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.
"The solution is very user friendly. The user interface in particular is quite nice."
"The most valuable features are the possibility of having one fabric for switching on security."
"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."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"We've found the solution to be pretty stable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"The most valuable features are the ease of administration with the cloud management extension and the cloud licensing model."
"The solution has been quite stable."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its management console."
"The tool's most valuable features are inspecting internet traffic and IPS. We can manage the firewall using shared policies from a single management server."
"The tool's most valuable features are firewalls and IPS."
"We find all the features valuable, particularly the firewall, application control, URL filtering, and HTTPS detection."
"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."
"When browsing, it scans sites to ensure that they are safe and that no harm can be caused."
"The initial setup process is quite easy."
"Application control, IPS, and sandboxing towards the cloud are the most valuable features. It is a very user-friendly product with a very easy-to-use interface."
"We have found the SSL decryption within this solution to be great; you can enable this feature and have the ability to see more of what is happening across your network."
"GlobalProtect and App-ID features are very good."
"The solution is scalable"
"One of the simple features I like about Palo Alto firewalls is that it's extremely easy to find out what's happening in the network. The reporting is phenomenal, and it's easy to find which threats have been detected and what traffic is going through the box. When a customer notices something is wrong, you can quickly check the amount of traffic going through the firewall around that time. If there is anything out of the ordinary, you can decide it needs to be investigated further."
"In my opinion, Palo Alto has consistently been one of the best firewalls for enterprise security."
"Palo Alto NGFW’s unified platform has helped our customers eliminate security holes. With a unified platform, customers can deploy the NG Firewall both in the data center edge, inside the data center, and in the product/public cloud environments. They have the same user interfaces and platform, so they can be maintained by a single unified platform called Panorama. Customers can use Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls in all the places where they need to protect their environments. This helps to decrease security holes."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"Its customer service could be better."
"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."
"There are problems with the custom reporting of the unique traffic. The data is there, but it is too difficult for us to extract."
"With FortiGate, the main complaint that I have heard is about the technical support."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"In the past year, I noticed that the challenging part, especially in the cloud, is upgrading to the next release of the firewall. Unlike on-premise upgrades, it's not as simple in the cloud. You need to recreate the machine, which makes the process more complex."
"The solution needs to support more hypervisors."
"CloudGuard Network Security needs to include new features. One specific feature I would like to see is the ability to protect external resources using single sign-on integration with various identity providers, including custom identity providers. Its pricing could also be cheaper."
"The solution is not that flexible when deploying on-prem."
"I would like to see more focus on east-west traffic inspection and AWS."
"We have Microsoft CASB cloud app security and it's one of the least compatible firewalls. They really need to look at this, as both Check Point and Microsoft are major players. Why aren't they compatible? If we had Palo Alto then we wouldn't have this problem."
"There is a limitation with the version upgrade. We are using version 81.10 and from what I understand, it is problematic to upgrade this version. I do not know if that is true."
"The main issue that I have noticed is that for deployment, it still requires a dedicated management server, and the gateway is completely different. That sometimes can cause issues."
"The performance of the Panorama interface needs to be improved. It tends to be very sluggish at times."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls don't provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities. It's missing some features for geofencing and understanding locations."
"I wish that the Palos had better system logging for the hardware itself."
"Palo Alto keeps coming out with antivirus and malware updates. When we have to integrate those updates we face some problems with the cloud platform, not the on-prem setup. The device works fine, but sometimes the sync doesn't happen on time."
"We would like to see the external dynamic list for this solution improved. The current version does not automatically block malicious IP addresses, which would be very useful."
"The cost of the device is very high."
"They can work on the price. They are a little bit expensive, and not all customers are able to afford this solution. Taking into consideration that there is huge competition in the market and there are multiple firewall companies that are much cheaper than them and offer almost the same features, it would be good to improve the price."
"Palo Alto can do a little bit better when it comes to the User-ID part. I've been facing problems related to double authentication. You have a computer user, but you also have a VPN user, and when you do a single sign-on to another page, these logs can sometimes generate a problem notification. It doesn't happen a lot, but in some networks, it could be a problem. It would be very helpful to have the ability to restrict the connections that you can have in your VPN. For example, if you have the credentials, you can connect with the same user account from different computers or devices. If you have the domain information, you can connect from different devices. That's a problem that they need to address and resolve. They should ensure that at any moment, only one person is connected through a specific user account."
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Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 121 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 162 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 "Highly reliable, great visibility, and centralized management". 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, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Cisco Secure Firewall and Cisco Secure Workload, 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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