Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) Reviews

We use the solution since it is required by our client in Singapore. They needed to use a VPN solution, like Perimeter 81, because they wanted to connect it from an overseas place where their workers travel.

The best feature of Perimeter 81 is that it provides a secure feature while connecting, such as the IPsec tunneling or Perimeter 81's connector called Wireguard Connector.

The solution's speed of upload and download is an area where it lacks. If Perimeter 81 enhances the speed of upload and download, then it could be an improvement.

I have been using Perimeter 81 with Azure Active Directory. I started using it when my company got our license from Perimeter 81 in December last year. So, have six months of experience with the solution. My company has a partnership with the solution.

In my company, along with my coworker, two engineers use the solution for testing.

I rate the support team a ten out of ten.

The setup is really easy. The setup is very user-friendly.

The solution is priced appropriately considering its uses. For an essential license, a user pays only 30 USD per month. For an enterprise version, the prices can be negotiated with the company.

We use Perimeter 81 integrated with Azure Active Directory single sign-on (SSO). Not only in Azure but also Okta, an identity provider, we can guarantee the convenience of login, and also, it secures the connection.

I rate the overall solution an eight and a half out of ten.

The primary use is for secure site protection. 

I work at a worker's compensation company that deals with sensitive information, such as SSN, home addresses, phone numbers, and doctor notes that contain medical history and conditions. 

This product helps us keep the information on websites that are solely accessible through Perimeter 81 so we do not leak the patients, doctors, or adjusters' information to the public. Everything is in a safe space while at the same time, Perimeter 81 makes working from home accessible. 

It helps improve our organization by allowing employees work all over the globe providing colleagues with safe internet no matter what part of the globe they find themselves. 

Providing access and security allows our company employees to work from home and remotely. They are not confined to one space or location if they need to travel. The Perimeter 81 VPN provides the luxury to travel and work while maintaining security to create the work-life balance everyone needs. 

It improved our organization more than can be explained. We plan to continue to further use of this technology. 

The VPN is the main function used. It's valuable to us since it's the only way to access most company websites. All company websites can only be used if users are connected to Perimeter 81. It does not matter what location you are in. 

If Perimeter 81 is not connecting, it slows down company productivity. This is why we appreciate the live updates and minimal issues we have when dealing with this product. The faster we work, the more patients are taken care of, and the higher client success rate we can achieve. Perimeter 81's VPN feature helps our company be as efficient as possible. 

A Google Chrome extension would be handy instead of logging into the app. That way, it's pre-signed in and ready to go while browsing. 

While the app connects as we log in, it would be helpful to be able to stay signed in and have an automatic connection while browsing. The connection may be faster and stronger that way as well. 

A VPN Extention through the web browser would be a great asset to web users and companies. With a one-time login, we can have access and not worry about reconnecting to the VPN. I'm looking forward to seeing this feature. 

I've been using Perimeter 81 for one year. 

We did not previously use a different solution. 

Currently, I do not have access to this information. 

I'm an employee. I do not make decisions on organizational software. 

The primary use case has to do with the remote connectivity of sites.

I have found the IPsec VPN to be valuable.

The integration from a management perspective could be improved so that the management can, from an existing Check Point firewall, manage a Harmony firewall through one pane of glass.

I would like to see the use of either GRE or non-IP tunnels in the next release.

I've been working with Harmony Connect for about 18 months. I tested it but did not run it in production.

Stability wise, I'd rate Harmony Connect at seven out of ten. It could be more stable in some respects.

The scalability is good, and I'd give it an eight out of ten.

I found the technical support to be okay. Most of the technical support was geared to the regular equipment, and we had to find specialists within Check Point to look at Harmony Connect. Because of that, I would give technical support a rating of seven out of ten.

Neutral

The initial setup is simple in some ways but complex in other ways. You need to know a lot about the Check Point side and the portal side to make it work.

I would rate Harmony Connect's pricing at six out of ten. It wasn't particularly expensive, but it wasn't super cheap either.

We evaluated Silver Peak. Comprehensiveness was the main difference between Harmony Connect and Silver Peak. Harmony Connect is a little more suited for smaller branch offices as opposed to full-site connectivity.

Overall, I would rate this solution at seven on a scale from one to ten.

For the past two months, we have been evaluating Harmony Connect because it has some limitations on routing and account control, so we are testing it for three customers to check this function. In some areas, Harmony Connect can replace older VPN products and also add some features, like DRP and security gateway.

The DLP (Data Loss Protection) is the most valuable feature. 

My customers want more remote functionality.  They need another routing option after they connect to the enterprise intranet. For example, let's say a user tries to connect to a remote branch office and headquarters through Harmony Connect. They need a local breakout after connecting to the headquarters, especially in China. They need to put local breakout in the Chinese internet. The current version cannot do something like this.

This solution is new to Taiwan, so I haven't been using it for very long. I started using Harmony Connect in Q3 2022.  

Harmony Connect has been stable so far, but this is still a test. 

There are some limitations on redundancy, and it takes about 30 minutes to switch. This is a significant limitation. Competitors like Palo Alto can do it in around five minutes. It's more appropriate for enterprises because they sell the product license in packages of 50 accounts at least.

I rate Check Point customer service nine out of 10. It is excellent, especially on the customer side. 

Positive

Check Point Taiwan provides me with a lot of flexibility in pricing. If I'm trying to secure a customer, they can give me a good discount on this product. The price is about 350 HKD annually. 

I rate Check Point Harmony Connect eight out of 10.

I needed the solution to attach it to the vendor's file in our accounting software. The customer service team provided such an efficient and fast service. We have an account manager, which is great as we get personalized attention. I asked for the W-9 form once, and it was provided to me. I was not able to download it and then forgot about it. I asked for it again, and without any hesitation, the team provided it again. They were not rude about it. I later realized and apologized for asking for it twice.

Our organization is more secure with Perimeter81's Virtual Private Network (VPN). We manage sensitive information of clients. In my department, we manage bank and credit card information. It is a lot of responsibility to have access to that kind of data. Now that our company has implemented Perimeter81's services with the VPN, personally, I feel more secure when navigating through these different platforms. It is a great investment for today's workplaces - especially when we handle critical information virtually.

The feature that I have found to be most valuable is the reputation that the company has regarding privacy. Nowadays, this is critical, especially when you do all of your work online. 

Similarly, I find that the work that Perimeter 81's customer service team does is very valuable. I have heard from our IT department that Perimeter 81's team is quite knowledgeable and efficient. These are important traits and they describe not only the company's service but the quality of its product as well. So far, our company is very happy with the product.

Overall the product is very efficient. However, personally, there is something that I dislike. I have found that the log-in/out process takes quite some time. I usually click on the app, and it asks me to login in through the web, and then after I log in it takes me back to the app. It seems to me that I should be able to log out without having to leave the app. I do like that it connects automatically/logs in as soon as I sign on. I am not sure why login in is easier than logout. 

The resolution took a couple of hours to be solved, around six hours.

The stability is good.

The scalability is good.

The experience with technical support was great. The team is professional, polite, and efficient.

Positive

This is the first time that we used a VPN in the company.

I'm not able to say what the setup is like.

I'm not able to say if we had any outside assistance.

I'm not able to say what the ROI would be.

I am not able to advise on the cost/pricing.

This decision was made by the IT department, however, naturally, they did evaluate other vendors

I am a remote developer and I use Perimeter81 as a VPN to access development and UAT servers for booking systems that service tier1 airlines. Those servers are mostly on the cloud, however, some are physical. We use AWS servers and physical servers in Dublin, Manchester, Amsterdam, Bejing, and Altlanta. We have individual team members spread out possibly 15-20 countries that need to be managed so it's important that we can be grouped and organized in a manner that allows us to authorize not just depending on our location but also our roles.

Our organization is made up of permanent and contract employees both onsite in our office worldwide and in remote individual locations across the globe. Perimeter81 allows us to develop software as a service (SaaS) collaboratively in a safe and efficient manner. We can authorize our web services not just by our team members' roles but also by our team members' locations based on the IP addresses on an individual level but also based on the group role for that member. The benefits are really built into the underlying protocol, however, Perimeter81 makes these available in a user-friendly way.

As a virtual private network, it enables us to communicate through development groups that segment our organization through the correct allocation of bandwidth and easily configured groups. 

Being able to add individuals to groups is the single most valuable feature, simple as it may seem. This combined with the underlying protocol makes for a powerful and easy-to-use feature for our organization. Adding and removing individuals is simple and easy to do which adds to the overall convenience and usability.

There is a very small amount of downtime. As a general user of the network, I'm not sure if this is down to maintenance time needed by our own network engineers who support our organization or indeed if it is up to Perimeter81 and its maintenance. What would be helpful is if this downtime was reduced. This may or may not involve some collaboration with Perimeter81 engineers and our own organization's engineers to ensure more up time, although I'm not complaining as this is very infrequent.

I've used the solution for over one year now.

The solution is highly scalable.

I don't directly deal with technical support.

Positive

Openpath was our old solution. We switched simply for better service and more uptime.

I did not handle the initial setup.

I did not handle the initial setup.

I don't know anything about the ROI - it's not my area.

Licensing is not my area.

I don't what other solutions were considered.

I'm using it for the VPN, I work from a home office and need to access data from different websites. I'm a front-end web developer for a famous brand, working remotely from another country, and the content I have to access must be from different countries. There are some internal tools we must use too, and we must access them with a VPN. Some of these tools are on mobile too, so we also have to install VPN solutions on mobile phones. I have to use a tool that we can access multiple VPNs and switch regions with ease.

We use some VPN solutions, and Perimeter 81 has the best user experience for desktop or mobile. The other solutions have more steps to set up, are more complicated and it was not a good experience. Unfortunately, I can't use Perimeter 81 for all VPN use cases, due to the company's policy, however, when I can, I always choose it. 

I have to use it on my phone too, and my smartphone was not compatible with the other VPN solutions (old Android version), but Perimeter 81 works on old mobile phones and is very light. 

The best points of Perimeter 81 are the:

- User experience
- Design
- Ease of use
- Support for mobile and desktop
- Very light mobile app

The other VPN tools have some old interface with a not great user experience. I use a Mac and the interface looks like an old Windows App. Perimeter 81 is very pretty. My phone is an old Android version (I cannot upgrade right now) and I could not use the other tools to access the VPN because their two-step authentication app could not run on my phone. Perimeter 81 app works on old phones and is very lightweight. The battery consumption is very low. 

I am very satisfied with the product right now. I don't know if it is technically feasible, however, if the Desktop App could be used as a Web App or a Chrome Extension it would be very nice. It would help a lot if I could click a link with the right-click and select from a range of options like: "Open a with VPN: Network main" and that tab would open with VPN activated only on that. And then I could refresh the tab with the VPN on or off. When I access a URL, the Extension could have an option like: "Reload current tab with VPN".

I've used the solution for two months.

I didn't have to deal with any bugs so far.

Our team is big, from people all around the world. Everybody is using a VPN. It scales well.

Until now, I have not needed to reach out for service support.

Neutral

Yes, I did use a different solution, however, I didn't make a full switch as some tools we use can only be accessed with specific VPN tools. That said, when I can choose, I prefer Perimeter 81 due to its ease of use.

It was very easy to set up.

Our IT team provided a step-by-step to setup the solution.

I don't deal with the billing.

I don't deal with billing, however, it would be nice to have a time trial.

IT selects the tools we use. I did not evaluate others.

I'd advise others to use it if you need to access VPN for both desktop and mobile.

It was installed on the machines of the organization due to the need to filter all the incoming and outgoing content and to protect the teams - mainly our units that use laptops and have to be constantly moving. 

In the last two years with the appearance of Covid-19, this solution gave us that protection outside the organization that had been neglected for strengthening internal security. 

Another great advantage is the possibility of being able to protect our mobile devices by integrating the solution into all mobile devices.

The solution has given us an additional layer of protection in our equipment and applications, mainly now that the equipment is portable and in many cases, we must connect to various public Wi-Fi networks.

Its Granular Access Control over and within each resource, based on dynamic and contextual evaluation of user attributes and device states is great. 

A broad set of rules can be applied across all users, servers, and enterprise data stores, including user commands and database queries - giving users well-managed access.

Review of exported and imported packages and protection and content filtering have been useful. 

Advanced behavior analysis and machine learning algorithms shut down malware before it does damage. 

The solution offers high catch rates and low false positives to ensure safety,
efficacy, and effective prevention.

The automated forensic data analysis delivers insights into threats. 

Complete attack containment and remediation can quickly restore any infected system. 

It blocks malware coming from web browsing or email attachments before it reaches the endpoints. 

It is important to locally validate the consumption exerted on the equipment. At times, when I lose connection, I feel that the equipment is slowing me down. They could improve this detail or indicate that the application, while it is being restored, can generate latency in the communication processes. That said, it is definitely a very good solution for the protection layer in teams inside and outside the organization. 

In mobile devices, there is also sometimes a bit of tear when it is via LTE, however, that must be due to connectivity.

I have been using the solution for two years and it really works.

It is very stable and normally any problems generated are from loss of internet.

Scaling is easy and fast, thanks to the fact that it is licensed.

We did not use a different solution previously.

It is a quick solution to install, however, its cost is really medium and not low.

We did not evaluate other options.

It is perfect for keeping all my devices protected.

We are a company of around 30-50 people who have been working from home since the pandemic began. Our environment is completely cloud-based and all our computers are managed by our organization. 

We needed a solution that would help us protect users and the information that is handled in our company. This solution had to comply with characteristics such as the protection of network connections, prevention of threats such as malware and phishing, data protection, and, above all, it had to be easy to implement and manage. This is why we implemented Check Point Harmony Connect.

Check Point Harmony Connect helped us create a more secure environment in our organization, since our users can be safer when browsing and not being attacked by malicious actors who try to affect them with phishing or malware. On the other hand, administrators have more visibility of the sites to which users navigate and be able to control them, they can also access audit reports that allow them to make better decisions on security rules that must be applied. The protection of data in our company is the most important.

The characteristics that I have liked the most are the ease of implementation and administration. It is a cloud-based service it can be configured easily and very quickly and the administration center is very friendly for administrator users who do not know or have used the product. 

In addition, it is a cloud-based service that helps prevent cyber attacks by ensuring internet access for our users who work remotely, facilitating access control. 

Another valuable feature is that company information is kept protected by internet access control, applications to be managed, and URL filtering protection.

Sometimes downloading PDF files can be slow. It may take a while to scan the downloaded files. On some computers, the Check Point Harmony Connect agent can be a bit heavy to run in terms of CPU and Memory resources. 

Transparency to end-users could be improved. 

More compatible applications can be included. 

The support provided could be improved for when problems arise that require support from the Check Point team. Check Point is an expensive product so support should be more adequate. 

Some EDR features may still be under development and may need more time to be ready for use on a larger scale.

I've used the solution for one year.

Stability is 90% good. File scanning and web console stability could be improved.

The scalability is good.

Support is good, however, in some cases, they could improve the response time.

Neutral

I have not used any other option before.

The initial configuration was very easy to perform; the installation on the endpoints was very simple for the users.

The initial setup was handled by an internal team with supervision or support from the provider.

There have been savings related to the number of hours of implementation and administration.

I recommend that you evaluate using Check Point Harmony Connect, since, although its price may be a little more expensive, it is a solution that adds advanced security to the organization.

I only evaluated Microsoft and evaluated if Fortinet had any product that met the requirements.

This is a VPN solution that caters to remote working. I rely on this software heavily in order to connect to my company's internal network. Compared to my last job, which used a different VPN vendor, Perimeter 81 has caused no issues whatsoever. 

I'd easily recommend Perimeter to any businesses that are interested in purchasing the software. As an end-user, speaking from experience, I've found no issues whatsoever with this VPN. Changing between different networks is very easy and straightforward to do.

Perimeter 81 provides a very secure and non-disruptive experience. At my last job, we used a VPN vendor which would interrupt vital connections to the network. Whereas using Perimeter 81 in my new job has been a very stress-free experience without having to worry about disconnections. It's made my working relationship with my new employer easier without having to worry about dropped connections. What I would say is this has improved our organization via its simple and easy-to-use UI. Other users can easily troubleshoot and provide remedies to each other if issues do occur, which are very rare.

The easy but secure way of logging into the VPN makes mornings easier when logging in. It's a straightforward, 30-second sign-in process without any hassle required. I also found the lack of configuration required by end-users a much-appreciated touch. It's incredibly important that my connection is always stable and reliable. That is what I'd say is valuable about Perimeter 81. I rarely see any complaints on Perimeter 81 amongst other colleagues. This wasn't the case with the last vendor we used at my previous place of employment.

I am struggling to find improvements in particular that would benefit users. What would be useful would be a notification/warning that a session is due to timeout after exceeding the default connection limit. This can help me prepare for imminent disconnection due to my existing organizational connection limit. However, that being said, it could be a setting somewhere but I thought I'd add this as a point anyway. In terms of constructive feedback, I can't find any other improvements or suggestions from an end-user point of view.

I've used the solution for less than one year.