Check Point NGFW vs Cisco Secure Firewall comparison

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Fortinet Logo
123,063 views|89,961 comparisons
90% willing to recommend
Check Point Software Technologies Logo
27,863 views|17,209 comparisons
96% willing to recommend
Cisco Logo
58,582 views|32,836 comparisons
83% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Nov 23, 2022

We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW 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.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users of both solutions agree that their initial setup is straightforward.
  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability.

    Check Point users like its central management, and say it is flexible and has good security features. Some users note that its VPN tool is complex to integrate.

    Cisco Secure users say it has good VPN and reporting features and provides very good application visibility and control. Several users mention that its interface can be a bit overwhelming.

  • Pricing: Most Check Point users feel that it is fairly priced. Cisco Secure users feel that it is an expensive product.
  • ROI: Users of both solutions report being satisfied with the ROI.
  • Service and Support: Some Check Point users feel that the support should improve. Cisco Secure users report being very satisfied with the level of support they receive.

Comparison Results: Check Point users are happier with its VPN and with its pricing. However, Cisco Secure users are happier with its service and support.

To learn more, read our detailed Check Point NGFW vs. Cisco Secure Firewall Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The GUI is good.""Provides good firewall security and has great VPN features.""We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website.""Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this.""The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well.""The technical support is great.""What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain.""The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."

More Fortinet FortiGate Pros →

"The management interface is easy to operate and is a standardized way of managing different firewall modules in the same client application.""The event logs are relatively informative and can provide information on why traffic was accepted or rejected.""There are also additional features, compared to a Layer 4 or Layer 3 firewall, such as AV signatures and devices, which are very helpful for securing the company's network.""One of the most valuable features is performance improvement, wherewith ClusterXL and CoreXL, you can improve performance.""It is user-friendly and straightforward to manage, which simplifies our overall network security management.""We use Check Point to complete the network compliance rules.""The solution is scalable.""One of the benefits that we have realized from using this product is that the user interface makes it easier to operate, compared to using the CLI."

More Check Point NGFW Pros →

"Firepower has been used for quite a few enterprise clients. Most of our clients are Fortune 500 and Firepower is used to improve their end to end firewall functionality.""I like that it is easy to change the settings.""IPSec Tunnel and AnyConnect (of course), the context awareness was a good feature, but clumsy at the beginning. I think it's better now.""The most valuable feature of the Firepower solution is FireSIGHT, which can be easily managed and is user-friendly.""The return on investment is not going to be restricted to just the box... Now, these genres have been expanded to cyber, to third-party integrations, having integrated logging, having integrated micro and macro segmentations. The scope has been widened, so the ROI, eventually, has multiplied.""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 primary benefits of using Cisco Secure solutions are time-saving, a robust API, and convenience for the security team.""Cisco ASA provides us with very good application visibility and control."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Pros →

Cons
"It would be good if they had fewer updates.""The customization could be improved. Cisco, for example, is much better at this. They need to work to be at least as good as they are.""Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data.""The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training.""They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired.""It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco.""Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved.""We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cons →

"The whole solution has room for improvement.""When you want to open the gateway by double-clicking on the interface, sometimes it can cause silly problems such as freezing.""Geo-blocking would be very useful. There are too many attempts to infiltrate by non-country users. I can block access by IP address or IP network, however, a country-level blocking would be more useful and much quicker to implement.""The speed of technical support is very slow and is something that should be improved.""This product has room for improvement in technical support for Africa.""I still don't have access to the reporting service.""When installed on Windows, the system with low storage space slows down.""One of the most complicated aspects is the VPN Configuration, which should be simplified in future releases."

More Check Point NGFW Cons →

"Implementations require the use of a console. It would help if the console was embedded.""The ASA needs to incorporate the different modules you have to integrate to achieve UTM functions, especially for small businesses.""It is surprising that you need to have a virtual appliance for the Firepower Management Center. It is not good if you have to setup a VMware server just for it.""FirePOWER does a good job when it comes to providing us with visibility into threats, but I would like to see a more proactive stance to it.""We use the FTD management platform for the boxes. The GUI that manages multiple Firepower boxes could be improved so that the user experience is better.""I'm working on a slightly older version, but what it needs is a better alert management. It's pretty standard, but there's no real advanced features involved around it.""We only have an issue with time sync with Cisco ASA and NTP. If the time is out of sync, it will be a disaster for the failover.""There is room for improvement in the stability or software quality of the product. There were a few things in the past where we had a little bit of a problem with the product, so there is room for improvement."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."
  • "These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive. Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco."
  • "Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
  • "Work through partners for the best pricing."
  • "The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
  • "Easy to understand licensing requirements."
  • "​We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW.​"
  • "The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I don't think the product's pricing is a good value. I feel it's very overpriced. I feel a lot of the features for a next gen firewall are there. But I feel it's overpriced, because of the stability issues. As far as support goes, I really can't speak to direct Check Point support, but the third-party was pretty terrible... As far as the licensing goes, it's pretty complex. If anybody was to purchase the Check Point product, definitely make sure they have an account rep come on site, and explain it line by line, what each thing is. It's not straightforward. It's very convoluted. There's no way you could just figure it out by looking at it."
  • "Check Point solutions are very expensive here. They're good, but they're expensive... Check Point is only useful for customers that have a big IT budget."
  • "The price is high in comparison to other solutions."
  • "We pay $5,000-$6,000 a year."
  • "Maybe the pricing is a bit high but you get the durability and the duration."
  • "Licensing issues may be confusing at times."
  • "It is quite an expensive product, although security is a top priority."
  • "This product is not cheap and there are additional costs that depend on what model or package that you buy."
  • More Check Point NGFW Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Always plan ahead for three years. In other words, do not buy a firewall on what your needs are today, but try to predict where you will be three years from now in terms of bandwidth, security requirements, and changes in organizational design."
  • "I have to admit that the price is high. But I think it's worth it if the stability of your solution counts for you."
  • "It has a great performance-to-price value, compared to competitive solutions."
  • "Spec the right hardware model and choose the right license for your needs."
  • "Everything with Cisco is expensive. My advice is that there are a lot better options out in the market now."
  • "To discuss with Cisco Systems or their partners to gain the optimal price and to not consider, without verifying, the false information that Cisco ASA is very expensive."
  • "Cisco devices are for sure costly and budget could be an important constrain on selecting them as our security solution."
  • "​Price point is too high for features and throughput available.​"
  • More Cisco Secure Firewall Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning the management options: How to add and rename objects. How to update a device. How to find log entries. Etc. Cisco ASA Fast Management Suite: The ASDM GUI is really fast. You do not have to wait for the next window if you click on a certain button. It simply appears directly. On the Palo, each entry to add, e.g., an application inside a security rule, takes a few seconds. Better “Preview CLI Commands”: I am always checking the CLI commands before I send them to the firewall. On the Cisco ASA, they are quite easy to understand. I know, Palo Alto also offers the “Preview Changes”, but it takes a bit more time to recognize all XML paths. Better CLI Commands at all: For Cisco admins it is very easy to parse a “show run” and to paste some commands into another device. This is not that easy on a Palo Alto firewall. First, you must change the config-output format, and second, you cannot simply paste many lines into another device, since the ordering of these lines is NOT correct by default. That is, it simply doesn’t work. ACL Hit Count: I like the hit counts per access list entry in the GUI. It quickly reveals which entries are used very often and which ones are never used. On the… Read more →
    Questions from the Community
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    Top Answer:Azure Firewall is easy to use and provides excellent support. Valuable features include integration into the overall… more »
    Top Answer:Check Point NGFW provides essential security, featuring no-obligation access for secure connections, strong intrusion… more »
    Top Answer:One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. Fortinet… more »
    Top Answer:It is easy to integrate Cisco ASA with other Cisco products and also other NAC solutions. When you understand the Cisco… more »
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    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
    Check Point NG Firewall, Check Point Next Generation Firewall
    Cisco ASA Firewall, Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Cisco ASA, Adaptive Security Appliance, ASA, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

    Check Point NGFW is a next generation firewall that enables safe usage of internet applications by blocking malicious applications and unblocking safe applications. Check Point NGFW, which uses deep packet inspection to identify and control applications, has features such as application and user control and integrated intrusion prevention (IPS), as well as more advanced malware prevention capabilities like sandboxing.

    Check Point NGFW includes 23 firewall models optimized for running all threat prevention technologies simultaneously, including full SSL traffic inspection, without compromising on security or performance.

    Benefits of Check Point's Next Generation Firewall

    • Robust security: Check Point NGFW delivers the best possible threat prevention with SandBlast Zero Day protection. The SandBlast protection agent constantly inspects passing network traffic for exploits and vulnerabilities. Suspicious files are then emulated in a virtual sandbox in order to detect and report malicious behavior.

    • Security at hyperscale: On-demand hyperscale threat prevention performance provides cloud level expansion and resiliency on premises.

    • Unified management: Check Point's SmartConsole makes it easy to manage and configure network security environments and policies. With the SmartConsole, users can manage all the firewall gateways and access logs and install databases from one location. Unified management control across the network increases the efficiency of security operations and reduces IT costs.
    • Continuous logging: Check Point NGFW’s Threat Management feature detects vulnerabilities and logs them. Using the logged data, users can easily create and implement efficient security policies.

    • Remote access: The remote access VPN provides a seamless connection for remote users.

    Check Point NGFW is suitable for organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to larger enterprises.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Check Point NGFW stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its intrusion prevention feature as well as its centralized management, which makes it very easy to deploy firewall policies to many firewalls with one click.

    Shivani J., a network security administrator, writes, "Check Point has a lot of features. The ones I love are the antivirus, intrusion prevention, and data loss prevention."

    G., a network administrator at Secretaría de Finanzas de Aguascalientes, writes, “Within the organization, the inspection of packages has given us great help in detecting traffic that may be a threat to the institution. The configuration of policies has allowed us to maintain control of access and users for each institution that is incorporated into our headquarters.”

    Arun J., a senior network engineer, notes, “The nicest feature is the centralized management of multiple firewalls. With the centralized management, we can easily use and operate multiple firewalls as well as create a diagram of them.”

    Cisco Secure Firewall stands as a robust and adaptable security solution, catering to organizations of all sizes. It's designed to shield networks from a diverse array of cyber threats, such as ransomware, malware, and phishing attacks. Beyond mere protection, it also offers secure access to corporate resources, beneficial for employees, partners, and customers alike. One of its key functions includes network segmentation, which serves to isolate critical assets and minimize the risk of lateral movement within the network.

    The core features of Cisco Secure Firewall are multifaceted:

    • Advanced threat protection is achieved through a combination of intrusion prevention, malware detection, and URL filtering technologies.
    • For secure access, the firewall presents multiple options, including VPN, remote access, and single sign-on.
    • Its network segmentation capability is vital in creating barriers within the network to safeguard critical assets.
    • The firewall is scalable, effectively serving small businesses to large enterprises.
    • Management is streamlined through Cisco DNA Center, a central management system.

    The benefits of deploying Cisco Secure Firewall are substantial. It significantly reduces the risk of cyberattacks, thereby enhancing the security posture of an organization. This security also translates into increased productivity, as secure access means uninterrupted work. Compliance with industry regulations is another advantage, as secure access and network segmentation align with many regulatory standards. Additionally, it helps in reducing IT costs by automating security tasks and simplifying management processes.

    In practical scenarios, Cisco Secure Firewall finds diverse applications. It's instrumental in protecting branch offices from cyberattacks, securing remote access for various stakeholders, safeguarding cloud workloads, and segmenting networks to isolate sensitive areas.

    User reviews from PeerSpot reflect an overall positive experience with the Cisco Secure Firewall. Users appreciate its ease of configuration, good management capabilities, robust protection, user-friendly interface, and scalability. However, some areas for improvement include better integration capabilities with other vendors, maturity, control over bandwidth for end-users, and addressing software bugs.

    In summary, Cisco Secure Firewall is a comprehensive, versatile, and reliable security solution that effectively meets the security needs of various organizations. It offers a balance of advanced protection, user-friendly management, and scalability, making it a valuable asset in the realm of network security.

    Sample Customers
    1. Amazon Web Services 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Cisco 5. Dell 6. HP 7. Oracle 8. Verizon 9. AT&T 10. T-Mobile 11. Sprint 12. Vodafone 13. Orange 14. BT Group 15. Telstra 16. Deutsche Telekom 17. Comcast 18. Time Warner Cable 19. CenturyLink 20. NTT Communications 21. Tata Communications 22. SoftBank 23. China Mobile 24. Singtel 25. Telus 26. Rogers Communications 27. Bell Canada 28. Telkom Indonesia 29. Telkom South Africa 30. Telmex 31. Telia Company 32. Telkom Kenya
    Control Southern, Optimal Media
    There are more than one million Adaptive Security Appliances deployed globally. Top customers include First American Financial Corp., Genzyme, Frankfurt Airport, Hansgrohe SE, Rio Olympics, The French Laundry, Rackspace, and City of Tomorrow.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization20%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization49%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Financial Services Firm5%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Government8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization20%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise49%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise58%
    Large Enterprise28%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business35%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise31%
    Large Enterprise45%
    Buyer's Guide
    Check Point NGFW vs. Cisco Secure Firewall
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point NGFW vs. Cisco Secure Firewall and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 reviews while Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2. 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 Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Azure Firewall and OPNsense, whereas Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and OPNsense. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Cisco Secure Firewall report.

    See our list of best Firewalls vendors.

    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.