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 bundled subscription, which is IPS, TV and web filtering."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."
"The performance is good."
"We have been able to offer several services to customers in a single box."
"The technical support is great."
"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."
"When browsing, it scans sites to ensure that they are safe and that no harm can be caused."
"Identity awareness, URL filtering, IDS, DLP, Content Filtering, VPN, and Application Control are all excellent."
"The most valuable feature for us is the simplicity of creating this environment. Even though our current cloud usage is limited, the process of setting up machines in the product and establishing an HR system was straightforward."
"It offers remarkable flexibility in how we configure and utilize the resources."
"The installation process doesn't take very long."
"The features of the solution which I have found most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's a fully scalable solution, from our perspective. We can define scaling groups and, based on the load, it will create new instances. It's truly a product which is oriented toward the cloud mindset, cloud agility, and this is a great feature."
"As per the solution's blade design, there are many options. For example, you have to buy a UTM blade and an advanced malware blade, etc. If the blade license is there, we can configure from the firewall GUI."
"Our clients choose CloudGuard as a natural progression of their solutions. They understand Microsoft and CloudGuard fits."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"It has a good web cache. I used to use a DHCP server and DNS server. For my company, I use pfSense as a load balancing application."
"The solution is fairly scalable when it comes to integrating with other applications and data sets."
"It is much simpler than other solutions such as Fortinet."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"The monitor and the visibility, in this proxy, is very weak."
"Fortinet could improve the windows opener or the virtual IP solutions for opening windows. The virtual IP settings need improvement as firewalls are trending in new development directions."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"The costs are high."
"The solution’s technical support, DNS security and training could be improved."
"The solution could improve to have a DLP feature."
"We did not use the AWS Transit Gateway, and that's one of the things that we're currently using. I believe we will be working with Check Point again, in the near future, to implement it, once they start having proper support for a single customer with multiple accounts. When we were using them, we had to install Check Point on each and every single account."
"At CPX, we heard that we can see all the things on the same platform. That is what we have been asking for, and hopefully, we are going to start seeing it this year."
"Check Point support, beyond CloudGuard, does need some improvement."
"In the past year, I noticed that the challenging part, especially in the cloud, is upgrading to the next release of the firewall. Unlike on-premise upgrades, it's not as simple in the cloud. You need to recreate the machine, which makes the process more complex."
"This application can be more integrated with web application firewalls. Better integrations would provide more granularity, which would be helpful for focusing on the application itself and preventing attacks. It would be good to include the cross-domain search. If you have multiple firewalls that are managed on the same platform and you want to check who is using some particular objects or where a specific ID is being used, it should provide an option for this kind of search instead of having to check one by one on each firewall."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"I tried pfSense, and it has a big issue with file system consistency, and this is what drove me to OPNsense. The file system stability is quite a big issue for us. We have a lot of outages related to power issues, and OPNsense is much more stable on this side."
"It needs to be more secure."
"pfSense is not user-friendly. I hope to have something to make the interfaces more user-friendly."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"For the third-party packages, I'd rather have it built-in, like a core feature of pfSense, part of the core model."
"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."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 117 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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