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 am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."
"The pricing is great and very reasonable."
"The GUI is good."
"It's super reliable. I don't think I've ever had a reliability issue with it."
"The pricing is excellent. It's much less expensive than Cisco."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"The ease of administration with the cloud management extension and the cloud licensing model is valuable."
"I like the firewall and the virtual machine. I also like that it's compatible with Amazon Web Services and Azure."
"When browsing, it scans sites to ensure that they are safe and that no harm can be caused."
"We are using gateways, and I appreciate the high-availability gateways they have. They stand out more than the competitors."
"The solution provides a centralized management console for easy administration and monitoring of security policies and events, making it easy for the security team."
"The solution is reliable."
"The most valuable feature of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is the ease of use. It was not difficult to learn."
"The most valuable features are the ease of administration with the cloud management extension and the cloud licensing model."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"We like the fact that the product is open-source. It's free to use. There are no costs associated with it."
"My company mainly works in the health and educational domain, schools and universities. I prevent the improper use of content from schools and universities. I defend the medical records for the patients in our hospitals. That is the main use case for me for the firewall."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"The documentation is very good."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"It's a good solution for end-users. It's pretty easy to work with."
"It is a stable solution. It is also easy to install and can be deployed and maintained by one team member."
"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."
"Its price could be better."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."
"We miss full blade support for all blades that are compatible with the cluster. Especially notable is the lack of support for Identity Awareness in active standby environments for customers. In our setup, transitioning to Connective clusters would be preferable for maintaining connections during failover situations."
"What I would like for future updates would be faster updates to apply, and perhaps a greater presence in the local language for the regions of Latin America."
"The initial setup is complex and could be made simpler."
"Check Point Virtual Systems is a complete solution, but pricing can be better."
"There is room for improvement in the integration with PaaS services from the public cloud. It would be very helpful."
"They can improve their security features to the next advanced level so that their efficiency in catching the malware can become 100%, and there is no scope for any data loss or leakage from the system due to any issue."
"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."
"The API integration is complex, which is an area that should be improved."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"I would like to see SD1 integration into the software. That would be fantastic."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"One concern I have with Netgate pfSense is related to packet filtering. Specifically, issues can arise with certain functionalities like GP, and, at times, there may be bugs."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"Reporting and real-time monitoring, since I'm used to Watchguard's reporting features, it would be nice to have an embedded solution for reporting."
"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."
"pfSense could improve by having a sandboxing feature that I have seen in SonicWall. However, maybe it is available I am not aware of it."
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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