one of the biggest benefits of this solution."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"The solution is fairly scalable when it comes to integrating with other applications and data sets."
"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."
"What I found most valuable is the cost of the platform, the flexibility of the platform, and the fact that the ongoing fees are not there as they are with the competitor. Some people may think you're taking a risk with using Opensource. I think it just provides the end user, specifically for us small, medium business providers of services, the flexibility we need at the right cost to provide them a higher end, almost enterprise type service."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"It is effective. We have not had any problems."
"It needs to improve its ISP load balancing."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"Usually, we sell the bundle with the UTM or threat management piece with IPS, IDS. Other providers, such as Palo Alto, are ahead in terms of safe functionality. So, for me, delivering truly safe service is probably something that still needs to be improved."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"Improvements needed include better integration with Azure features to match on-premises capabilities."
"The initial deployment using the ARM template in Azure was straightforward, but migrating to Terraform added complexity, although we managed to make it work."
"Sometimes, if you aren't familiar with the solution, it can be a bit complex, but it does become easier to use with time. However, every time they launch a new version, it becomes more complex and you need to take time to get familiar with all the changes. For every version that they upgrade, you need to upskill yourself."
"There is room for improvement in the integration with PaaS services from the public cloud. It would be very helpful."
"The price of the solution could be reduced, it is expensive."
"We faced issues while upgrading our CloudGuard Network Gateway. When we tried to use the template that Check Point offers on their site, it was not available for the second to the latest version, so I was forced to upgrade my management server. That was very challenging for us."
"The memory and hard disk capability could be strengthened."
"Check Point Virtual Systems is a complete solution, but pricing can be better."
"The configuration of the solution is a bit difficult."
"If a user doesn't have a large amount of experience in Linux systems, they will have problems using this solution. Users need to be highly skilled in troubleshooting competency. Users who do not have such skills will find the product difficult to use."
"It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution."
"For the third-party packages, I'd rather have it built-in, like a core feature of pfSense, part of the core model."
"The access control aspect of the product could be improved."
"Their support could be better in terms of the response time."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"The GUI. There are TONS of plugins for pfSense, as such, if a user wants to add quite a bit of functionality, the GUI will feel a little congested."
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, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Cisco Secure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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