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.
"It has improved our organization with control data."
"It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."
"The ability to set up remote systems is the most valuable feature."
"I find it really useful that CloudGuard supports all the main players on the Public Clouds market including AWS, GCP, and Azure, as well as some exotic ones like Alibaba Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and IBM Cloud."
"The most valuable features are the ease of administration with the cloud management extension and the cloud licensing model."
"One of the main characteristics that Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has given us is granularity and visibility."
"The most valuable feature for us is the ability to run the gateways as virtual machines in our virtual data center. The tool protects the virtual data centers."
"The tool's most valuable features are IPS and blades. These features are valuable for security."
"The product gives analytic reports."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"The ease of administration with the cloud management extension and the cloud licensing model is valuable."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"The tools' most valuable feature is load balancing."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"A valuable feature is that the solution is open source."
"Technical support is perfect, excellent."
"There are problems with the custom reporting of the unique traffic. The data is there, but it is too difficult for us to extract."
"The performance could be a bit better. Right now, I find it to be lacking. Having good performance is very important for our work."
"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"I think the only issue that needs improvement is the interface."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. However, my issue is the performance only. When I use all the profiles, this affects the performance. From the beginning, I should have had a better sizing of the box."
"Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud."
"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."
"Check Point has a history of moving fast with software release and upgrade cycles which are difficult to keep up with at times."
"The management console can be simplified because at the moment, it is a bit of a challenge to use."
"The operations require skilled manpower with extended experience of working with networking systems for better results."
"There is room for improvement, especially concerning the integration with the management center. It would be beneficial if tasks that currently require scripts could be performed directly from the GUI."
"With the incorporation of a lot of AI and machine learning, they can build some sort of a matrix for low-level threats or low-level things that require attention. There can be automation of those tasks so that we don't have to take more time and effort. There should be machine learning to eliminate level-one types of tasks."
"It's meeting our needs at this time. If I could make it better, it would be by making it more standalone. That would be beneficial to us. I say that because our current platform for virtualization is VMware. The issue isn't any fault of Check Point, it's more how the virtualization platform partners allow for that partnership and integration. There has to be close ties and partnerships between the vendors to ensure interoperability and sup-portability. There is only so far that Check Point, or any security vendor technology can go without the partnership and enablement of the virtualization platform vendor as it relies on "Service Insertion" to maintain optimal performance."
"The costs are high."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
"The usage reports can be better."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"I believe improving integration with various antivirus vendors could be beneficial."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"I would like to see multiple DNS servers running on individual interfaces."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 112 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, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Cisco Secure Workload, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, Cisco Secure Firewall and KerioControl. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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