Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) Reviews

It's an on-prem deployment where we use it to protect our client and end-users who are working with the internet, and to protect their servers from external access. They have about 100 users and two servers.

When we did not have SSO, we had problems related to attacks compromising our firewall. That has been mitigated. We have the traffic going through the firewall to the server, so those types of things have really improved. We are seeing less traffic going to the server. When there was direct access to it, there was more and more traffic going to our server. So it has improved our server performance.

My favorite feature is the UTM piece and that was the main reason we bought it. It helps us to fine tune the network. We use it to block certain websites, to block access to particular locations, such as in Singapore or say Malaysia, where we have offices. We keep the previous device updated and, based on that, we also have static MAC address binding.

We also use the VPN services. The VPN features are mostly for our cloud connectivity and for our remote users to have local server access.

When I was creating the VPN on it and the client side through the portal, that feature was very annoying. I could not use it. It was much more usable after downloading it to the laptop. That was very good compared to using it directly from the browser.

I have been using Check Point NGFW for almost two-and-a-half years.

It's a stable solution. In the time I have been using this product, I have hardly seen anything break.

In terms of scalability, they have products that can fit into the environment. It's a very scalable solution. For our requirements, it fits very well. You can go with whatever kind of setup you want: Active-Passive, Active-Active. Check Point is very easy. Their solution is ready for our market; it's very well suited. Wherever we want to go, Check Point can provide a solution.

Currently, we are using somewhere around 50 to 60 percent of the box's capacity.

Sometimes, when I have gotten stuck, I have reached out to support and it's okay. They have helped me very quickly.

We did not have a previous solution. We went directly with Check Point. We liked the features provided by Check Point and we went for it.

The setup is not complex. It's easy to deploy. The documentation provided is very good. Deployment takes me two to three days. The hardware takes one-and-a-half days and then I get all the features up and running.

We have a standard implementation strategy. We have a checklist. We plan it out. Then we go into the field for the deployment. We have one dedicated engineer for deployment, and I also check it on a regular basis. The two of us are also the ones who manage the solution.

We have to consider things, cost-wise, when we are expanding into other locations. We don't have the budget to use it in other platforms. We have some servers that we deploy in AWS and other locations. But instead of going with Check Point, we go with other vendors to fit into the budget.

Check Point is really costly. When it comes to the Indian market, where we are located, we always consider budget solutions. So this is an area where Check Point could use some improvement.

In addition to the standard fees, support is an added expense.

The biggest lesson learned from using this solution is in terms of security. It is a really good product. I don't think there is anything missing from the Check Point firewalls. The features provided by the company are very good and provide what we need.

It's a very good security product, as long as you have the budget. It provides modern security and the architecture Check Point provides is good. And the application side will really help any size of business to deal with traffic based on the application.

Check Point protects our environment from external threats. In particular, we use:

• Application Control for Internet access
• HTTPS Inspection for outgoing connections into the internet
• Separate the OT network from the normal data LANs
• SSL VPN for End Users - Check Point Mobile VPN Client is used on the end-user clients
• Site-to-Site VPN for connecting other companies to our environment

We are using two Check Point boxes in a ClusterXL Setup so that one appliance can die and the environment is not affected. We also use a cloud gateway for internet security on users, which are only connected to the internet (outside the office).

Check Point has improved our organization in the following ways:

• Provides for central management over all of the Check Point gateways
• Maintains a changelog that shows which users have made changes
• Version control allows us to roll back a ruleset after, for example, a misconfiguration
• Offers very granular application control
• Allows for various internet permissions for various users
• Gives us very good logging, which is nice for troubleshooting because you can instantly which rule is affected for each action
• The cloud gateway (Check Point Capsule Cloud) ensures that users are getting the same internet permissions as they would if inside the company, no matter which internet connection they are using

The most valuable feature is the centralized management, which gives us control over all of the Check Point gateways. This means that you do not need to connect to each gateway and make the necessary changes.

Cluster functionality, "ClusterXL", works like a charm. A rollover to the standby gateway does work with no noticeable delay in the network.

You can buy a Check Point appliance or install the Check Point NGFW as a VM on your own hardware.

The extremely wide function horizon covers almost every possible scenario.

The Performance on a policy install takes too long for my taste. This might be because, at each policy install, the management pushes the whole policy on the affected gateways.

Without any training, it is very hard to administrate the whole Check Point NGFW.

In our case, the main Check Point gateways are in a cluster configuration. Sadly, the management always shows the standby box as failed. This may be because it is set to STANDBY and not ACTIVE. It would be better to show the standby box as good.

I have been using Check Point NGFW for about five years.

Support is very customer-oriented and you are always in good hands.(customer wishes are often implemented in the next hotfix)

Most Support engineers are located in Israel. (Very good spoken english)

Very fast response from R&D Team

We were using SonicWall and switched because of EOL.

The pricing for Check Point depends on your environment.

Before choosing Check Point we evaluated Fortinet and a newer version of SonicWall.

We recommend to clients who are installing applications that they can work with Check Point Next Generation Firewalls. Our role is to support our customers in terms of their migration, firewall room cleanups, and implementing all the security features that the firewall has.

Our clients have branch offices in Mexico and Bermuda. Check Point is one of the top names in these areas.

Our clients come to us to fix holes in their endpoint security management infrastructure, which might be letting things through like ransomware. We recommend Check Point Firewalls and some other endpoint security management solutions to mitigate these risk factors. We use this solutions to help build a perimeter for the company, as it helps filter threats from affecting our clients' infrastructure.

The application authentication feature of Check Point is the most valuable as it helps us keep users secure. 

It works smoothly when managing clients' on-premise and cloud firewalls.

Permissions from the client regarding troubleshooting and how well we can packet capture have not been smooth.

Check Point should quickly update and expand its application database to have what Palo Alto has. 

There have been some issues with third-party integrations.

I've been using Check Point Firewalls since 2012. This was right from the beginning when it was hardware from Nokia and the R65 and R66 models. So far, that has gone well.

They are stable. There are no standalone Check Point boxes. If a module goes down, it doesn't affect the base as a whole. Check Point Firewalls have nice redundancy.

Scalability is a good feature that this solution has. It is easy scale out and do site-to-site implementations. Sometimes, you have to clean the OS or RAM to free up availability. However, if you do this, then there are generally no issues with scaling it.

The documentation is really good. 

Their support guys response is really quick. Though, sometimes it takes them more than four to five to get back to us via email and acknowledge an issue. If you have the diamond support, it is definitely fast. However, if you don't have that sort of expensive after-sale support, then it is a problem to engage a Check Point technician at a very fast pace.

We actively participate in the community group.

Our clients are migrating over to Check Point NGFW from Cisco, Juniper, and Fortinet because they want the Check Point Application Intelligence feature. 

We set up the management tool for the clients to manage all their infrastructure.

The migration is generally seamless and takes one shift or day (about nine hours).

We migrate clients to Check Point from other solutions. We also have situations where it's a clean install for deployment, which is the most common scenario.

We are working with Check Point Firewalls to provide installation, migration, updates, setup, etc. 

In the beginning, we needed help from the vendor with the setup. The support was good.

Our clients have seen ROI.

Cisco pushes clients to purchase their hardware, and this is not the case with Check Point. This helps to easily manage costs.

There are now more competitors in the market, like Palo Alto and VMware. 

Palo Alto is a bit more smooth and cost-efficient than Check Point. Palo Alto has Unified Threat Management (UTM) coupled with a dake lake database that is huge. Also, its migration is more smooth than Check Point's. 

Look for a software with licenses that support the features you want. I would recommend doing an RFP before purchasing. Get in touch with Check Point's sales team and compare it with other solutions.

Check Point features are always evolving. They try to stay abreast of the market. I would recommend not using older, obsolete models of Check Point because of this. 

I would rate this solution as an eight out of 10.

The primary use of the firewall is to allow or block some traffic. Mainly, it is the perimeter firewall for the Internet. It filters the traffic from external to internal, e.g., to secure the traffic. 

Some of our customers have been demanding Check Point as their firewall product.

I do the installation, support, firewalls, etc.

It provides a central station where it is very easy to deploy our firewall policy in one click to many firewalls. This is one of the leading perks. It saves time by having one central station because I can deploy the same kind of policy to many firewalls at once. 

With the latest release, it's easy to configure firewall rules with the scripting. This is one of the features that we have been demanding for some time so we can script some actions for automation.

The best part is that it is very intuitive. It is easy to configure, deploy, and maintain. If it works, it works.

The troubleshooting: When you find something that is not working, it is very easy to check in the logs what is failing and fix it in a short time.

The login tool is really nice.

We can virtualize the physical firewall in a virtual environment. However, the virtual environment is not stable at all. We have some customers who are using the virtual environment feature, and sometimes it crashes. We have many tickets open and the response is not as good as expected. We have to wait months for a resolution.

If you use all the features available on the firewall, it's not working. If you keep it simple, then it works. When you try to do cool things, you start to have some problems because that kind of integration is not fully developed.

I have worked with Check Point since 2007.

When it is failing, it is a nightmare. The stability has room for improvement. Sometimes, it is not working at all.

The scalability is good. I haven't had any scalability issues. If the firewall gets stressed, we buy a new firewall.

There are many options, such as, virtualization. They have also release a new product, Quantum, that makes it possible to scale up and have more firewalls. 

As an integrator, we have very big companies (like banks) to small companies, who have only 200 users or less. 

I would rate the technical support as a six out of 10. I have customers with no tickets open with Check Point and other customers who have many tickets open.

Solving some issues with them is a nightmare. They don't reply in time. They always ask the same questions. I expect better feedback from them, but that usually never happens.

Before Check Point, I used Cisco and Fortinet FortiGate.

The big differences is really the full integration firewall, e.g., Cisco doesn't provide this. Also, the Check Point central console is so much better because it provides that one central station, which is a plus.

The con for Check Point is the stability. The hardware for Check Point fails more often than other vendors. Usually, other firewalls are more stable than Check Point so I don't have to open as many cases with other vendors, like I do with Check Point.

There are two parts:

1. In the physical, you deploy with a wizard, which makes it very easy. It is a standard wizard where you click "Next, Next," then you see the GUI and everything is done there.
2. It is possible to do it in automatic way with the scripting. In the cases that you have some experience on it, it's very easy to deploy some scripts and the firewalls. For example, in the cloud, I created my own firewall with the same setup every day using the auto-integration since it's possible to integrate Azure with Check Point, which is very easy. One of the best features of the Check Point is its integration with the cloud, because not all vendors have that kind of integration.

The deployment time depends. If I do any scripting, it takes 30 minutes. If I do it manually, the deployment takes two hours. It also depends on the size and scope of the deploy, e.g., if I create a basic firewall rule or do a full automatic migration. However, It does take less time than other firewalls.

The implementation strategy depends on the customer.

I can deploy one firewall in an easy way. I can do it quickly by equiping firewall rules in text mode or in the API. However, when I have a problem, it's totally the opposite. I lose a lot of time.

The pricing and licensing are the worst part of Check Point. I usually don't know what I really am buying. When I have to do an inventory of the license, I don't know what it is being used for. Sometimes I feel I am being cheated, and the others times, I feel it is a bargain. Nobody knows! Even the Check Point representatives, they aren't clear on somethings, such as, what is the right license for what I need.

There is a possibility to have diamond support. You can have a technical engineer who is there just for you. When you have that type of feature, it's more expensive.

Cisco NGFWv

• Check the price first. 
• For migrations between different vendors, it's a nightmare. You need to do some tasks manually, otherwise it doesn't work when you migrate it. 
• Check the performance if it is working as expected. 
• Try to keep it simple.

It is a good product. I would rate the solution as an eight out of 10.

We provide solutions for various customers where we apply Check Point Firewalls, either for a VPN gateway or for securing their networks. We have provided them to a couple of financial customers to protect their mobile banking as well.

It has good features for searching the firewall rules and it has drastically changed daily operations. It's very easy, even for novice users or newcomers, to operate and manage this device. It has improved our operations that way.

The most valuable feature of the firewall is the packet inspection. That is an amazing feature from Check Point. Apart from that, we do have identity solutions which we use on a regular basis. Both are very good.

It would be great if the access management, the user management features, were improved in terms of the number of users that can be connected, and how users can access the various resources with the help of firewall authentication.

Also, one of the challenges I hear about from customers or engineers who work with and operate Check Point firewalls is not about the technical capabilities of the product but about understanding the product. There should be whitepapers available on the Check Point portal so that people can understand them more easily.

I have been using Check Point's firewalls for almost 12 years. I started with the IP390.

Stability has improved a lot from Check Point's very early days over the last 12 years. Back then we had to reboot the firewall after every two to four days.

The firewalls are scalable with our workload. We are at about 20 to 30 percent utilization so even if we doubled of our existing network resources and load on the firewalls, they would still have the space to scale. They're enough for the networks that we have implemented.

We recently finished a deployment and it's still in the user acceptance test phase. As of now, I cannot say anything in terms of increased usage. But for the customers that we have deployed it for within India and the APAC region, so far the results have been pretty good.

I have used technical support a couple of times, when it was required, for hardware replacements. Of course, once or twice I contacted them for active devices when we had some glitches. But that turned out to have nothing to do with Check Point.

Overall, technical support has been good. They understand the situation and what part needs to be replaced or what needs troubleshooting through remote support tools.

Before Check Point we used Cisco. And we use Cisco for a couple of customers because it's already pre-deployed, so it's not in our hands. We manage operations, so we are still managing Cisco devices. We don't have Juniper right now, but we have Palo Alto for one of our customers.

The initial setup is very straightforward. When we boot the firewall we have instructions which say how to connect to the QR, and from that portal you go to your gateway and configure all the required network interfaces. Once you have installed your Smart controller, you need not log into the firewall every time. Instead, you can log in through your Smart controller. That's a pretty good method which no other firewall provides.

For the very basic features, it does not take more than two days. But, for a full-fledged implementation, it can take around two months.

Our implementation strategy is to replace existing firewalls in the network. We try to keep the business downtime as short as possible, especially for business-critical applications.

For deployment and maintenance of these firewalls we have a team, worldwide in different regions: APAC, Europe, America, and the Middle East, although in the Middle East we don't use Check Point.

We have definitely achieved ROI with Check Point firewalls.

We definitely evaluate other options based on the customer's budget, and the stability and technical specs of the firewall. We generally choose Check Point as our preferred product vendor.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using Check Point's firewalls is that they are not complex.

I'm expecting a lot of solutions from Check Point and if there are more solutions from them, that would be great. I would like to see more product development.

Overall, I would rate it at 10 out of 10. It's the best firewall in the market.

We use Check Point's firewall to provide network security to our organization as well as to other, third-party vendors.

The Check Point firewall is providing advanced-level security. Compared to before, our company is more secure now. It is not only securing the users working within the LAN environment, but also to the end-users or remote users in the company.

The most valuable features are its 

• antivirus
• threat detection
• central management system. 

The central management makes it easier, and is a time-saver, when implementing changes. We can do all the changes within Check Point and not use any third-party device.

The antivirus Check Point offers could be better when compared to competitors' firewalls. Updates should be more frequent. With other firewalls, updates are very frequent, but with Check Point updates are not so frequent. That needs to be improved.

Also, the certification as well as learning about this Check Point is much costlier when compared to the other firewalls. I have recently done certifications in various firewalls and Check Point's certification was more costly.

I have been using Check Point's NGFW for the last six years.

The Check Point firewall is very stable. It is one of the oldest firewalls in the market. It has all the advanced features, according to the security features we have. It's quite a stable firewall.

It is very good and scalable. We have recently expanded the usage of Check Point and it was not a very tough process to scale this firewall.

Right now it's protecting around 3,000-plus employees.

It has been a very good experience every time we call Check Point. We usually get them on a phone call and they are very informative people. They always provide us the solution.

We had another solution. We switched because Check Point gave us more advanced features and there was market demand for network security.

The initial setup was a little complex. The training from Check Point should be increased. It was a little complex, but with the help of their TAC and the help of other engineers, we installed it.

The deployment has taken about eight months. We have deployed it in a three-way architecture. We have installed a security gateway, an SMS (security management system) and we have installed the console.

We have a team of four people, all network engineers, for deployment and maintenance of the solution. We take care of all the firewalls for the organization, including Check Point's.

We had help from a Check Point integrator. It was a good experience. They were very helpful.

We are happy with our investment in Check Point's firewall. Per our standards, and for our environment, it is a very good firewall. It is protecting us well.

Pricing is a little high compared to competitive firewalls, but it is easy to go through the licensing steps.

We evaluated other options, including Cisco ASA. The difference was that Check Point provides advanced features, such as threat prevention and antivirus. Apart from those, it also provides us with IPS. Also, for Cisco ASA, we had to take extra services to install it, so we went for Check Point.

Make sure you get good training on Check Point's firewall, and it would be good if you have working experience on the device.

Using Check Point, I have learned that we need to serve our remote users as well, and Check Point is a firewall which is capable of doing that.

We use it to provide security in our organization. Check Point Next Generation Firewalls are designed to support large networks, like a telco environment.

Check Point has a lot of features. The ones I love are the 

• antivirus
• intrusion prevention 
• data loss prevention. 

Apart from that, there is central management through which we can integrate all the firewalls and support them. It makes it easy to manage all the firewalls.

It's also user-friendly and not very complex. Anyone can use it and the dashboard is quite good.

Check Point has notably fewer tutorials on Google. If I'm facing any kind of issue and I Google it, less stuff is available. 

Apart from that, the antivirus is less effective than its competitors' antivirus. The antivirus is good, but in other firewalls, such as Palo Alto, it's quite effective. Check Point should provide more output. Sometimes it provides comprehensive information and sometimes it doesn't.

I have been using this firewall for more than one year.

The stability is good. We've never seen any kind of issue with the Check Point firewalls. In very rare cases we go to their TAC, but we normally try to resolve the situation from our side.

They are quite scalable. They are designed to extend in large data centers and tech environments. They are designed to support the needs of large networks, and offer reliability and performance.

Check Point's technical support is quite good. It's quite helpful. We have never faced any kind of issue with them. Whenever we have an issue with the firewalls, we just raise it with them and they are quite supportive and quite technical as well. They provide a resolution on time and effectively.

Previously, I worked on Cisco ASA firewalls and they have a lot of disadvantages. They have a lot fewer features compared to the Check Point firewalls. We just started using Check Point as a firewall in our organization and they give us new features which are better than the Cisco ASA. With Check Point, the IPS is already configured in the box, unlike the Cisco ASA, and there are a lot of features which help us to provide more security for our customers. In our case, the customers are all employees of our organization.

All of these are reasons we switched to Check Point.

The setup is straightforward.

Deployment depends on the customer's architecture or network.

In terms of a deployment plan, we have different teams in our organization that support different business cases. After an implementation ticket is raised by the requester it goes to the planning stage, then it goes to the implementation stage and then it goes to the validation stage. The planning stage is done by the network security admins. The approval stage that is done by our managers and the validation stage is done by us, the network security admins. This is the process that we follow in our organization. Everything is documented.

We do the deployment ourselves, but if we face any kind of issue, we just raise an issue with their TAC.

The pricing is good. It's not so expensive. You can deploy it and it will do a lot of jobs in one package. It's a good choice compared to the other firewalls.

We looked at Palo Alto and the Cisco FTD Next-Generation Firewall.

Check Point Next Generation firewalls are very good. They have a lot of features in one box and they're not that expensive. They support a lot of features, including antivirus, data loss prevention, and the central management is very good. We can configure all the firewalls through the central management. They have many things in a small package. I would recommend them.

The biggest lesson I have learned from the solution is that it has a lot of features that I was not aware of. The dashboard is quite simple and it's not complex to use.

We make changes on this Checkpoint Firewall as per customer demand. If they want to add a rule on the firewall we do that, and if they want to remove something we remove it for them. If they want to change the position of some rules or to allow or deny any kind of traffic, we do that for them.

In our organization we have a team of 20 - 25 network security admins. Sometimes the network team will also implement changes and they are about 25 people. Sometimes we get  the help of our managers to approve the changes or validate whether the change has been implemented correctly or not. If I sum it up, it's a team of about 100 people who directly use the solution, and they also take care of deployment and maintenance.

My role is to do implementation and troubleshooting on the Check Point Firewall. We use this firewall for our organization's security by adding restrictions and security from viruses and other tech from the external Internet.

It is used in our internal company-wide network. It protects our company throughout the LAN network.

We have needed to install many third-party devices to provide major security to our organization. Because of Check Point and its many features, we do not require other third-party devices. We only require Check Point to provide the security.

It gives us centralized management for multiple firewalls. For example, if I want to push the same configuration to 10 firewalls, I can push it all at once with the help of the centralized management system.

It is easy to use because it supports Linux language in the CLI. This is a good for someone who already knows Linux language.

The company should increase the learning platform free of charge. For example, Palo Alto and Cisco ASA have very good platforms that are completely free. Almost everyone in this field has good product knowledge. Therefore, I would like more training and expertise to be available for Check Point NGFWs.

I would like the graphic user interface to be easier to use. For example, the NAT policy should be easier to use. Check Point's NAT policy is somewhat confused compared to other competitors.

I have been using it four years and four months.

It is a stable firewall that has new updates. The new updates are very impressive. There is also a good antivirus update which comes out very frequently and is completely stable.

The solution's scalability is good.

With our increasing business, we have given a proposal to increase the number of firewalls.

In my organization, there were five associate consultants included in the deployment process, including me.

The solution has very good, timely support. Most of the time, when we opened a case with their tech support, we have been in a panic situation because of the case's priority. However, the solution that we get is very straightforward and in very short amount of time.

My issues were resolved by the Check Point team or available on the Internet. So, all my problems were resolved.

I have used Palo Alto and Cisco ASA. When I used Check Point, I got to know that the CLI is based on Linux. I already know Linux, so it was very comfortable for me. Apart from that, it was the company's decision. They wanted to use this firewall.

The initial setup was straightforward because I have done training on Check Point. I didn't face any issue while implementing or while configuring it. I only faced a few issues, and they were resolved by the Check Point team.

It takes around nine to 12 months for the complete deployment of this solution. My deployment plan was a three-tier architecture, which is one of Check Point's features.

I deployed it myself with the help of one or two of my colleagues.

I am happy with the investment that we made on Check Point. The reason behind this: It has advanced features for protecting the environment.

I also evaluated Palo Alto and Cisco ASA.

Check Point pros:

• The CLI is very ease to use.
• It provides advanced security threat prevention.

Check Point cons:

• The graphical user interface should be easier to use.
• More training should be provided by Check Point. 

I would recommend this solution because it is a firewall that replaces many other devices. Money-wise, it is good. It also has many features. These can be utilized to protect your environment from outside threats.

You should have a couple of training and hands-on experiences before deploying the changes by yourself on the firewall. It has many features of which people are not knowledgeable so they usually utilize them.

With time, technology is getting better. Check Point is one of these examples. They have changed their products completely from the old R80 version, where their UI and CLI were much different. 

I would rate this solution as a nine out of 10.