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 technical support in our region is excellent."
"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"The network security and cloud security are most valuable."
"Check Point CloudGuard technical support is good."
"The solution is reliable."
"The program is very stable."
"Additionally, the centralized reporting and management, accessible through a single pane of glass, offer consistency and efficiency across multi-cloud environments."
"I like the tool's ability to manage cloud traffic locally without routing it through our data centers."
"The main benefit of the Check Point Virtual Systems solution is its ability to split up the hardware appliances that we have into several logical, virtual devices with separate traffic handling policies, as well as the switching and routing."
"One of the main characteristics that Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has given us is granularity and visibility."
"The feature most valuable to me is the NDTX blade that Check Point provides, and I like how the solution is not vulnerable."
"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."
"Its reliability and cost-effectiveness stand out."
"The initial setup is easy."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"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."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The ability to create a VPN allows me to monitor branch offices from a central location."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"Fortinet already improved FortiGate, but in the current market, many brands of security devices have improved together. Fortinet still needs to catch up with market standards. Fortinet is lacking in features in comparison to competitors."
"The initial setup is complex."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"The feedback that I have received is that the performance could be better, and the user experience is not as good compared to a previous solution we used. It could be more user-friendly. Of course, it still works fine for our operations."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"The Web-filter in this solution is not very good."
"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could improve by making it easier to configure."
"The solution could improve to have a DLP feature."
"The business and product development team should introduce a high-end feedback collection mechanism and analyze the customer requirements constructively."
"While Check Point does offer some VWAN offerings, they appear to be more static and less tailored to cloud-native environments compared to Palo Alto's dynamic and flexible approach."
"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."
"At the cost level, the solution is somewhat expensive."
"The connection to the on-premises management requires using the CLI. It's not just a click, and you cannot edit in the management to prepare everything. You need to do it online and in real time. After that, you must execute a script, and then you should be happy that it appears in the management."
"I hope that Check Point continues to improve its technical documentation regarding the Check Point CloudGuard IaaS gateway and management system."
"If you want to take advantage of all of the solution's options, you need to have a bit of a technical background. It's not for a layperson."
"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."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"The integration could be improved."
"pfSense has some limitations in detecting site sessions. We want to control internet usage based on sites and their content, and pfSense doesn't perform this function."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
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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