We performed a comparison between Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and Check Point NGFW 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 essential features like VPN, IPS, URL filtering, and Applications Control. It emphasizes compliance, regulations, cloud security, and advanced threat prevention. Check Point NGFW is commended for its comprehensive security features, including URL filtering, intrusion prevention, identity and access management, and application control capabilities.
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could benefit from enhancements in the support system, cluster creation on AWS, data protection visibility, DLP feature, user interface, and cost reduction. Check Point NGFW needs enhancements in integration, hardware performance, pricing, load balancing, technical support, reporting capabilities, UI design, VPN solutions, management, licensing model, and memory management.
Service and Support: The opinions on the customer service for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vary, with positive feedback on technical assistance and negative comments on delays in responses. Check Point NGFW has differing reviews, as some users appreciate the helpful and responsive support, while others consider it inferior to Cisco's support.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is considered to be straightforward and user-friendly, although some technical expertise and guidance may be needed. The setup for Check Point NGFW can range in difficulty, with opinions differing. Some users find it to be simple, while others perceive it as somewhat complex. Certain configurations and migrations may require expertise and experience.
Pricing: The cost of setting up Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is perceived as pricey by some while others find it justifiable and cost-effective. There are various discount models available for pricing flexibility. Check Point NGFW is generally considered to have a higher cost compared to other products. However, users believe that the enhanced security and reliability make the price worthwhile.
ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has demonstrated a significant return on investment, with estimated returns ranging from 80% to 85%. Check Point NGFW offers a favorable return on investment, particularly after comprehending the level of protection it provides.
Comparison Results: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is preferred over Check Point NGFW. Users found CloudGuard's initial setup to be easy, straightforward, and user-friendly. CloudGuard offers valuable features such as VPN, IPS, URL filtering, and an Applications Control Blade, which received high praise.
"The solution is extremely reliable."
"The product offers very good security."
"The VPN is the most valuable feature."
"The integration with Active Directory is one of the good features. Most of the customers are now looking for the Single Sign-on feature. So, being able to integrate Active Directory with the firewall is useful. It is also easy."
"The solution can scale well."
"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"The most valuable features are that it is very simple to configure and to manage."
"We purchased Fortinet because of the pricing, its functionality, because it met our requirements, and the total cost of ownership over five years was quite reasonable. In the market, Fortinet is rated quite well."
"Additionally, the centralized reporting and management, accessible through a single pane of glass, offer consistency and efficiency across multi-cloud environments."
"Moving into the cloud without having to change a lot of our internal processes and retrain staff is one of the biggest benefits of this solution."
"It improves the availability of engineers to carry out projects."
"It really is a pretty complete solution."
"The most valuable feature for us is the scale set, which allows us to scale horizontally, vertically and dynamically depending on the traffic load."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that you can start off with a simple firewall and expand it to UTM."
"It is a good-to-use tool that is also flexible."
"The main benefit of the Check Point Virtual Systems solution is its ability to split up the hardware appliances that we have into several logical, virtual devices with separate traffic handling policies, as well as the switching and routing."
"Check Point has given us the ability to comply with regulations and with capacities in a way that we never could before."
"I like the dashboard, redundancy, log analysis, threat prevention and ISP, and VPN."
"The console or the single interface on the blades is most valuable."
"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."
"The central management and logging are frankly one of the top selling points."
"The centrally managed firewalls are great."
"Check Point's rule management helped us simplify access control. At one point, we had more than 1,000 access control policies, and it was challenging to manage them all. We cut it down to 300 policies using Check Point's management features, and we are still working on reducing this further to achieve the best way to manage policies. Its logging and monitoring enable us to trace and investigate suspicious traffic."
"The way in which a computer is immediately isolated if it starts behaving badly and I get a notification of an infected computer is also extremely nice and a great feature."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"A lack of integration between our data centers."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"The performance could be a bit better. Right now, I find it to be lacking. Having good performance is very important for our work."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"Check Point support, beyond CloudGuard, does need some improvement."
"Regarding CloudGuard Network Security's integration with various resources like application gateways and application-based security groups, there's room for exploring dynamic access in those areas. A significant concern is the upgrade process. Unlike an in-place upgrade, upgrading the tool in Azure requires deploying a new resource, which can be hectic and less reliable. We have to spend something new to have the tool's latest version."
"The solution’s technical support, DNS security and training could be improved."
"The complexity to deploy should be decreased."
"Improvements needed include better integration with Azure features to match on-premises capabilities."
"The product needs to improve technical support."
"Check Point Virtual Systems is a complete solution, but pricing can be better."
"Check Point has a history of moving fast with software release and upgrade cycles which are difficult to keep up with at times."
"The upgrading process takes too much time."
"The smart console is heavy."
"Currently, some prices are very expensive."
"The pricing for the Check Point products should be reconsidered - we found it to be quite expensive to purchase, and to maintain (the licenses and the support services need to be prolonged regularly)."
"The firewall throughput or performance reduces drastically after enabling each module/blade."
"Until you have some experience, the installation and configuration are difficult."
"The tool’s architecture could be improved a bit."
"The complexity could be fixed. It's a bit complex to set up, for example."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 117 reviews while Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 reviews. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is rated 8.6, while Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8. 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 Check Point NGFW writes "Good antivirus protection and URL filtering with very good user identification capabilities". Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is most compared with Azure Firewall, VMware NSX, Cisco Secure Firewall, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, whereas Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and Azure Firewall. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Check Point NGFW 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.