We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and OPNsense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Check Point NGFW is highly regarded for its extensive security functions, centralized control, and ability to virtualize. OPNsense is appreciated for its ability to scale, provide guest access, offer user-friendly dashboards, and provide a free version for users. Check Point NGFW needs enhancements in integration, hardware upgrades, cost, stability, load balancing, technical support, and reporting capabilities. OPNsense, on the other hand, requires improvements in its interface, bandwidth management, multi-provider internet protection, integration with Azure, a timeline for new features and updates, IPS solution, reporting capabilities, SSL inspection, and learning curve.
Service and Support: The service for Check Point NGFW has varying feedback, with certain customers appreciating its assistance and quick response, while others believe there is room for improvement. OPNsense boasts an exceptional community support network, although a few users encounter challenges in directly accessing support.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Check Point NGFW can be complex and challenging, especially for those who are unfamiliar with the product. It requires expertise and experience for certain configurations and migrations. The initial setup of OPNsense is described as straightforward and easy, even for clients without IT experience. It can be completed within a few hours, with slight variations depending on individual circumstances.
Pricing: The cost of setting up Check Point NGFW is deemed to be expensive, whereas OPNsense falls into the moderate range. Check Point provides flexible licensing choices, although some individuals find the procedure complex. OPNsense is a license-free open-source solution. In addition to the basic expenses, OPNsense requires additional costs for hardware, installation, and training.
ROI: Check Point NGFW provides cost savings, simplicity, and reliable security enforcement, resulting in a favorable return on investment. OPNsense achieves a return on investment in less than three months and eliminates recurring fees.
Comparison Results: Check Point NGFW is the preferred choice over OPNsense. Users appreciate its comprehensive security features, centralized management, and virtualization capabilities. It is known for its stability, ease of use, and scalability. Check Point NGFW is considered worth the price due to its superior security and reliability.
"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."
"It is very flexible to use."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"Check Point NGFW generates very helpful reports based on the logs of the activated features."
"It's scalable and provides end-to-end resolution."
"Check Point NGFW provides essential security, featuring no-obligation access for secure connections, strong intrusion prevention, and comprehensive antivirus protection."
"Apart from it having very good features, I personally like the vulnerability assistance via report management which detects host and network vulnerability."
"The features that are important include: IPS, sandbox, SandBlast, Anti-Bot, and URL filtering."
"It secures my organization. With the application blade, I can make security as application based and the custom application is also very useful. With identity awareness blades we get insights on our local users who are accessing/passing through the respective rule as users. We also use the DLP, IPS, and VPN features."
"The most valuable feature of the firewall is the packet inspection. That is an amazing feature from Check Point."
"The VPN tunnels are very effective in terms of stability and quick connection."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"The initial implementation process is simple."
"What I like best about OPNsense is that, as a firewall, it's pretty good. I'm quite impressed with it. I had an excellent experience with OPNsense, which helped me achieve the targets I wanted."
"The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication. Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls. Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used."
"I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings."
"OPNsense is easy to use and open source."
"URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me."
"We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable."
"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."
"Web security solutions can be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"My customers complain that the interface isn't user-friendly."
"The firewall throughput or performance reduces drastically after enabling each module/blade."
"There is no email security."
"The whole solution has room for improvement."
"Initially, we faced a few challenges with firmware. Later this was addressed with jumbo hotfixes."
"They should integrate all blades to use a single policy rather than multiple."
"I would like the user interface to be more user-friendly. I want the UI to be easier to use than Check Point's competitors."
"In terms of improvement, the performance could be enhanced."
"An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense."
"The interface isn't so friendly user. But we have some technicians here who are quite confident with this tool. OPNSense could maybe add sets of rules so it's simpler to manage different groups with particular needs."
"The reporting part could be better."
"There are some add-ons that need enhancements to make management easier for users, especially the reporting features. Some reports don't show the level of detail I'm looking for, and I've had trouble installing certain add-ons, especially for Internet bandwidth shaping within my company."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"Its interface should be a little bit better."
"The scalability needs improvement."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while OPNsense 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 OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and Sophos XGS. See our Check Point NGFW vs. OPNsense 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.