We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and Fortinet Fortigate based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet’s lack of an option to deploy firewalls on multiple endpoints is a definite downside. Although Fortinet received better feedback for its support, Check Point is the winner in this comparison.
"The management interface is easy to operate and is a standardized way of managing different firewall modules in the same client application."
"We are delighted with the powerful management console and diagnostic tools."
"It offers a range of models to enhance network security and it can be customized to secure endpoint client machines or user devices by deploying features like malware detection, antivirus, and mail security blades."
"Check Point NGFW has helped the company in the prevention of cyber attacks that could affect operations and slow down production."
"The Network Address Translation (NAT) will always be a valuable feature as it allows me to turn my private cloud to the public at the click of a button and have secure control over the accessible servers/applications."
"The software upgrade procedure is very easy; it just needs few clicks & we are done."
"Check Point has given us the ability to comply with regulations and with capacities in a way that we never could before."
"The scalability is very good."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."
"One of the valuable features is a standardized OS."
"Virtual Domains (VDOMs) are a feature that we found valuable."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"The only thing which I think should be improved is that training should be increased. In my position I also interview potential employees and I haven't found many people in the market, nowadays, who are familiar with the Check Point firewall. They are more familiar with Palo Alto and Cisco ASA and they are more comfortable with them."
"No product is perfect and there is always room for improvement."
"The training for Check Point Firewall should increase, including the number of Training Centers. For most new people in our organization, we have to provide them training from our end, as they are not trained in Check Point Firewalls. So, we have to do the training, from our point of view, to make our engineers able to use Check Point Firewalls. However, with other firewalls, they are already trained, so we are not require to provide them training. This could be improved by the Check Point Community."
"The anti-spam needs improvement."
"For the next release, we would like to have better ruleset cleanup tools that are already included."
"The tool is somewhat more expensive than its competitors."
"There is no email security."
"The smart console is heavy."
"There are some problems that support cannot give you a logical reason as to why it happened. For example, I had a case where I was dealing with a WhatsApp application that was giving issues. Technical support gave more than one reason it could be giving issues, but none of them solved the problem. Eventually I solved the problem, but it was far from the solutions that support had given."
"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"One of the problems I was having was with user mapping, and it is an issue for which I have escalated tickets with Fortinet support."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"Some of the software stability could improve."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4. 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 Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and Azure Firewall, whereas Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and SonicWall TZ. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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First of all, Check Point checks the rules to be configured before installing them in the firewall and this prevents the user from making mistakes and putting the company at risk.
Check Point is no longer expensive. It has many models and competes in performance and price vs. Fortinet.
Now web interfaces, like Fortinet, may have more bugs per top 10 OWASP.
We are using both but the GUI and clustering on the FortiGate side look better/easier/more comfortable.
And I do agree with others - Check Point is expensive and Fortinet FortiGate has many models offering less expensive implementation.
I have experience on both from Disti and channel experience. Please find below my comments (nothing new as such).
-Check Point GUI is a bit complicated,
-Application and Web filtering are better than Fortigate.
-IPS and AV are more effective than Fortigate. Overall more stable than any other firewall
Support: not up to the level like Fortigate and lack of trained resources (in the gulf).
Check Point is expensive.
Fortinet has many models and is more affordable than Check Point. It also provides outstanding support. GUI is more user-friendly.
We had this same discussion recently with my organization. It came down to the security of the platform.
Fortinet has had a number of breaches over the last 2 years and this was a key factor in our decision.
The challenge with Check Point will be the transition from our existing firewall and taking advantage of the various features across our organization.