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.
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.
"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."
"The SD-WAN is the most valuable feature."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."
"Consolidated our network environment at all locations, but mainly at our datacenter."
"Check Point is very administrator-friendly and the SmartDashboard is easy to use."
"Check Point NGFW has helped us to significantly reduce our risk of cyberattacks by providing comprehensive protection against a wide range of threats, including malware, viruses, ransomware, phishing attacks, and zero-day threats."
"The central management makes it easier, and is a time-saver, when implementing changes."
"It filters unwanted traffic."
"The solution is easy to use. I like the monitoring the most."
"Even though Check Point NGFW provides a set of security features that enforce protection on the network, the most valuable aspect is also the most used feature: the plain and simple firewall component. This is the core of the product and works to a great extent without the need for all other available bells and whistles."
"The most valuable feature of the firewall is the packet inspection. That is an amazing feature from Check Point."
"SmartCenter and SmartLog are the best platforms to manage firewall rules. SandBlast Zero-Day is very useful when encountering any security leaks."
"The configuration capabilities and the integration with other tools are the most valuable features. I really like this product. Cisco is one of my favorite brands, and I always think Cisco solutions are very reliable, easy to configure, and very secure."
"The remote access, VPN, and ACL features are valuable. We are using role-based access for individuals."
"Cisco's engineer helped us with a lot of scripting to see what existed. Previously, we didn't have a proper policy. In fact, we didn't have any policy because we didn't have any firewall for the data center, so generating a policy was a big challenge. Cisco's engineer helped us to do some scripting and find out what kind of policy we can have and organize those policies. That was nice."
"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."
"The technical support is excellent. I would rate it as 10 out of 10. When there has been an issue, we have had a good response from them."
"Ease of configuration: It has gotten a lot easier to configure compared to the original Cisco Pix."
"AnyConnect has been very helpful, along with the ability to use LDAP for authentication."
"Cisco Secure Firewall's security solutions, advanced malware protection, and DDoS communication are very good."
"There are problems with the custom reporting of the unique traffic. The data is there, but it is too difficult for us to extract."
"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"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."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"It needs to improve its ISP load balancing."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more capabilities for troubleshooting VPN connections. For example, I do get some feedback about the current status, but I could use some history and logging of important events. The information is logged in our Syslog server, but I could use that information from the device. If they could provide a GUI to have some more insight on what's going with my VPN would be useful."
"It could greatly improve our customer experience by centralizing management."
"The area where Check Point can improve is the antivirus, as it only provides a small number of updates for it. Updates should be more frequent."
"Although there is a lot of automation and pattern that can be classified automatically, the IPS systems are sometimes a little bit complicated, and doing the fine-tuning in over 20,000 patterns is hard to do."
"There needs to be more storage space for reporting."
"It could be easier to manage the licenses on blades and contracts."
"The Check Point support needs a lot of improvement."
"Some features, like the VPN, antispam, data loss prevention, etc., are managed in an external console. In the future, I'd like all features in the same console, in one place, where we can see and configure all features."
"I would like to see better Data Leakage protection options and easier-to-understand deployment models for this."
"In today's world, cyberattacks have become a common occurrence. However, so far, we have not faced any issues with our systems. I hope the situation remains the same in the future. If Cisco introduces even more advanced security measures, it would be beneficial."
"The interface for monitoring could be improved to allow better views to make troubleshooting easier."
"Managing various product integrations, such as Umbrella, is challenging."
"The phishing emails could be improved."
"10Gb interfaces should be available on more models."
"There used to be information displayed about the packets in a module called Packet Flow, but it is no longer there."
"It is confusing to have two management interfaces, e.g., ASDM and Firepower Management Center."
"The initial setup can be a bit complex for those unfamiliar with the solution."
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.