We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The main difference between these two products is that Check Point users feel that the tool’s VPN is hard to integrate. In addition, Check Point does not have an open-source version like pfSense does.
"Good load balancing feature."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"It is useful for protecting and segregating the internal networks from the internet. Most of our customers also use the FortiGate client to connect to their offices by using the VPN client, and of course, they usually activate the antivirus, deep inspection, and intrusion prevention services. They are also using it for web filtering and implementing various policies dealing with forwardings, NAT, etc."
"We use the FortiGate Sandbox to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, such as anomalies or malware, that are unknown and have not yet been discovered."
"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"The Check Point firewall features for Next Generation Firewalls are excellent."
"The solution offers very good central management, which saves time and is hassle-free."
"The most valuable features for us are identity awareness, IDS and IPS, and application control."
"Check Point helps a lot with automatization which definitely reduces the effort to maintain the environment."
"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."
"They have very good support. In critical scenarios, they provide us very quick solutions, are very well-trained, and have a good knowledge about the product. That is what we expect from them."
"I rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten."
"AV, IPS, AntiSpam, Sandbox. That's gentlemen set for any basic security, and it was implemented very well. In our reports, the most exciting results belong to AV and IPS. It can be explained by using ThreatCloud - a global knowledge base, which accumulates signatures for all existing and new coming malware, and all the Check Point solutions are always up to date with potential threats."
"I have found pfSense to be stable."
"Content protection, content inspection, and the application level firewall."
"It has a good web cache. I used to use a DHCP server and DNS server. For my company, I use pfSense as a load balancing application."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"The initial setup is complex."
"FortiGate should have a better way of detecting and managing the system memory because otherwise if the memory is too low, a system restart is required."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"It needs more available central management."
"The biggest improvement they could make is having one software to install on all three levels of their products, so that the SMBs, the normal models, and the chassis would all run the same software. Now, while there is central management, everything that has to be configured on the gateway itself works differently on the three kinds of devices."
"Timely updates to security databases, firmware, and software are crucial for addressing new threats."
"The virtual infrastructure of the central management requires a huge amount of resources to work properly and manage all the logs without problems."
"Lacks some integration with other solutions."
"One of the main features that need improvement is the rule filter export."
"Check Point Smart Dashboard does not support my Apple MacBook Air. It only supports Windows versions."
"My customers complain that the interface isn't user-friendly."
"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 usage reports can be better."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"Needs services on additional features, such as managing inventory and generating reports."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"The integration of pfSense with EPS and EDS could be better. Also, it should be easier to get reports on how many users are connecting simultaneously and how sections connect in real-time."
"As an open-source solution, there are so many loopholes happening within the product. By design, no one is taking ownership of it, and that is worrisome to me."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"It could use a little bit of improvement in the reporting."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Azure Firewall and OPNsense, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Meraki MX. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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