Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) Reviews

It's simply a firewall.

1. Enables us to meet compliance requirements.
2. It maintains our security posture.

Filtering. It filters unwanted traffic.

Their products are pretty robust but, at the same time, we deployed ours in HA mode so we don't really worry about downtime, we have redundancy. We've never had any problems.

We have the right appliance for our specifications. If we wanted to get a bigger box then we will just get a bigger box based on our requirements.

We tend to go to our reseller for technical support.

The setup wasn't complex. I went to training and after training it pretty much all made sense. I was prepared for it.

Do your homework and make sure it fits. You have to know exactly what you want, what your requirements are. Make sure that whatever product you are actually going for meets your requirements, suits your infrastructure and how your IT operates.

What I look at when selecting a vendor is how long the vendor has been around, the level of focus on technology, how good they are. And one of the most important things we do is check industry ratings. That's one of the first things we look at, to see which vendors to consider.

I would rate Checkpoint eight out of 10. To get to a 10, there are some issues compared to other products. Ease of use is one. Also, I can never give any product a 10 out of 10. It's just impossible. There's always something definitely missing.

We leverage it as a next gen firewall, it does all of our IPS, URL filtering. We use it for our remote users, for VPN access. We use it to build VPN tunnels out to remote sites. It handles quite a bit.

It allows us to be a little bit more diverse in our hiring. We can hire people out in remote areas, that otherwise we wouldn't be able to because they'd have to come into the office without it.

The VPN side of it. Obviously without the VPN, we'd have tons of end users that wouldn't be able to connect to our environment.

Stability issues. I built out this firewall in a cluster, and I had stability issues day one. Needs to be rebooted frequently. Tunnels need to be bounced frequently. Their hardware compatibility guide, when I built out the servers to host them on, was not accurate. And there are compatibility issues and stability issues.

We would lose our remote sites, they would just dump. Say we had our site in California, all of a sudden we're not connected to them anymore. Or we have site in AWS, then we can't connect there anymore. So I'd have to go in and reset the IPSec VPN tunnels, in order to regain connectivity, more frequently than I should have to. Obviously that can happen from time to time, but it was pretty frequent with Check Point, to the point where we're going to rip it out the next two weeks, and install Cisco everything.

As far as scalability goes, I don't feel we really had to push it. We're not a huge company. It was literally always resolved with a license upgrade. If there were too many users connected, we would just upgrade a license and then have more users connected concurrently. So scalability, not an issue. But we sized it pretty appropriately when we installed.

We had third-party tech support through our contract, and it was okay. I pretty much ended up having to figure everything out if there was a problem. As far as Check Point goes, I haven't really dealt directly with their tech support.

When I started at the company, this solution had been in place, and it was failing, the cluster was failing. So I was tasked with rebuilding the entire solution, to make it a little bit more stable. I bought two brand new servers, and spun up a cluster for Check Point. And it improved a little bit, but for what we paid for that solution, it was not really worth it. Because of stability. 

We have migrated some stuff over to Cisco ASA Firewalls. And those seems to be more stable. A lot easier to use, more stable, faster to get going.

I thought it was pretty straightforward, myself. The issue that I ran into, on their website, when you go to install a solution they have something called the hardware compatibility list. That assures you that if you install their product, you also have the right servers to do it, you have the right NICs card, etc. So I actually bought brand new servers with brand new NIC cards that matched all the specs for the hardware compatibility list. I started getting everything setup, and it turns out the hardware compatibility list was wrong. It was wrought with issues. And I ended up having to pull some old NIC cards to throw in the servers to even get the thing to work.

So they don't have accurate documentation, I guess you could chalk it up to that. Or they didn't test it very thoroughly before they put it on the website. So that caused us a lot of heartache. This was a business-impacting setup. I had to do late-night maintenance windows, so when things don't work, it affects us at a pretty big level.

I don't think the product's pricing is a good value. I feel it's very overpriced. 

I feel a lot of the features for a next gen firewall are there. But I feel it's overpriced, because of the stability issues. As far as support goes, I really can't speak to direct Check Point support, but the third-party was pretty terrible. 

I feel you'd get a lot more out of it with Cisco. With Cisco you'd pay about the same. I feel the licensing is a lot more straightforward. It's easier to understand. 

That's another thing about Check Point, I think their licensing model is very confusing. As far as the licensing goes, it's pretty complex. If anybody was to purchase the Check Point product, definitely make sure they have an account rep come on site, and explain it line by line, what each thing is. It's not straightforward. It's very convoluted. There's no way you could just figure it out by looking at it.

We're halfway there right now, with the Cisco Firewalls we're switching to. They're very capable, they work like you'd expect, simple licensing, simple upgrades. It's been a breeze with those so far. 

I would say avoid it. There are definitely better solutions out there. For the amount of headache that you get with this product, it's not like you're saving yourself any money. It's just as much, if not more, than other solutions.

When it works, it works well. But, like I said, I've never really had a stretch of time where it just worked really well for everyone. It's been a constant pain point for our organization.

We utilize the Check Point NGFW to segregate our environment, separating our network to filter traffic between segments. Additionally, we leverage its features such as IPS, antivirus, and more, making it the foundation for all the Check Point features we use.

Check Point enables us to secure all our networks by segregating the different areas of our network. It also allows us to view logs of all traffic crossing the various areas. Through the firewall, we can access logs and evidence of activity between our areas, whether within or from the data center to the Internet.

We like the way it protects our network, how easy it is to see and filter logs, and how easy it is to manage next-generation firewall policies.

The upgrade process for Check Point NGFW is not very simple, making it difficult to find the resources needed for the upgrade compared to competitors like Fortinet. Fortinet makes the upgrade process much more manageable. 

Check Point should start working on a new, more straightforward process. Perhaps a graphical interface where you can just click to initiate the upgrade, and it will automatically replace the nodes, starting with the secondary node in a cluster and then upgrading the primary node. This would make the process automatic with just one quick action, similar to what we see in competitors like Fortinet.

I have been using Check Point NGFW for ten years.

We're encountering some issues with the Check Point NGFW. They've stopped communicating with the manager, and sometimes, we cannot push policies from the manager to the FortiGate and Check Point. The latest versions we've been working with, especially the Check Point software, haven't been very stable.

I rate the solution's stability a seven out of ten.

There are performance issues with certain Check Point NGFW models, particularly when enabling multiple features. These issues are often related to CPU utilization, causing some traffic to slow down. Competitors like Fortinet offer greater scalability than Check Point. In equivalent models, Fortinet performs better with lower CPU usage for the same amount of traffic. However, it's worth noting that Check Point excels in traffic inspection and detecting malicious activities. 

While Fortinet may offer better performance, Check Point provides superior security capabilities. Check Point's scalability is not as efficient, as it consumes more CPU when handling higher traffic volumes. Therefore, if speed is a priority, Fortinet may be a better option, but for comprehensive traffic inspection and security, Check Point remains a strong choice despite its scalability limitations.

I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten.

The support engineers sometimes lack sufficient knowledge, making it very difficult to receive a prompt response to our problems. Sometimes, we need ten remote sessions with them before they assign someone capable of resolving the issue. They start escalating only after we complain to the managers. When we open a case, we are assigned a junior staff member who requests information, resulting in lengthy delays in communication.

Neutral

The initial step is much more complex than other methods. The integration process will be a bit simpler. It takes two days. You need to start by configuring the management IPs, then proceed to establish the connection to the manager using what they call the sync password. Finally, you need to start creating the policy that you want to use.

I rate the initial setup a seven out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

The solution is expensive compared to Fortinet.

AI is more commonly utilized on the vendor rather than the client side. Therefore, they employ AI to enhance their product and understand and detect more threats that require attention, albeit with a turnaround time.

One should opt for Check Point if they have engineers or partners with expertise in Check Point because it's not the easiest product to work with. It's much simpler for someone who has never worked with Check Point or Fortinet to start with Fortinet, which is much easier to manage. However, if you possess the knowledge of the security blades in Check Point, they are superior to those in Fortinet, with the IPA.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use of Check Point NGFW is for network protection.

The most valuable feature of Check Point NGFW is it is a complete solution for protecting not only the network but the applications. Additionally, it provides a hybrid cloud solution.

The whole solution has room for improvement.

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

The solution is very stable.

Check Point NGFW has been scalable.

I would rate the technical support of Check Point NGFW a seven out of ten.

The installation is straightforward.

We have one staff member that does the implementation of the solution.

I would say that the customer has to implement Check Point NGFW with the reseller. They have experience in the implementation and with security.

I rate Check Point NGFW a ten out of ten.

I have certain customers who make use of the solution for providing security in respect of internet access. I am aware only of the solution acting as a firewall. 

My customers cite performance and ease of configuration as two of the solution's most valuable features. 

The price is middling. It's much more expensive than Fortinet, although not so expensive when compared with Palo Alto. 

The solution is significantly more expensive than Fortinet, although this holds true to a lesser extent when compared with Palo Alto. 

The solution is significantly more expensive than Fortinet, although this holds true to a lesser degree when compared with Palo Alto. 

I do not have much familiarity with Check Point NGFW, although I do have several customers who make use of it. I can mainly comment based on what I have come across in user reviews in magazines.

I know the solution to be one of the top players in the world at the moment. 

As Check Point NGFW does not compare favorably price-wise with Fortinet, I am inclined to deduct a point from its rating and rate it as a nine out of ten.

We are Check Point partners and I'm a co-founder and CTO of our company. 

The firewall and IPS are the most valuable features of the solution. 

I think third-party integration could be improved. We have also faced some performance-related challenges and there is some work to do in that area too. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

We're satisfied with the stability. 

The solution is easy to scale. 

The technical support response time needs to improve. 

This solution was moderately difficult to implement. We had some help from the distributor. We receive automatic updates but no maintenance is required. We have two people administering the solution. 

The solution offers good value. 

I recommend this product. It offers good value, and it's a high-quality product. I rate the product eight out of 10.

We use this solution for web filtering and threat analysis.

The reporting needs to be improved. I still don't have access to the reporting service.

I have been using Check Point NGFW for three years.

I am not sure which version is being used at this time. If we are not using the latest version, we are using the version before that.

We have recently had some issues with the stability of this solution. It is not stable.

We had an issue when we made some improvements to our power supply and the Check Point stopped working and needed to be recovered. There were many errors in the file system and it could not start. It blocked the work for the entire factory. We lost three days where we could not work.

That was the final straw for us and why we are moving to FortiGate.

Our company is outsourcing the support.

We are also using Fortinet FortiGate 600 and 200. We have also just ordered Palo Alto.

We pay the licensing fees on a yearly basis.

We are one of the largest manufacturers of steel in Europe.

I would not recommend this solution to others. I am very disappointed.

I would rate Check Point NGFW a five out of ten.

We primarily use it for security.

The most valuable features for us are the solution's identity awareness and intrusion prevention.

The solution is very stable.

We have found the solution to be scalable. 

Technical support is very good.

The complexity could be fixed. It's a bit complex to set up, for example. They could make it a streamlined and easier process. 

In a future release, it would be nice if they added web administration capabilities. 

I've been using the solution for about 20 years. It's been two decades at this point. I've used it for quite a while. 

The stability of the solution has been excellent so far. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The scalability of the product is very good. If a company needs to expand it, it can. It's not hard. 

We have found the technical support to be very helpful and responsive. We are satisfied with the level of support we get from them.

The initial setup is not easy. It's a bit complex. 

We're a partner.

I'd recommend this solution to other users and companies. We've been happy with its capabilities. 

I'd give the solution a rating of nine out of ten.