We performed a comparison between Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and Cisco Secure Firewall 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 useful features including VPN Blade, IPS Blade, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade. Cisco Secure Firewall offers features such as threat defense, dashboard visibility, and application visibility and control.
For the Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, users suggest enhancing their support system, adding features like cluster creation on AWS and a managed web portal. They also recommend providing more visibility on data protection and improving documentation and support services. As for Cisco Secure Firewall, improvements are needed in network performance, policy administration, customization options, web filtering, user-friendly management interface, performance for IPS, and functionality in public clouds.
Service and Support: While some customers have praised the technical support of Check Point, others have faced response delays. Cisco Secure Firewall's customer service has garnered mixed review. Some customers appreciate the immediate solutions provided by their technical support, while others have mentioned delays and difficulties, particularly with Firepower.
Ease of Deployment: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is generally considered easy and user-friendly for setup. However, it can be complex for some users and may require technical expertise. The deployment time varies depending on the number of customers or websites. Cisco Secure Firewall's initial setup reviews are mixed. Some find it difficult, while others find it straightforward. Cisco offers resources and documentation for assistance, yet the complexity can vary depending on the user's experience.
Pricing: The cost of setting up Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is perceived as high by most. There are, however, flexible pricing options with various discount models. Opinions on the pricing of Cisco Secure Firewall differ, with some finding it expensive and others considering it moderate.
ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security consistently delivers a strong ROI of 80% to 85%, offering improved advantages and simplified administration. Cisco Secure Firewall exhibits fluctuating ROI, with some positive returns observed.
Comparison Results: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is the preferred choice when compared to Cisco Secure Firewall. Users find the initial setup of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security to be easy, straightforward, and user-friendly. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is highly praised for its valuable features such as VPN Blade, IPS Blade, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade.
"You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall."
"The solution is scalable."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiGate is good."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"A strong point of FortiGate is that the graphical interface is complete and easy to use, especially if we think there is a list of operations that we are able to perform inside."
"It is a good-to-use tool that is also flexible."
"The feature most valuable to me is the NDTX blade that Check Point provides, and I like how the solution is not vulnerable."
"The Identity Awareness blade and dynamic tagging in Azure are valuable because they make access management automatic. Instead of manually setting up access for each new resource, it happens automatically based on the same access policy. This dynamic setup is scalable."
"This solution has good scalability and stability."
"Now, we can filter which websites users can access and block categories that are a risk. For example, we can block social media and gambling sites. This has helped to decrease the risk of access to malicious content on the internet."
"The notifications, the visibility, and the deployment are the most valuable. It could be packaged in such a way that it took a lot of time and resources off our hands, so it was more efficient."
"The solution helps protect network security by offering threat prevention, addressing vulnerabilities, and utilizing blades."
"The solution is easier to manage than an on-premise firewall. It is easy to manage. The use of dynamic objects for these gateways made it easy to create the right rules and the right policies. Integration with Azure is also easy where we have to just add the subnets. In an on-premise setup, we have to add everything from scratch. We can automate a lot of actions."
"Cisco ASA has an okay CLI with a nice GUI."
"The ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager) which is the graphical user interface, works out, and Cisco keeps it current."
"The firepower sensors have been great; they do a good job of dropping unwanted traffic."
"What I like about Cisco is the security zone. By default when you configure it, it gives you a security zone, which other firewalls don't have."
"The Adversity Malware Protection (AMP) feature is the most valuable. It is also very easy to use. Every technical user can operate this solution without any difficulty. The dashboard of Cisco Firepower has every tool that a security operator needs. You can find every resource that you need to operate through this dashboard."
"Firepower NGFW has improved my organization in several ways. Before, we were trying to stamp out security threats and issues, it was a one-off type of way to attack it. I spent a lot of manpower trying to track down the individual issues or flare-ups that we would see. With Cisco's Firepower Management, we're able to have that push up to basically one monitor and one UI and be able to track that and stop threats immediately. It also gives us a little more granularity on what those threats might be."
"Cisco ASA Firewall is a well known product. They're always updating it, and you know what they're doing and that it works."
"I haven't had any major problems so I haven't had to open a ticket with technical support."
"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."
"It would be nice if backups could more easily migrate between different models."
"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."
"It could use better throughput on some of the smaller boxes for the branch offices."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license. There must be some of kind synergy between the license so we don't have to pay for every individual license that we would like to have."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"The product needs to improve support. They don't consider my case the number one priority even though I want a quick resolution."
"As an administrator, I can say that among all of the Check Point products I have been working with so far, the Virtual Systems solution is one of the most difficult."
"The biggest room for improvement is that, for a long time now, they've moved everything over to R80 but they still maintain some of the stuff in the old dashboard. They need to "buy in" and move everything to the modern dashboard so that you don't have to go to one place and to another place, at times, to configure the environment. It's time they just finish what they started and put everything in the new, modern dashboard."
"The networking system updates, when delayed, can lead to misconfigurations and data loss."
"It is a very expensive program and there are additional costs despite the standard licensing fees."
"Our biggest complaint concerns the high resource usage for IDP/IPS, as we cannot turn on all of the features even with new hardware."
"Check Point Virtual Systems is a complete solution, but pricing can be better."
"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."
"It could also use a reporting dashboard."
"It should have packets, deep level inspections and controls, like the features which other IPS solutions used to have."
"The change-deployment time can always be improved. Even at 50 seconds, it's longer than some of its competitors. I would challenge Cisco to continue to improve in that area."
"I would like it to be easier to work with and have a better user interface. It is not straightforward. You need to know the Cisco command-line interface."
"At times the product is sluggish and slow"
"The access layer of this solution could be improved in terms of the way the devices interconnect with our network. We need to be able to analyze the traffic between the different interconnection in these areas."
"It's lacking one feature: VPN. Also, the 2100 Series lacks a DDoS feature. If they could add that to those platforms, that would be good."
"Most of the features don't work well, and some features are missing as well."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 119 reviews while Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is rated 8.6, while Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2. 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 Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is most compared with Azure Firewall, VMware NSX, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Illumio, whereas Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Firewall report.
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