We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The main difference between these two products is that Check Point users feel that the tool’s VPN is hard to integrate. In addition, Check Point does not have an open-source version like pfSense does.
"It is a safe product."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"The Fortinet FortiGate local partners were good. I did not have direct contact with Fortinet support."
"Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"The Identity-Based Inspection Control gives us the ability to leverage the organization’s Microsoft AD, LDAP, RADIUS, and Cisco pxGrid."
"It's quite a stable solution."
"The solution is easy to use. I like the monitoring the most."
"The firewall rule writing and object creation are the best and simplest I've seen on a firewall."
"We can define security policies based on a variety of criteria, including user identity, application, and content type."
"There is modern protection against current threats."
"Everything is easily managed through their Smart Console dashboard. It's a very easy-to-understand dashboard that provides a detailed view."
"The solution is scalable."
"Firewall system for small, medium, and large data networks. It allows you to provide security to your environment: DMZ networks, LAN, WAN, etc."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."
"At our peak time, we have reached more than 5,000 concurrent connections."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"I have found pfSense to be stable."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."
"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."
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"This product has room for improvement in technical support for Africa."
"To enhance the user experience, Check Point should consider adopting an incremental upgrade approach, similar to competitors like Palo Alto or Fortinet, as it would help minimize downtime and streamline the upgrade process, making it more efficient and user-friendly."
"There needs to be a Mac version of the Smart Console."
"Initially, we faced a few challenges with firmware. Later this was addressed with jumbo hotfixes."
"There is no email security."
"I'd like to see more use of applications and URLs in security policies moving forwards."
"The support team should be faster."
"The naming in the inline layers and ordered layers needs improvement. It makes things very complicated. I've seen quite a lot of people saying that. For audit policies, it is okay since it's very simple to see. However, this area is for very large organizations, which have too many policies, and they need to share all these policies. For small to medium-sized businesses, they don't need it. Even if somebody has 500 rules, if they try to use it, it can be very confusing."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"Needs services on additional features, such as managing inventory and generating reports."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"It should integrate with LDAP, Active Directory, etc, to improve the way in which the traces and connections of each IP, or user connected through the firewall, are shown."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"They can improve the dynamic of the input of IPs from outside."
"We are at the moment looking to use it as a proxy service so that we can limit what websites people go and view and that sort of thing. That's an area I've struggled with a little bit at the moment and it could be a bit easier to set up."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Check Point NGFW writes "Good antivirus protection and URL filtering with very good user identification capabilities". 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 NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Azure Firewall and OPNsense, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Stormshield Network Security. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.