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AWS Direct Connect vs Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Direct Connect
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
13th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Check Point Harmony SASE (f...
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Firewalls (15th), Anti-Malware Tools (6th), ZTNA as a Service (4th), ZTNA (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of AWS Direct Connect is 2.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) is 2.3%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

Flavio Gomes Figueira Camacho Junior - PeerSpot reviewer
Establish secure and private connections between on-premise infrastructure and cloud environments
AWS Direct Connect allows me to connect our on-premise infrastructure directly with AWS infrastructure. This is particularly beneficial because it helps me use our infrastructure for databases and testing while leveraging AWS's computing power for production purposes. I also do not need to expose management of our machines to the public internet, enhancing security by using a private connection.
Nasseer Qureshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers seamless and secure remote access while enhancing security posture
Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) offers strong features, but there are areas that could be improved. One area for improvement is integration with third-party identity providers. It works with standard SAML and SSO, but we would prefer deeper integrations with solutions such as Ping for more advanced identity-based policies. Additionally, a mobile-specific client or lightweight agent would be helpful for securing access from smartphones, especially in BYOD environments. We would appreciate more granular reporting and analytics, including better drill-down capabilities to investigate specific users or app activity. The logs are comprehensive, but filtering them can sometimes feel messy. The user interface on the management portal could be more intuitive, especially when managing multiple sites or remote offices. Some of the policy configuration steps are nested and could be streamlined.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The platform's most valuable feature for us is its robust network performance."
"Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature of Direct Connect is its low latency to the users."
"The most valuable feature of Direct Connect is its low latency to the users."
"AWS Direct Connect allows me to connect our on-premise infrastructure directly with AWS infrastructure."
"Direct Connect provides an improved connection quality and a diversified link, which contributes to high availability and failover capabilities."
"It is a highly scalable solution."
"What I like about Harmony Connect is that every packet through the network is screened and filtered so that only clean packets can enter the PC. This is useful for a variety of security reasons because you no longer need to worry about things like DDoS attacks."
"HTTPS decryption is a valuable service and not always found in cloud-based secure web gateways."
"It has provided a seamless gateway to much-needed platforms."
"The Harmony Connect solution helped by unifying in a single portal all the necessary accesses for the company's internal employees, such as RDP, SSH, bank access databases, and even internal portals, bringing security and organization to the entire environment and facilitating employee access with a single, centralized login to the entire environment."
"Perimeter 81 is very pretty."
"Harmony SASE helps us to manage compliance by regulating the amount of access to each department and user. We control the relevant apps and websites, which can be accessed from company-owned devices. Harmony SASE uses its own threat intelligence data from the cloud for threat prevention, and detect and manage threats with their own threat intelligence data and SASE firewall features."
"Our operators can work from home without any problems."
"Protection against threats like ransomware is very effective."
 

Cons

"It would be good if we could connect AWS Direct Connect from different networks."
"Having more locations could improve the convenience of using the service."
"The platform's stability needs improvement."
"AWS Direct Connect should support cross-cloud connections, such as migrations between Azure and AWS, for disaster recovery purposes on different cloud platforms."
"There is no room for improvement in Direct Connect right now."
"It is complicated to do additional BGP configuration for the product."
"It can be difficult to configure compared to cloud-based GUIs."
"I would like to see better traffic visibility and higher throughput security, especially for organizations that require more than what the current limit allows."
"I'd love to learn more about all of the features. Maybe a monthly spotlight of features or having a banner that explains more ways certain features could be used would be helpful."
"Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) could be improved as there's complexity during initial configuration, and there's a learning curve."
"Although the interface is user-friendly, further simplification and customization options tailored for non-technical users would benefit smaller firms without dedicated IT teams. Intuitive dashboards and guided setups can help in reducing the learning curve."
"There is a very small amount of downtime."
"Its initial setup process is complex for a hybrid environment."
"The main problem with Harmony Connect is that, because it's in a new category of offerings by Check Point, there's very little marketing of the product so far, and this means that many potential users don't even know this kind of solution is available. There are also few testimonials or case studies talking about people who have used the product and fell in love with it, for example."
"Zero Trust Network Access can be a security breach if not used correctly."
"Harmony lacks this ability when anything more than a vanilla access policy is used (we use layers and source user objects in our policy which make this impossible according to Check Point)."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has reasonable pricing in terms of the features offered."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is good, especially when you compare it to other firewall or UTM solutions from FortiGate or SonicWall, where you would have to invest about four hundred thousand rupees for 100 users over a three-year period."
"The product is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Perimeter 81 charges separately for gateways and VPN connectivity, but compared to Azure, it seemed more reasonable."
"The cost of the solution's licenses depends on the particular use cases."
"Annual licenses cost $30 to $40 each."
"I consider the product to be a medium-priced solution. There are no additional costs attached to the tool."
"I would rate Harmony Connect's pricing at six out of ten. It wasn't particularly expensive, but it wasn't super cheap either."
"The product is reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Direct Connect?
AWS Direct Connect provides a secure and encrypted connection over the internet.
What needs improvement with AWS Direct Connect?
It is working fine for us as it is. AI is the icon in the future, so they need to provide more information for us. For us, it is a new concept, and we will try to use it for our vertical industry i...
What is your primary use case for AWS Direct Connect?
We are using SAP boxes for the ERP system. We are using VPNs, elastic internet IPs. We have Route 53. We have mail because it is necessary to have mail if we want to publish a domain on the interne...
What do you like most about Perimeter 81?
Even after restarting, it tries to quickly reestablish connection which is very helpful.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Perimeter 81?
It's essential to consider the organization's specific requirements and budget. Here are some general recommendations: * Evaluate your needs * Understand pricing models * Request a quote * Compare ...
What needs improvement with Perimeter 81?
In terms of improvement, Perimeter 81 could enhance its reporting and analytics capabilities to provide more detailed insights into network activity. Additionally, expanding integration options wit...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Check Point Quantum SASE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Aqua Security, Cognito, Multipoint, Kustomer, Postman, Meredith
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Direct Connect vs. Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.