We performed a comparison between Check Point CloudGuard Network Security 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 CloudGuard Network Security offers a range of valuable features including VPN, IPS, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade. OPNsense provides scalability, guest access capabilities, dashboards, IDS and IPS features, and easy configuration.
The feedback for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security suggests that it could enhance its support system, introduce features like cluster creation on AWS and a managed web portal, improve visibility on data protection, and upgrade its documentation and support services. OPNsense requires improvement in its user interface, bandwidth management, high availability feature, logging, integration capabilities, IPS solution, hardware updates, reporting, SSL inspection, and installation process.
Service and Support: While some customers have praised Check Point's technical support, there have been complaints about their response time. OPNsense has a combination of positive and negative reviews. Some users have found their support to be excellent, while others believe there is room for improvement.
Ease of Deployment: The initial setup for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is considered to be user-friendly and straightforward, although it may necessitate technical knowledge. Deployment time can differ, and proper guidance and support are essential. OPNsense's initial setup is simple and can be accomplished by non-technical clients. It typically takes a few hours to complete, but additional configuration might be necessary for certain environments.
Pricing: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is known for its high setup cost, but it provides excellent security and value. OPNsense has a moderate price for the appliance, with the hardware being the main expense. It is a cost-effective solution that offers unbeatable pricing when compared to other firewalls.
ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security provides a significant ROI of 80% to 85%, along with added advantages and simplified administration. OPNsense ensures a return on investment within a short span of less than three months and eliminates the need for ongoing fees.
Comparison Results: Based on user feedback, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is the preferred choice when comparing it to OPNsense. Users appreciate the ease and simplicity of the initial setup process with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security stands out for its valuable features like VPN, IPS, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade, which are highly valued by users.
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"One of the valuable features is a standardized OS."
"Fortinet FortiGate's ease of management is the most valuable feature."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"A unique architecture makes this product stand out from other solutions."
"Its centralized control, ease of use, and flexibility are the most valuable for our data center security."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its scalability. You will only have to pay less for scaling up. Its notable benefit is deployment complexity. Regional deployment is simpler compared to on-premise setup."
"I like the tool's ability to manage cloud traffic locally without routing it through our data centers."
"The scalability is very good; again, very user-friendly. I wouldn't even say "user-friendly" because, as long as you deploy it properly, you can kill an EC2 and it will spin up another one right away, within about a minute and a half. And it will be ready for production right away."
"What's most valuable to me is that it's a contiguous solution that aligns well with the components that we've relied on and trusted from a traditional hardware, firewall, and unified threat management system. My engineers and analysts don't have to learn another platform. We have already entrusted our security controls to Check Point for perimeter and physical security, and now we can do so at the virtual layer as well, which is key to us."
"The tool's deployment is rapid. Its dashboard is also useful. It's easy to deploy both on-premises and in Azure. In an office with VMware running, deployment is a simple process. Similarly, in Azure, deployment is easy and scalable. Adding more CPUs is a straightforward task – just shut it down, modify the security, and restart. This ease of use translates into cost and resource savings, and faster deployment times."
"The query feature is going to be a game-changer for us as we move forward."
"The solution has high availability."
"OPNsense is easy to use and open source."
"The most valuable features in OPNsense are reporting and visibility."
"The interface and the dashboard are the most valuable features of this solution."
"It's open source."
"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."
"It's more secure and more reliable."
"The initial implementation process is simple."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"Backup can be improved."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."
"From the policy optimization point of view, they can do better. This is not just for CloudGuard. CloudGuard is one little piece managed by Check Point. They can also integrate a third-party policy management solution to improve that. For example, Tufin is focused on policy optimization and management."
"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could improve by making it easier to configure."
"At CPX, we heard that we can see all the things on the same platform. That is what we have been asking for, and hopefully, we are going to start seeing it this year."
"Zero touch removes any independence for configuring."
"The threat scanning system should categorize the level of threats to enhance reliable data interpretation."
"I haven't used CloudGuard Network Security in the past couple of years as I moved out of the network security role. However, based on my previous experience, there were improvements, especially in in-place upgrades. Regarding cost, it might be potentially cheaper considering resource utilization in Azure and VM costs, but licensing could be improved, possibly moving towards a simpler model."
"The product needs to improve support. They don't consider my case the number one priority even though I want a quick resolution."
"The product needs to improve technical support."
"The solution could be more secure."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"While they do have paid options that actually gives better features, for most of the clients, if they tend to take a paid option will instead opt for Fortinet."
"We did not like the fact that you have to configure everything with the graphic user interface. We have used other firewalls, such as FortiGate, that you can configure via code. OPNsense is not easy to integrate. When you are deploying via GitHub or another source repository, this is not possible. That's one thing we didn't like much."
"The scalability needs improvement."
"The support for OPNsense is good because we have documents available on the internet. The support could improve a little."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 119 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is rated 8.6, while OPNsense is rated 8.4. 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 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 CloudGuard Network Security is most compared with Azure Firewall, VMware NSX, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Cisco Secure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and IPFire. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. OPNsense report.
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