Azure Firewall vs Check Point NGFW comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Apr 6, 2022

We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and Check Point NGFW based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: The majority of Azure Firewall users feel that it is simple and straightforward to set up and deploy. Users of Check Point NGFW are divided over whether or not it was simple to deploy. Some reviewers note that Check Point NGFW is simple to deploy when you already have experience with the product.

  • Features: Users of Azure Firewall find it to be both scalable and stable. They point out that it has other valuable features, including its threat intelligence and its auto-scaling features. However, its user interface could be improved.

    Users of Check Point NGFW feel that it is highly scalable and they point out that it has many other valuable features, including its threat detection and firewall features. However, users feel that its stability could be improved.
  • Pricing: Users of Azure Firewall feel that it is a pretty inexpensive product to use. In contrast, users of Check Point NGFW feel that it is expensive.
  • Service and Support: Most users of Azure Firewall feel that the technical support that it offers is good. However, one user notes that the documentation that they offer could be improved. Users of Check Point NGFW are divided over whether or not their technical support is effective. Some users felt that the training that they offer could be improved.

Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Azure Firewall seems to be a superior solution. All other things being more or less equal, our reviewers found Check Point NGFW to be rather expensive to purchase. Users of Check Point NGFW feel that the stability of the product could be improved. Additionally, some users are not so impressed by the technical support and training that it offers.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Firewall vs. Check Point NGFW Report (Updated: November 2023).
745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: Which would you recommend - Azure Firewall or Check Point NGFW?
Answer: Azure Firewall is easy to use and provides excellent support. Valuable features include integration into the overall cloud platform, autoscaling, and the ability for users to create virtual IP addresses. The cost of the solution is also competitive. Check Point NGFW solution offers zero-day protection and provides absolute in-depth visibility with a multi-layer, multi-blade approach. This solution has a Smart Controller that allows you to manage all firewalls from one single location. It also has good antivirus protection and knowledgeable, responsive support. Check Point NGFW is cost-effective and provides valuable support to get through required compliance audits. For Azure Firewall you have to specify each IP address used. We also found Azure to be challenging to implement from region to region, as it does not currently offer a universal approach across regions. Support can be very slow to respond and has caused us some downtime, affecting productivity and overall satisfaction. Check Point NGFW VPN can be very complex to set up. The deployment can be more challenging than many other solutions on the market. Although once fully deployed, things do get easier. Debugging can also be very difficult and makes it seem less stable than other solutions out there. Training and support could be better overall. Conclusion Azure is great, especially since almost everyone is part of the Azure ecosystem. However, it may not be the best solution for larger enterprises, as stability is limited, and the scale-up scale-out approach needs improvement. Check Point can be very challenging to set up and deploy, but the unique multi-layer, multi-blade approach gives greater flexibility and transparency, which makes it a great option for larger enterprises with more complex, intricate needs.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN.""Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward.""The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward.""FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all of these features on one device because it can cause performance issues.""Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good.""The pricing is great and very reasonable.""It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers.""It's an easy solution to set up."

More Fortinet FortiGate Pros →

"The solution is stable.""The firewall policy control, URL content control, and antivirus are all the most valuable aspects. Threat prevention is as well quite good.""Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage.""The initial setup is straightforward; Azure Firewall does not have a complex implementation process. It is very simple; you just need to enable the service within Azure. It does not require any maintenance because it is managed by Microsoft, that is, it is a fully managed service.""It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature.""It is easy for me to protect certain ports or even the IP addresses, as well as do whitelisting, blacklisting, and the FQDN when we want virtual machines connected and to protect certain websites.""It provided ease of maintenance. If a new firewall was needed, we only had to run the pipelines for this. So, the maintenance was very easy.""We use the solution for application and server deployment."

More Azure Firewall Pros →

"We have all the features we want or need in this appliance. It's been good so far.""The solution can scale.""I like the Next-Generation Firewall.""The console or the single interface on the blades is most valuable.""Check Point has an awesome price-to-benefit ratio, netting you an awesome throughput of IDS/IPS capability compared to Palo Alto, Cisco, and so on.""Log storage gives us insights when required.""I use it as well as a VM. We use it a lot because we have all fiber optic connections, so we could use almost all of that. The federation is beautiful because I can transfer all traffic to my main site where I can use just one link to the internet, and I can use it as a proxy as well. It is good to keep control and security.""I rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten."

More Check Point NGFW Pros →

Cons
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information.""Its customer service could be better.""The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything.""This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product.""The scalability could be better.""When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues.""The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI.""Lacks sufficient security options."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cons →

"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface.""An Azure firewall is not a real firewall.""It has fewer features than you can get from other firewalls, like anti-spam and anti-phishing. Those kinds of things are not included. It only includes IDS and IDB.""The solution should incorporate features similar to competitors like split tunneling.""For large organizations, a third-party firewall would be an added advantage, because it would have more advanced features, things that are not in Azure Firewall.""The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them.""It would be much easier if the on-premises, firewall rules, had some kind of export-import possibility in place, which is not the case right now.""Azure Firewall should have a free trial version for new users so that they can evaluate it before deploying it."

More Azure Firewall Cons →

"The only thing that we've seen is instances where console and administrative interfaces get locked up or freeze, and we have to get the machine rebooted.""The documentation could be better.""The support team should be faster.""Check Point is not a cheap solution and it's always painful to see exactly how much we need to spend on this.""You need to merge all the old consoles into one new one and make the interface more convenient for the novice administrator.""Check Point could do better to include acceleration technologies like SD-WAN in an integrated or embedded way to provide these new features that Check Point never had and is of great importance in the market.""Sometimes there are security bugs, which is frustrating.""It requires enhanced automation tools for regulatory compliance to ease the burden of compliance reporting and auditing."

More Check Point NGFW Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "I had to pay for the license for the firewall, but it is guaranteed to have updates. I expect a good service for it. It was about €1000 for a year, and there was no additional cost."
  • "It is more expensive than Sophos. Fortinet is overall more expensive than Sophos. The small range of Fortinet, such as 60F and 80F, is more expensive than the small range of Sophos. Sophos is cheaper. In addition, if you jump from 80F Series to 100F Series, the price doubles."
  • "The license is yearly. We pay for the top end. It's called 360."
  • "Here in Brazil, we're going through difficult economic times and the tax on the dollar is high. All the solutions from minor competitors are growing in the market. The prices have come more competitive."
  • "Licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is on a yearly basis. Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
  • "The licensing scheme of Fortinet is better than Cisco. It is more logical."
  • "The solution requires a license annually, it is not a user license, you can have as many users as your want. I must renew the license regularly per device."
  • "It was probably about $2,500 per firewall. It was all included. It included support, services, threat management software, and 24/7 FortiCare on it. Cisco products are more expensive."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Azure Firewalls operate on a pay-as-you-go model, similar to cloud services."
  • "The solution is cheaper than other brands. My company has an enterprise contract and we finally got a good price with Azure."
  • "Azure Firewall comes with Azure native services. We did not buy any kind of license for it. Whether you have a free subscription or a pay-as-you-go model, you can deploy the Azure Firewall service... The amount that you use will determine how much you pay."
  • "It is expensive, especially with the premium functions. For one of the clients, it was very expensive. You have to use it more at an enterprise level, and there, it was not at an enterprise level. So, it was very costly, but security-wise, it was a very wise decision to use it that way."
  • "The pricing should be competitive. If you compare Azure's pricing to that of security solutions from AWS or GCP, theirs is much more competitive. Azure Firewall should also have similar competitive prices so that it is accessible to small- and medium-sized organizations."
  • More Azure Firewall Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I don't see that Check Point is very high, but it is geared more towards enterprises."
  • "Its cost is a little higher than other products."
  • "Check Point NGFW can be expensive compared to other competitors, but the price matches the functionality and efficiency of the solution."
  • "Before you buy, check which features you need, and if possible, I recommend signing up for at least a three-year license."
  • "Check Point needs to lower its price drastically, and the licensing model is very complex."
  • "There are competitors that have more expensive solutions than Check Point NGFW, such as Palo Alto. There are times when Check Point NGFW can have good offerings with a three-year license. The presence of Palo Alto has been heavily invested in marketing."
  • "It's expensive."
  • "It may be considered relatively expensive, but the investment is justified when compared to other competitors."
  • More Check Point NGFW Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Answers from the Community
    Netanya Carmi
    Anil Redekar - PeerSpot reviewerAnil Redekar (Infosys)
    Real User

    Check Point firewall does a deep inspection of packets till Layer 7 and is more compatible with the organizational environment. 


    The Azure firewall is also a cloud-based security solution that also provides Advance Threat Protection. 

    Questions from the Community
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    Top Answer:Both products are very stable and easily scalable The setup of Azure Firewall is easy and very user-friendly and the… more »
    Top Answer:Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security Fortinet Fortigate… more »
    Top Answer:I have experience on both from Disti and channel experience. Please find below my comments (nothing new as such)… more »
    Top Answer:Azure Firewall is easy to use and provides excellent support. Valuable features include integration into the overall… more »
    Top Answer:I rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
    Check Point NG Firewall, Check Point Next Generation Firewall
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiGate is an innovative line of firewalls that aim to protect organizations from all types of web-based network threats. They come in a wide variety of product types. Fortinet FortiGate’s solutions are available in a large range of sizes and form factors and are key components of the Fortinet Security Fabric, which enables immediate, intelligent defense against known and new threats throughout the entire network.

    Fortinet FortiGate provides users with next-generation firewall solutions that provide proven protection with unmatched performance across the network, from internal segments to data centers to cloud environments. You can protect every part of your network without exception. Additionally, your protections can be managed from a single central location. This ensures that the task of protecting your network is infinitely easier to accomplish.

    Benefits of Fortinet FortiGate

    Some of the benefits of using Fortinet FortiGate include:

    • The ability to manage your firewalls from a centralized automated control console. Fortinet FortiGate’s FortiManager enables administrators to exercise control of their firewalls in a streamlined manner. Administrators have full visibility and control over their system from a single location. It utilizes automation that collects information in real time, which greatly simplifies and reduces the cost of running various types of workflows. Administrators can free up resources by automating the most basic tasks.
    • The ability to produce uniform, appropriate, and coordinated responses to threats across networks. Fortinet FortiGate’s FortiGuard feature generates system protections in near real time. This allows administrators to address threats to the system with custom-made solutions that can be uniformly enforced.
    • The ability to scale up your security to fit your changing security needs. Fortinet FortiGate’s design allows users to accelerate the transfer of data between users and escalate the number of users that are covered without compromising security of performance. This means that users can grow their networks and continue to collaborate without worrying about the system slowing down or coming under attack.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Fortinet FortiGate’s firewall solutions are cutting edge. They stand out from competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are the robustness and power of their firewalls. Fortinet FortiGate’s firewall provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with the solution. These firewalls enable users to use a single piece of software to accomplish tasks that often require the use of multiple pieces of software.

    PeerSpot user Eric S., a Solutions Engineer and Consultant at a tech-services company, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface.”

    PeerSpot user Jim M., a network admin at Penobscot Valley Hospital, notes the power of Fortinet FortiGate’s security software when he writes, "It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall.”

    Azure Firewall is a user-friendly, intuitive, cloud-native firewall security solution that provides top-of-the-industry threat protection for all your Azure Virtual Network resources. Azure Firewall is constantly and thoroughly analyzing all traffic and data packets, making it a very valuable and secure fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability. Azure Firewall allows users to create virtual IP addresses and provides for secure DDoS protection for the virtual machines on your network. It also provides fast and efficient east-west and north-south traffic security.

    Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-based network security service built to protect your Azure Virtual Network resources. It is a fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability.

    Azure Firewall has two significant offerings, Standard and Premium.

    Azure Firewall Standard works directly with Microsoft Cyber Security and supplies excellent L3-L7 filtering and threat awareness. The proactive real-time threat awareness will quickly alert you and immediately deny all traffic to and from any known problematic or suspicious domains or IP addresses. Microsoft Cyber Security is updated continually to protect against all new and known potential threats at all times. To learn more about Azure Firewall Standard, click here.

    Azure Firewall Premium provides everything the standard version does, and additionally adds extra levels of data encryption, network intrusion detection, extended URL filtering, and Web category filters. To learn more about the added features of Azure Firewall Premium, click here.

    Key Benefits and Features of Azure Firewall:

    • High availability - You do not need load balancers with Azure Firewall; it's already built in and ready to go.
    • Self-scalability - Azure Firewall is intuitive and will auto-scale as needed based on traffic flow to be ready for peak traffic times.
    • Threat awareness - Using Microsoft Cyber Security to filter traffic, Azure Firewall will deny any known problematic threats to keep your network safe.
    • Additional IP addresses - You can securely add up to 250 public IP addresses with Azure Firewall
    • Improved web category filtering - You can set up specific protocols to allow or deny categories within websites that are deemed inappropriate for use within your network. You have the ability to organize categories based on a defined set of descriptions.

    What our real users have to say:

    Many PeerSpot users found Azure Firewall to be very user-friendly and easy to use. They liked that it offers seamless integration to the cloud and were especially pleased with the threat filtering options.

    Regarding integration and threat intelligence, our users wrote:

    “The most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform.”

    The most valuable feature is threat intelligence. It is based on filtering and can identify multiple threats.”

    I think that one of the best features is definitely the premium version, along with the IDPs in terms of the intrusion detection and prevention system.”



    Check Point NGFW is a next generation firewall that enables safe usage of internet applications by blocking malicious applications and unblocking safe applications. Check Point NGFW, which uses deep packet inspection to identify and control applications, has features such as application and user control and integrated intrusion prevention (IPS), as well as more advanced malware prevention capabilities like sandboxing.

    Check Point NGFW includes 23 firewall models optimized for running all threat prevention technologies simultaneously, including full SSL traffic inspection, without compromising on security or performance.

    Benefits of Check Point's Next Generation Firewall

    • Robust security: Check Point NGFW delivers the best possible threat prevention with SandBlast Zero Day protection. The SandBlast protection agent constantly inspects passing network traffic for exploits and vulnerabilities. Suspicious files are then emulated in a virtual sandbox in order to detect and report malicious behavior.

    • Security at hyperscale: On-demand hyperscale threat prevention performance provides cloud level expansion and resiliency on premises.

    • Unified management: Check Point's SmartConsole makes it easy to manage and configure network security environments and policies. With the SmartConsole, users can manage all the firewall gateways and access logs and install databases from one location. Unified management control across the network increases the efficiency of security operations and reduces IT costs.
    • Continuous logging: Check Point NGFW’s Threat Management feature detects vulnerabilities and logs them. Using the logged data, users can easily create and implement efficient security policies.

    • Remote access: The remote access VPN provides a seamless connection for remote users.

    Check Point NGFW is suitable for organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to larger enterprises.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Check Point NGFW stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its intrusion prevention feature as well as its centralized management, which makes it very easy to deploy firewall policies to many firewalls with one click.

    Shivani J., a network security administrator, writes, "Check Point has a lot of features. The ones I love are the antivirus, intrusion prevention, and data loss prevention."

    G., a network administrator at Secretaría de Finanzas de Aguascalientes, writes, “Within the organization, the inspection of packages has given us great help in detecting traffic that may be a threat to the institution. The configuration of policies has allowed us to maintain control of access and users for each institution that is incorporated into our headquarters.”

    Arun J., a senior network engineer, notes, “The nicest feature is the centralized management of multiple firewalls. With the centralized management, we can easily use and operate multiple firewalls as well as create a diagram of them.”

    Offer
    Learn more about Fortinet FortiGate
    Learn more about Azure Firewall
    Learn more about Check Point NGFW
    Sample Customers
    Pittsburgh Steelers, LUSH Cosmetics, NASDAQ, Verizon, Arizona State University, Levi Strauss & Co. Whitepaper and case studies here
    Information Not Available
    Control Southern, Optimal Media
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization21%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Financial Services Firm24%
    Government12%
    Manufacturing Company12%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm23%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization48%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Financial Services Firm5%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise26%
    Large Enterprise51%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise60%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise56%
    Large Enterprise29%
    Buyer's Guide
    Azure Firewall vs. Check Point NGFW
    November 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Check Point NGFW and other solutions. Updated: November 2023.
    745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Azure Firewall is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 9 reviews while Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 104 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.0, while Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Azure Firewall writes "Meets industry-level standards and compliance requirements, supports native load balances, and is comparably priced". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Check Point NGFW writes "Robust control and security that enables a comprehensive application management". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Netgate pfSense and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and OPNsense. See our Azure Firewall vs. Check Point NGFW report.

    See our list of best Firewalls vendors.

    We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.