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.
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"The network security and cloud security are most valuable."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiGate is good."
"There is an easy process for configuring it, and it is straightforward to implement the device from scratch."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"While not being cheap, their pricing models are competitive."
"The Anti-Spoofing has the ability to monitor the interfaces. Suppose any spoofed IP addresses are coming from an external interface, it won't allow them. It will drop that traffic. You have two options with the Anti-Spoofing: prevent or detect. If any kind of spoof traffic is coming through the external interface, we can prevent that."
"The Next Generation Firewalls, the 64000 and 44000 series, provide us with support for large data centers and telco environments. They're quite reliable and provide great performance."
"Check Point is very administrator-friendly and the SmartDashboard is easy to use."
"It is easy to control from the central management system. For example, if we have 10 firewalls, and we want to push that same configuration among them, we can use this solution's central management system to do that simultaneously. So, there is time saving in that way. The time savings does depend on the situation. For example, if I am running half an hour of work on each firewall, that will take around 300 minutes. However, if I do this work from the central management system, then it will only take 30 minutes to push the same configuration to those same 10 devices."
"Admins and executives are more at ease with the compliance engine within the software as it measures how many of the security requirements we're compliant with, making their work much more accessible from that standpoint."
"I rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten."
"The IPS is frequently updated so the rules are always new and in place."
"Filtering is the best feature."
"The user interface, the UI, is excellent on the solution."
"The most important point is the detection engine which is now part of the next-generation firewalls and which is supported by Cisco Talos."
"It is a comprehensive suite and complete package."
"All the rules are secure and we haven't had a significant malware attack in the five years that we've been using ASA Firewall. It has been a tremendous improvement for our network. However, I can't quantify the benefits in monetary terms."
"When it comes to the integration among Cisco tools, we find it easy. It's a very practical integration with other components as well."
"With the FMC and the FirePOWERs, the ability to quickly replace a piece of hardware without having to have a network outage is useful. Also, the ability to replace a piece of equipment and deploy the config that the previous piece of equipment had is pretty useful."
"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."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"The policy installation length is still too long. It was promised that the time would be severely reduced in newer versions, but it is still too long."
"Complex and not very easy to use."
"Heavy load causes a higher CPU to peek which causes us to need to reboot the device. Malicious activity database corrupts the directory or path and restoring it takes a lot of time."
"It should be user-friendly from an implementation point of view. Its setup is a little bit difficult."
"There are some issues compared to other products. Ease of use is one."
"Unfortunately, the API is not fully complete and also it is not an API which I would refer to as a RESTful API as there are different endpoints for the same entity."
"A lot of things need to be improved in Check Point NGFW. One, their support team isn't very efficient and useful."
"There is nothing more that I need in terms of improvement."
"You shouldn't have to use the ASDM to help manage the client."
"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."
"There was an error in the configuration, related to our uplink switches, that caused us to contact technical support, and it took a very long time to resolve the issue."
"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."
"There used to be information displayed about the packets in a module called Packet Flow, but it is no longer there."
"It is expensive."
"The only con that I have really seen with it is the reporting structure. FirePOWER is good. It has been a great help because, before that, it was not good at all."
"We see a lot of vendors in the market with a lot of niche products. I understand that it's difficult to cover everything, but making it more open for integration with other vendors would be a value add for Cisco."
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.
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