We performed a comparison between Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls 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 a range of valuable features including VPN Blade, IPS Blade, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls excel in areas such as embedded machine learning, robust security capabilities, and a unified platform.
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has room for improvement in its support system, cluster creation on AWS, data protection visibility, DLP feature, user interface, integration, cost reduction, documentation, and flexibility in deployment. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls could benefit from improvements in customization, network performance in the Middle East, advanced features, integration, usability, GUI interface, training materials, SSL inspection, and external dynamic list feature.
Service and Support: While some customers appreciate the technical support provided by Check Point, others are dissatisfied with the response time. Palo Alto Networks has customers who praise their knowledgeable support team, but there are also complaints about long wait times and issues with their support ticketing system. In summary, the customer service quality for both products differs among users.
Ease of Deployment: While some find it easy, simple, and straightforward, others mention that it may be complex and require technical expertise. Users generally consider the initial setup of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to be straightforward and not complex. They find it easy and user-friendly.
Pricing: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is known for its higher setup cost, however, it provides strong security measures and good value. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls may have higher pricing compared to other options, yet it is regarded as dependable and offers high-performance capabilities.
ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security delivers a significant return on investment, ranging from 80-85%. Users have experienced the advantages of this solution within a short timeframe. Palo Alto NG Firewalls provide enhanced visibility, reporting capabilities, and overall security measures, leading to a robust return on investment.
Comparison Results: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is the preferred option when comparing it to Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. Users appreciate its user-friendly interface, centralized management, and ability to scale. It also focuses on cloud security and offers advanced threat prevention and detection. Additionally, it provides auto-scaling, malware prevention, and exploit resistance.
"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."
"Unified Threat Management (UTM) features."
"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls. We can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"I find it really useful that CloudGuard supports all the main players on the Public Clouds market including AWS, GCP, and Azure, as well as some exotic ones like Alibaba Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and IBM Cloud."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"The visibility is most valuable. It allows us to see all of our devices from one place, and it gives us the ability to manage push updates and things like that from one place."
"The capability to auto-scale in or out, depending on the resource demand is great."
"It makes securing our cloud workload super easy, and we are able to push any sort of policy changes we need pretty quickly"
"The installation process doesn't take very long."
"As per the solution's blade design, there are many options. For example, you have to buy a UTM blade and an advanced malware blade, etc. If the blade license is there, we can configure from the firewall GUI."
"We have complete visibility of attacks originating from email including spear-phishing, spoofing, etc."
"I can enable the features I want and configure the policies based on the user and not all users and network traffic, making firewall management much easier."
"It is an extremely powerful solution as it provides visibility into all the network traffic, and offers a range of actions such as blocking websites or graphics, as well as load balancing. It's a great tool."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls enable efficient application search, viewing, and configuration access across various services for different user groups within our company."
"We have not had to replace hardware routers nor purchase additional hardware. So, that has provided a little bit of an ROI."
"The most important feature is the firewall. We can make rules to filter the application layer of traffic. It's a very helpful feature."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have a very nice interface for logging and monitoring. I find it easy to navigate and use, and the interface is organized as well. I can find answers within a couple of hours and have seen time savings."
"The fact that the Next-Gen firewalls are integrated with identity is the best. It gives us the ability to track what an individual is doing and helps us provide access to only what they need in order to do their job."
"I like that they are more stable than the previous ones, and they allow a lot of other features."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"It would be good if they had fewer updates."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more capabilities for troubleshooting VPN connections. For example, I do get some feedback about the current status, but I could use some history and logging of important events. The information is logged in our Syslog server, but I could use that information from the device. If they could provide a GUI to have some more insight on what's going with my VPN would be useful."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"The licensing structure is unclear, so a transparent and flexible licensing structure would be preferable."
"The operations require skilled manpower with extended experience of working with networking systems for better results."
"The migration to TerraForm is a little more complicated, but we made it work."
"I would like to see more focus on east-west traffic inspection and AWS."
"I want the upgrades of their CloudGuard solution to major versions to be easier. We have had a few small hiccups. They have different types of cloud clusters called Geo Clusters, and those just cannot be upgraded past a certain point, which is a hurdle that we are currently experiencing."
"CheckPoint CloudGuard could be better at solving cases."
"The stability of the solution could be improved, but this is the problem of all the solutions in the market. This isn't just a problem specific to Check Point."
"What I would like for future updates would be faster updates to apply, and perhaps a greater presence in the local language for the regions of Latin America."
"We are not happy with Palo Alto at all. It would be better if they provided more support for the firewall. We have a few pending issues with the configuration for each application. We cannot deploy them yet due to some support-related problems in the firewall. We have deployed a few policies for DNS spoofing and DNS attacks, but we could only block a few IP addresses through the policy. That's DNS security, and we have configured a few policies for DNS spoofing and more. URL categorization and URL filtering are not yet adequately maintained. For example, if you created a few rules in the rule-based configuration and made some rules downstairs, you will lose some of them if you give access upstairs. It's not giving us a proper solution for which route it is using. We need to apply the application-based policies and URL filtering-based policies. It creates more issues because we are not getting good support from the team."
"This is a difficult product to manage, so the administrator needs to have a good knowledge of it, otherwise, they will not be able to handle it properly."
"There is a tradeoff between security and network performance, as security is always top-notch, but performance can sometimes lag and has room for improvement."
"The functionalities are limited."
"We would like to see improvement in the web interface for this solution, so that it can handle updates without manual intervention to put the data in order."
"In terms of what could be improved, comparatively the price is very high. That would be the one thing."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls need better training modules. You have to do a lot of reading prior to watching the training videos, and it's good for people who are really into it. However, often you want to use a video for a TID. You want to see how to do something rather than spend 30 minutes reading and then another 30 minutes watching the class. As a result, I take third-party training classes rather than Palo Alto's training because they are a lot better."
"Palo Alto has introduced new features in their next-generation firewall, such as SD-WAN. However, the technique of SD-WAN implementation is not easy to understand. It is not easy to deploy at this moment. Maybe, in the future, they can improve the process and how the administrators, partners, or support team can easily deploy this SD-WAN solution on their next-generation firewall. The SD-WAN solution from Fortinet is easy to do. It does not take more than five or 10 minutes. When we talk about Palo Alto, it takes extra effort to implement SD-WAN."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 119 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 161 reviews. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is rated 8.6, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6. 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 Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is most compared with Azure Firewall, VMware NSX, Cisco Secure Firewall, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation and Trend Micro Deep Security, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Netgate pfSense. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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