Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) Reviews

I normally use Check Point CloudGuard Network Security to protect cloud workloads and control traffic between cloud resources. It is mostly for enforcing segmentation and managing security policies across different cloud environments.

A recent example of how I use Check Point CloudGuard Network Security to enforce segmentation or manage policies was when we deployed a new application tier in the cloud. I used CloudGuard to segment it from the rest of the environment and apply stricter threat prevention rules.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is deployed in the public cloud setup in my case.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security does provide unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-premises. Having policies and visibility centralized in one place makes operations much smoother. Instead of managing separate rule sets for cloud and on-premises, I can apply consistent policies across both and see all traffic flows in a single dashboard. That cuts down on configuration risk and makes troubleshooting faster.

I do utilize Check Point CloudGuard Network Security alongside other Check Point products. In my case, I use it alongside Quantum and Harmony Endpoint.

The best features in Check Point CloudGuard Network Security are the centralized cloud-native policy management, strong threat prevention for cloud traffic, and automatic discovery of cloud assets.

The most valuable feature of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security in my day-to-day work is the centralized cloud-native policy management. I can control all the clouds, which is very beneficial.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has helped us reduce misconfigurations and improve how quickly we can secure new cloud workloads. We have also had fewer issues with unexpected traffic because the visibility tools make it easier to spot problems.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has helped me reduce my organizational risk. The clear visibility into cloud traffic and the automatic adaptation to cloud changes reduced the chance of misconfigurations, which were one of our biggest risks. The number of policy-related issues we had to fix dropped noticeably once we started using it.

It has increased my confidence in secure cloud deployments and migrations quite a bit. Knowing that policy adjusts automatically when new resources come online makes migration less stressful. The consistent visibility across environments also helps because I can verify traffic flows.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could be improved with faster policy propagation across large multi-cloud environments and more intuitive dashboards for complex rule sets.

I have been using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for about one year and a half.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is stable.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security scales well as our cloud footprint grows. It handled adding more workloads and environments without major issues.

The customer support for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is very good and very helpful, but I think it could be better on higher complexity issues.

We used a mix of native cloud controls and some older firewall setups before Check Point CloudGuard Network Security. We switched because they did not give us the same level of unified visibility or consistent policies across environments.

Securing a new workload with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security now could take a few hours before because I had to map out network paths and build policies manually. Now, it usually takes under an hour. The automatic asset discovery and clear visibility shave off a good chunk of the setup time.

I purchased Check Point CloudGuard Network Security through the AWS Marketplace.

I cannot give a percentage for money, but we have seen a return mainly through time savings and fewer configuration-related issues with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security.

I have evaluated solutions that compete with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security. We evaluated solutions from Palo Alto Networks, Prisma Cloud, and also Azure. However, AWS with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security was much easier to implement, and that is why we prefer it.

We did evaluate other options before choosing Check Point CloudGuard Network Security. The main alternatives we evaluated were Palo Alto's Prisma Cloud and some of the native security tools from Azure. They work for certain use cases, but Check Point CloudGuard Network Security gave us a stronger unified policy management.

The core security features of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security work really well, but a few usability areas hold it back: the policy propagation speed and parts of the interface. I would give Check Point CloudGuard Network Security a rating of seven out of ten.

I would advise others looking into using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security to first plan ahead. I recommend starting with a small pilot across one or two tiers, defining policy and segmentation baselines upfront.

We use Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) for most of the things in the cloud. We protect our things, especially Microsoft emails. We also have things that are actually put in the clouds like our institution's backups which are in the cloud.

We integrated Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) with the on-premises solutions, the normal ones, the URL filtering, such products, and the normal Check Point to other Check Point blades.

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) streamlines our security.

Some of the risks that we used to worry about are now taken care of, and we no longer have to worry about those risks.

In the process of migrating from cloud to on-premises and from on-premises to cloud, there are threats because we are still online and there are so many threats. With Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security), we are guaranteed protection from end to end, from user to cloud and cloud to user.

First and foremost, I like the security of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security). The security is good, and the cloud security is very good, especially when nowadays you don't know what's happening in the cloud. The cloud has become a bit complex, and there are so many people offering cloud services.

When you use Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security), they guarantee you protection. That's why now you don't need to lose your sleep because your data is in somebody's cloud solution.

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is very useful.

The pricing is a bit very high.

Especially when it comes to pricing, Palo Alto is cheaper. We have to compare pricing between the two solutions.

When they started with the cloud firewall, it has been about two to three years.

The ability to expand showed good progress. I can give it a 10.

The technical support is wonderful and perfect.

The setup is not very complex. It is a bit moderate.

We did the implementation in conjunction with Check Point technicians.

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is a good product. The only issue is that the costing is too high.

We are in the process of doing a proof of concept of Palo Alto.

I have worked with Check Point as a product for the last 15 to 16 years, not on cloud.

We buy through partners.

We are the end-user and not a partner.

I would rate this review an 8 overall.

The main use case for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is for perimeter security and analyzing traffic in the network environment.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers deep visibility into traffic, detailed logs, and real-time monitoring to see what applications, users, and devices are communicating on the network. Apart from that, it prevents lateral movement, stops phishing attacks, and mitigates DDoS. The main use case is to provide protection for a hybrid environment such as on-prem and multi-cloud by having consistent security. It enforces zero trust access to critical applications.

The best features that Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers include deep visibility into traffic, detailed logs, and real-time monitoring to see what applications, users, and devices are communicating on the network. Apart from that, it prevents lateral movement, stops phishing attacks, and mitigates DDoS. The solution provides protection for hybrid environments such as on-prem and multi-cloud by having consistent security and enforces zero trust access to critical applications.

The best feature is unified threat prevention, including IPS, antivirus, anti-bot, URL filtering, and Sandboxing in one platform. It provides seamless integration with AWS, Azure, and GCP. Furthermore, it offers centralized management from which we can manage security policies across cloud and on-prem solutions in a single console, known as Smart Console. From this, we can implement automation and DevOps support, as well as infrastructure as code security templates for faster deployment.

Cloud-native integration automatically adapts to changes in our AWS, Azure, or GCP environments; for instance, if a new workload is spun up, policies are applied instantly. Centralized management offers one console for both on-prem and multi-cloud environments. Additionally, automation and DevOps support allow security policies to be deployed as code and integrated into CI/CD pipelines.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has positively impacted our organization by improving our security posture. We have seen a sharp reduction in successful intrusion attacks because of its unified threat prevention, along with greater visibility and control. CloudGuard gave us full visibility into east-west traffic inside our local or cloud environment. Previously, we monitored north-south traffic, which helped detect unauthorized lateral movement early. It has enabled faster incident response and stronger compliance with standards such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR, which made audits smoother and helped us maintain continuous compliance in the cloud.

Areas for improvement for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security include user interface and usability, pricing and licensing, integration with third-party tools, reporting and analytics, depth of automation, and support.

In terms of user interface and usability, the Smart Console UI is feature-rich; however, for new admins, navigation is not always intuitive, and log search feels clunky compared to SIM tools. Policy editing could be faster with bulk or drag-and-drop options, and dashboards need more customization. Streamlining these would make day-to-day use much better.

I have been using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for the past one year.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is stable.

Customer support for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is average. I would rate the customer support as six on a scale of 1 to 10.

Neutral

I have seen a return on investment from using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security in both money and time saved.

My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is that it was good.

We are primarily on-premise. We also use Azure for cloud services, mostly for VPN. We use it as the active directory to authorize access to the VPN, which is helpful. 

However, as a healthcare organization in Germany, it is very challenging to get cloud solutions like CloudGuard approved. Cloud solutions must be located in Germany or Frankfurt, where all the data centers are situated. This requirement makes it somewhat difficult, however, otherwise, it is manageable.

We have a lot of audits in the healthcare industry and Check Point has become an industry standard.

One aspect I appreciate is that it is not overly complicated. Many solutions are sometimes difficult to set up. Check Point has been very straightforward. Especially in the last one to two years, it has become easier to manage with each patch. I have several coworkers who have used it for a long time, and they all mentioned that it was much more difficult to use or update five years ago. It has become less complex to use yet more complex in terms of infrastructure. 

Check Point offers unified security management across hybrids, clouds, as well as on on-premise. We have Azure for cloud, however it is mostly for VPN. We have the active directory to get to authorize yourself into the VPN. CloudGuard helps with that. As a healthcare organization in Germany, it's very difficult to get approval for clouds. If you want to have the cloud approved, it has to be in Germany or in Frankfurt where all the data centers are. That makes it a little bit difficult to be on cloud vs on-prem. Other than that, it's fine.

I honestly do not know how it can be improved anymore. There are probably people with more knowledge or experience who could suggest improvements. Most of the solutions we have used have been straightforward and effective. 

Occasionally, there is a strange bug, however, we just contact Check Point for a hotfix if we are a significant client. And since that is our situation, the solution works. 

There might be a possibility for Check Point to offer more training opportunities for users to get to know the solution better, perhaps through courses or similar resources. However, it depends on our company's arrangements with Check Point. In our case, we have a vendor involved. Everything we do with Check Point must go through the vendor first, which is somewhat inconvenient. It would be easier to deal with Check Point directly, however, it depends on the vendor. 

There is a wealth of material available online for those technically inclined. In this fast-paced industry, we must continue learning. Courses or online meetings, like Zoom or Teams sessions, for one or two hours each week, would be helpful. 

Despite using it for a long time, there are always new features. For example, just last week, I discovered a new feature that had been in the software for years yet it was not visible due to its placement behind multiple menus. Teaching sessions would be beneficial, yet it is our responsibility to learn, so we cannot entirely rely on Check Point.

We have been using Check Point for at least ten years now. Our organization has used it for that long. It's a healthcare system with 130 hospitals. 

The solution is stable. Most Check Point solutions are stable.

Since we are primarily using Azure, scalability is not currently a concern. It could become relevant in the future, but as a healthcare organization, transitioning to the cloud is challenging, especially in Germany.

Customer service depends on the issue. Sometimes, there are bugs, and we have to wait for a customized patch. For instance, we had a random bug where CPU usage spiked inexplicably, preventing access to the appliances. Restarting resolved the issue, but the cause remains unknown. 

Typically, we deal with our partner and they advise us to create a Check Point ticket. It raises the question of why we have a partner. I do not deal with customer support often, however, if I report a bug, it is resolved within a month or two. It is not usually a critical bug, just minor issues that prompt curiosity.

Positive

90% to 95% of our infrastructure is on-premises in order to connect it to the cloud. 

The deployment was handled by someone else. I simply work with it. 

The point of Check Point isn't necessarily to gain an ROI. A company just has to pay the price. You don't get money out of it. 

I'm not directly aware of the pricing. Most Check Point solutions are costly, however, they are the industry standard, so the cost is necessary. Especially in a healthcare organization, skimping on IT security is inadvisable. Losing patient data could cost four percent of an organization's annual revenue. 

For an organization with twenty billion euros in revenue, four percent is significant. Also, we have limited flexibility with licensing, though we sometimes receive better prices through vendors. The company likely paid over thirty million euros to Check Point. However, the technology ensures a high-security standard. 

Many large German companies also use Check Point.

I'm unsure if the company has evaluated other options. 

I have never been involved in the decision to use this solution; I am just the end user.

Flagger Network Security and Check Point work effectively. I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

Our main use case for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is protecting our cloud infrastructure from advanced threats while maintaining consistent security policies across hybrid environments; we rely on it most for perimeter defense, traffic inspection, and automated threat prevention.

The advanced threat prevention feature of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security stands out the most to me. The threat prevention feature in Check Point CloudGuard is highly effective because it blocks attacks before they reach cloud workloads, using real-time intelligence and automated controls; one standout scenario for us was stopping a zero-day exploit targeting a misconfigured API, which CloudGuard detected and blocked instantly, preventing lateral movement.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security integrates natively in Azure, allowing security policies to follow workloads as they scale or move, and it also supports infrastructure as code tools like Terraform or CloudFormation for security.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has had a strong positive impact on our organization across several dimensions, especially in security posture, operational efficiency, and cloud agility. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has significantly reduced our organizational risk, particularly in cloud environments, with a measurable drop in misconfiguration, threat exposure, and incident response time, contributing to an estimated 30 or 40% reduction in overall cloud-related risk.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could be improved by enhancing its user interface, simplifying policy management, and expanding third-party integrations. The documentation has a learning curve, which can be dense and sometimes outdated. At first, I needed to learn different documentations, but now it is easier. More interactive guides, real-world examples, and clearer walkthroughs would help new users get up to speed faster.

I have been using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for around two years.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is stable.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is scalable.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security's customer support is very good.

Positive

I have saved time due to Check Point CloudGuard Network Security.

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is very good in Azure for me.

Since implementing Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, my confidence in moving workloads to the cloud has remained the same. I recommend Check Point CloudGuard Network Security because it is better for its security. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Check Point CloudGuard Network Security an eight.

Primary use case is to use it for protecting the network.

I am working with the platform, but unlike a typical customer using it for protection, we are mostly using it for deployment and debugging.

The overall network security is good. It's big-picture, all in one bundle. It's valuable to have everything in one place instead of spreading across different products.  

Unified security management positively affects a company's security operations. They have one unified view of the security. I can connect multiple gateways to the management and have it in one place. I can have reporting and views in a single pane of glass on the consolidated platform. 

It's easy to use. The management is the best on the market. It's very easy to work with, read, understand, and navigate.

It helps increase our customer's security posture. We can see in some cases CloudGuard improves our customers' posture overall. 

It should be more unified across all platforms. There are different kinds of releases for private cloud, public cloud (HA), NSX, and VSX. It is a little bit different on every platform where I install it, and each platform has many limitations like SMB or Maestro. So I need to know that and decide on which platform I should install it on.

I am using the solution for about eight years on a daily basis.

It's mostly stable. There were some stability issues. But most customers have high availability.

Check Point is a leader in firewall scalability. Check Point Maestro is good and Elastic XL looks promising but the code between maintrain and scalable platform should be unified to have a match 1:1 in the terms of commands and limitations. 

Sometimes the customer service is good. Sometimes it is very bad and I have nightmares from it. The worst thing Check Point did was to move the support to India. There are some good people, however, most of the time, the engineers are not very good, just at a basic level. This needs an improvement.

When I am working on a problem and need help, creating a ticket for a particular issue takes about two weeks to get somewhere. I have to describe the issue multiple times, show what the real issue is but lately I have some very difficult issues and I have good engineers assigned to it, so lately my feedback is positive.

Neutral

Cisco ASA and Juniper. My main focus is 95% with Check Point. So I am using only Check Point. I am familiar with other products, however, I am not using them.

It is very easy to deploy. I have the installation with ISO. With ISO, I can install a firewall, the management, or both of them. I can just choose, and it is very easy. The ISO is unified in the new version, R82. I can install a firewall, management, log server, smart event or a combination. This is very efficient.

We dont buy we sell/distribute.

We as a distributor work closely with the licensing. The pricing has some downsides. It could be better and there could be better scalability of the licensing itself. There are just some licenses which are not on the table. Licensing should be more agile and additive.

It was not needed.

My main use case for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is that we're using it to filter inbound and outbound Azure traffic from on-premises to Azure and from Azure to the internet.

I use it for filtering traffic between on-premises and Azure to secure an SAP application accessed from on-premises while the SAP is in Azure.

The best features Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers are security features, VPN capabilities, filtering, and IPS.

I rely on IPS and access control the most because it controls access to on-premises and from Azure.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has positively impacted my organization by making the network more secure and controlling the access to the applications.

I think Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is an ideal product, so I see no improvements needed.

If I had to think of one area where it could be improved or made easier, I would say that support isn't very good and documentation sometimes is lacking.

I have been using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for four years.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is stable in my experience.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security's scalability is good because we can put the firewalls in VM scale sets and scale.

The customer support is not good.

Neutral

I did not previously use a different solution before Check Point CloudGuard Network Security.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is that pricing was good, the initial setup is easy, and licensing is a bring your own license, so it's good to bring licenses already from on-premises.

Before choosing Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, I evaluated other options, including Fortinet.

My advice to others looking into using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is to deploy with scale set.

I would rate Check Point CloudGuard Network Security an eight out of ten because it's mostly complete and the support is a minor downside.

My main use case for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is network security for my network tunnel.

I have additional examples about my main use cases; it helps us with overall network security.

Check Point Cloud Guard provides a unified security management platform for consistent policy enforcement across all environments. Which makes scalability easy & decreases overall TSO.

The best features Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers include automation of network security and unified security management, which stand out to me because they streamline our operations.

The automation and unified security management have helped me significantly; it saves me eighty percent of the time and reduces errors.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has positively impacted my organization, leading to better productivity. It has increased our productivity.

It increased productivity by allowing my team to spend less time on manual tasks, which helps us to focus on other projects.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security can make deployment and configuration less complex.

I have been using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for around one year.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is stable.

The scalability of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is good.

The customer support is good.

I would rate the customer support an eight on a scale of one to ten.

Positive

I did not previously use any other solution like this.

The initial setup with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is straightforward, with no complications.

I am still calculating the return on investment; it has only been one year, so there are no answers right now.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing is satisfactory.

I did not evaluate other options before choosing Check Point CloudGuard Network Security.

My thoughts about the metering and billing experience are that it's fair and okay, though not very clear.

My advice to others looking into using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is to go for it.

I chose that number because of the performance.

I have no additional thoughts about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security before we wrap up.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Check Point CloudGuard Network Security an eight.