We performed a comparison between Check Point CloudGuard Network Security 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.
Features: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security provides useful features including VPN Blade, IPS Blade, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade. Cisco Secure Firewall offers features such as threat defense, dashboard visibility, and application visibility and control.
For the Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, users suggest enhancing their support system, adding features like cluster creation on AWS and a managed web portal. They also recommend providing more visibility on data protection and improving documentation and support services. As for Cisco Secure Firewall, improvements are needed in network performance, policy administration, customization options, web filtering, user-friendly management interface, performance for IPS, and functionality in public clouds.
Service and Support: While some customers have praised the technical support of Check Point, others have faced response delays. Cisco Secure Firewall's customer service has garnered mixed review. Some customers appreciate the immediate solutions provided by their technical support, while others have mentioned delays and difficulties, particularly with Firepower.
Ease of Deployment: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is generally considered easy and user-friendly for setup. However, it can be complex for some users and may require technical expertise. The deployment time varies depending on the number of customers or websites. Cisco Secure Firewall's initial setup reviews are mixed. Some find it difficult, while others find it straightforward. Cisco offers resources and documentation for assistance, yet the complexity can vary depending on the user's experience.
Pricing: The cost of setting up Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is perceived as high by most. There are, however, flexible pricing options with various discount models. Opinions on the pricing of Cisco Secure Firewall differ, with some finding it expensive and others considering it moderate.
ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security consistently delivers a strong ROI of 80% to 85%, offering improved advantages and simplified administration. Cisco Secure Firewall exhibits fluctuating ROI, with some positive returns observed.
Comparison Results: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is the preferred choice when compared to Cisco Secure Firewall. Users find the initial setup of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security to be easy, straightforward, and user-friendly. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is highly praised for its valuable features such as VPN Blade, IPS Blade, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade.
"Fortinet FortiGate protects against internet-based threats, both internal and external. It is scalable, stable, easy to use, and easy to install."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."
"You can purchase switches and you don't need to do anything with them. You just put in the firewall and the switches get all the policies and rules that you already have in the firewall. With Fortinet, you just connect the FortiSwitch to the Fortinet and that's it."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"The pricing is excellent. It's much less expensive than Cisco."
"One of the valuable features is a standardized OS."
"I like how straightforward it is and simple it is to implement in the cloud."
"This software is great in overall performance since it can locate any trouble across the networking system and provide solutions before it affects workflows."
"The query feature is going to be a game-changer for us as we move forward."
"It makes securing our cloud workload super easy, and we are able to push any sort of policy changes we need pretty quickly"
"The solution is reliable."
"The most valuable feature of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is the ease of use. It was not difficult to learn."
"Auto-scaling and zero touch are valuable features."
"The Identity Awareness blade and dynamic tagging in Azure are valuable because they make access management automatic. Instead of manually setting up access for each new resource, it happens automatically based on the same access policy. This dynamic setup is scalable."
"Stability, high availability of services, and very high MTBU were the most valuable features for me."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the integrations and IPS throughput."
"The best features are stability and scalability."
"REST API offering with rich capabilities which makes the product very robust."
"The firepower sensors have been great; they do a good job of dropping unwanted traffic."
"It's a flexible solution."
"The solution offers very easy configurations."
"A powerful enterprise security solution that is dependible."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"They need to improve their technical support."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"The support we receive when we need to upgrade is not satisfactory and has room for improvement."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security should give productive reports as per business requirements. It needs to improve support since the time-limit extended beyond a day. It should include more seamless API integrations."
"Our biggest complaint concerns the high resource usage for IDP/IPS, as we cannot turn on all of the features even with new hardware."
"Check Point support, beyond CloudGuard, does need some improvement."
"The product needs to offer multi-tenancy."
"The initial setup is difficult. It took me three tries to get it right. The setup took two or three hours."
"As an administrator, I can say that among all of the Check Point products I have been working with so far, the Virtual Systems solution is one of the most difficult."
"The only pain points we have had with it were when we did major version upgrades. Rather than being able to do incremental upgrades on those, we had to completely redeploy. I know that has changed recently, but we had some hiccups when we did the upgrades. This is the only issue we have had."
"The initial setup is complex and could be made simpler."
"I have a lot of difficulties with the solution's Firewall Management Center (FMC) and the GUI. Neither is responsive enough and should be improved."
"In terms of functionality, there isn't much to improve. There could be more bandwidth and better interface speed."
"If I want to activate IPS features on it, I have to buy another license. If I want Cisco AnyConnect, I have to buy another license. That's where we have challenges."
"The ease of use needs improvement. It is complex to operate the solution. The user interface is not friendly."
"We have more than one Cisco firewall and it is difficult for me to integrate both on the single UI."
"It would be great if some of the load times were faster."
"When we first got it, we were doing individual configuring. Now, there is a way to manage from one location."
"The performance should be improved."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 112 reviews while Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is rated 8.6, while Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2. 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 Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is most compared with Azure Firewall, VMware NSX, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation and Illumio, whereas Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Juniper SRX Series Firewall. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Firewall report.
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