Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs Cisco ACI comparison

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs. Cisco ACI

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Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

6.9

Check Point Cloud Firewall offers flexibility, security, cost-efficiency, and automation, resulting in significant time savings and operational efficiency.

Sentiment score

5.9

Cisco ACI improved productivity with reduced downtime and costs, offering security and ROI benefits, despite implementation challenges.

The value lies in maintaining operational integrity with zero downtime or incidents, facilitating secure, ongoing business operations.

reviewer2647578

Cybersecurity consultant at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

The compliance has improved as our overall compliance score against CIS benchmark has improved from around 72 to 92% within the first three months of adoption.

reviewer2751468

Assistant Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

This helped my team cut manual review time by roughly twenty to twenty-five percent, allowing me to reallocate effort to proactive cloud security improvements.

Pedro Leão

Networking and System Consultant at Orbcom,Lda.

For more quotes and insights, download the Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) report

Efficient utilization leads to cost savings and efficiency gains.

Rammohan Manike

Sr Consultant at Tata Consultancy

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco ACI report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.1

Check Point Cloud Firewall support is praised for quick, knowledgeable service but needs improved response times for complex issues.

Sentiment score

7.2

Cisco ACI's support is praised for responsiveness and technical expertise, despite occasional delays and regional service inconsistencies.

They usually respond quite fast, and they are very knowledgeable about what they do.

Dimitris Baziotopoulos

Network security engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

We had an endless loop of emails trying to fix this, and the suggestion was to reinstall the gateway and do it from scratch, which was not an option at that point because it would leave that specific location without access.

Andrei Ganciu

System administrator at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

Available twenty-four by seven.

For more quotes and insights, download the Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) report

Android Developer at Droidforge

The technical support from Cisco is satisfactory.

Rammohan Manike

Sr Consultant at Tata Consultancy

When issues occur, the TAC is not able to provide much support, leading to difficulties in finding RCAs.

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco ACI report

Network Technical Manager at KPMG

Cisco has a Customer Experience team and other professional services coming in, so their support seems to be good.

reviewer1741488

Consulting & Solution Integration at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Check Point Cloud Firewall excels in scalable multi-cloud deployments, despite some policy complexity, with flexible licensing and auto-scaling.

Sentiment score

7.7

Cisco ACI is praised for scalability, seamless integration, handling large environments, and offering flexibility with multi-site features.

Visibility scales without performance issues as my environment expands.

Pedro Leão

Networking and System Consultant at Orbcom,Lda.

It is capable of managing the increased load and performs well as our needs expand.

Viral Shaa

IT Security Analyst at Eos Energy Enterprises, Inc.

I can deploy it everywhere I need it.

Christian Riedl

Security & Network Services at a tech company with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) report

The solution offers high performance and scalability with connectivity options up to 100 GS.

Brook Debebe Hailu

Chief Technology Officer at Mehbub General Trading PLC

The scalability of Cisco ACI supports our organization's growth effectively.

Rammohan Manike

Sr Consultant at Tata Consultancy

Expanding your network or your data center with Cisco ACI is not an issue; scalability is a good feature.

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco ACI report

Network Technical Manager at KPMG

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.0

Check Point Cloud Firewall is stable and reliable, with seamless integration, despite occasional cloud provider-related connectivity challenges.

Sentiment score

7.5

Cisco ACI is praised for its stability, consistent reliability, strong tech support, and high ratings after initial issues were resolved.

If there are errors, it is sometimes challenging to elaborate or troubleshoot since it is not transparent enough to understand what to search for.

Reffat Gharaibeh

Cloud Security Architect at controlware

I have not observed any downtime.

Mantas Mazeika

Sales manager/ project manager at Atea

For instance, when we are working on a release and do an upgrade, we start experiencing unexpected issues.

Rui-Pereira

Chief Technology Officer at Chief Security Officers

For more quotes and insights, download the Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) report

For stability, Cisco ACI rates a nine or 9.5 because I've seen three customers using Cisco ACI and once deployed, the solution is very stable.

Network Technical Manager at KPMG

Cisco ACI is stable in my experience.

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco ACI report

Senior Network Automation Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Room For Improvement

Check Point Cloud Firewall needs improved APIs, integration, documentation, support, cost efficiency, and simplified management and deployment processes.

Cisco ACI needs interface improvements, enhanced training, better integration, improved scalability, user-friendly tools, and stronger technical support.

Scalability could be improved as well; needing to purchase a new license each time I want to add a new interface is not ideal.

Stefan Baumgartner

Security architect at Twinformatics

Better documentation would be welcome.

Dimitris Baziotopoulos

Network security engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

The user interface could be more intuitive, and the initial setup and configuration can be complex, requiring a technical team.

For more quotes and insights, download the Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) report

Android Developer at Droidforge

What we need is something called RAG, or retrieval-augmented generation. If Cisco can implement that to utilize customer-specific data instead of general knowledge, while ensuring data privacy under GDPR laws, I think that will result in very good, reliable output.

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco ACI report

Senior Network Automation Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Their lack of on-ground offices can result in business losses.

Brook Debebe Hailu

Chief Technology Officer at Mehbub General Trading PLC

We do not make use of its visibility and analytics features, as we are mostly using it for the networking part only.

Lin Thein Naing

S VP, IT Infra at ATOM

Setup Cost

Check Point Cloud Firewall offers competitive, flexible pricing with scalability, seen as cost-effective compared to Palo Alto and Fortinet.

Cisco ACI offers robust performance but is costly, with complex licensing, suiting large enterprises seeking reliability.

The pricing and licensing are expensive, costing between seven thousand to eight thousand dollars.

For more quotes and insights, download the Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) report

Android Developer at Droidforge

Check Point is expensive, however, with the features and capabilities, I can justify the cost.

Thanos Constantopoulos

Manager, Managed Security Services at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

It is the highest in the market.

Daniel Sander

System engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

In general, Cisco ACI is on the higher side; it's not a cheap solution.

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco ACI report

Network Technical Manager at KPMG

Cisco's pricing tends to be on the higher end compared to other vendors.

Brook Debebe Hailu

Chief Technology Officer at Mehbub General Trading PLC

Cost is one thing that could be improved, as it is heavy for an emerging market like ours.

Lin Thein Naing

S VP, IT Infra at ATOM

Valuable Features

Check Point Cloud Firewall offers centralized management, auto-scaling, threat protection, and seamless integration for efficient, secure network operations.

Cisco ACI provides security, automation, and scalability, enhancing network flexibility, centralized management, and efficient data center operations.

One of the most valuable features is the automated threat prevention, which helps us detect and block potential cyberattacks in real-time, minimizing data breaches.

For more quotes and insights, download the Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) report

Android Developer at Droidforge

Centralized management is the feature I like best, resulting in reduced workload and more continuous policy.

Christian Riedl

Security & Network Services at a tech company with 201-500 employees

Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid and cloud as well as on-prem.

Thanos Constantopoulos

Manager, Managed Security Services at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Cisco ACI provides substantial capability; you can design your network accordingly and it's part of the SDN family, providing many benefits to the organization, especially when moving from traditional network infrastructure.

Network Technical Manager at KPMG

Instead of taking days or multiple days for a deployment of a server or application, they can do it immediately within minutes because all the configuration templates are already there in the control plane.

reviewer1741488

Consulting & Solution Integration at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

With the Cisco ACI fabric, you manage them as a whole, and it's an automation-driven solution, with our network development team integrating with the APIs to establish workflows for observability, fault alerts, monitoring, and more.

For more quotes and insights, download the Cisco ACI report

Senior Network Automation Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Categories and Ranking

Check Point Cloud Firewall ...

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

241

Ranking in other categories

Firewalls (8th), Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (1st), Vulnerability Management (5th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), Container Security (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (5th), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (4th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (5th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Compliance Management (5th)

Cisco ACI

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

105

Ranking in other categories

Network Virtualization (2nd), Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is 7.4%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco ACI is 3.7%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud and Data Center Security Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)	7.4%
Cisco ACI	3.7%
Other	88.9%

Cloud and Data Center Security

Featured Reviews

reviewer2875401

Network Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Unified security policies have protected our hybrid network with deep, user-based controls

The main limitations of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) are not in Check Point itself but in the cloud platforms on which it is deployed. Because not all clouds have L2 infrastructure, you cannot build a unified clustering system everywhere. As a result, the problem usually is not with Check Point, but with the cloud. The main problem with Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is that it uses a separate thick client instead of a browser. A browser-based SmartConsole exists, but it still has a number of limitations, while the thick client, the so-called SmartConsole, often works unstably, freezes, and has to be restarted. I do not recommend using Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) as a VPN hub for site-to-site VPN because it is inconvenient to monitor the state of its tunnels, especially visually. It does not have a convenient snap-in and everything can be checked only via the console, which is very inconvenient. Check Point is not the most universal solution as a device that provides routing and administration capabilities in addition to security. It is an excellent firewall, but it has a number of limitations in terms of routing and in creating VPN sessions, especially in terms of displaying their states.

Read full review

Network automation has simplified secure multi-site connectivity and reduced daily operational effort

Senior Network Automation Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I believe Cisco ACI could improve by incorporating something related to agentic AI, where it can execute tasks based on particular evaluations or loop engineering, enhancing fault identification or suggestions based on each tenant's configuration. Additionally, I think they should ensure that the documentation is comprehensive. I appreciate that Cisco provides documentation, and their support engineers are helpful in case of any issues. In terms of governance and security regarding Cisco ACI's AI capabilities, I think what we call evals or evaluations is important, whereby the engineer can evaluate the functionalities of the AI in Cisco ACI, preventing it from making deletions or modifications on its own. Therefore, there should be evaluations or guardrails incorporated into the development capabilities. Regarding accuracy and reliability of output for Cisco ACI's AI capabilities, it hasn't met my expectations. What we need is something called RAG, or retrieval-augmented generation. If Cisco can implement that to utilize customer-specific data instead of general knowledge, while ensuring data privacy under GDPR laws, I think that will result in very good, reliable output.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

15%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	132
Midsize Enterprise	55
Large Enterprise	138

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	21
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	89

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Since we use a unified standard for using policies and modules in Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security), we can clearly plan which modules we need to activate on a parti...

What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

What is your primary use case for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is the main manager that provides network security in different forms in my organization. The primary task that Check Point solves ...

What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?

There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few. -Cisco ACI have physical network gear (9K Switches) where the Code runs in ACI Policy Mode & the UCS server wh...

What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?

Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so when you change one interface, changes are automatically reflected on every switch...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco ACI?

Cost is one thing that could be improved, as it is heavy for an emerging market like ours.

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Comparisons

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Fortinet FortiGate vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

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Cisco Secure Firewall vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Download Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) product report

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) report

Cisco ACI

Download Cisco ACI product report

Also Known As

CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

No data available

Overview

Check Point Cloud Firewall, previously known as CloudGuard Network Security, provides advanced threat prevention, centralized management, and VPN capabilities, enabling robust cloud security across various platforms including Azure and AWS.

Check Point Cloud Firewall delivers seamless cloud integration with advanced automated threat prevention and centralized management to enhance security posture. It offers auto-scaling for dynamic environments and a comprehensive policy enforcement framework in hybrid settings. The unified interface streamlines administration across cloud infrastructures, ensuring consistent protection and reducing risk.

What important features does it offer?

Advanced Threat Prevention: Safeguards against sophisticated threats.
Centralized Management: Simplifies control for cloud infrastructures.
Auto-scaling: Adapts to changing workloads seamlessly.
VPN Capabilities: Enables secure connections across environments.
Integration with Azure and AWS: Ensures compatibility with leading cloud services.
Visibility Tools: Enhanced monitoring and management for security enforcement.

What benefits can users expect?

Enhanced Security: Comprehensive threat management reduces risk.
Operational Efficiency: Automation capabilities streamline processes.
Cost Management: Efficient resource usage with auto-scaling reduces expenses.
Integration Flexibility: Adapts easily into existing cloud platforms.
Simplified Administration: Unified management reduces complexity.

In manufacturing and conglomerate sectors, Check Point Cloud Firewall is utilized for protecting cloud environments and implementing network segmentation. It supports secure cloud migration on AWS, Azure, and GCP, ensuring compliance, perimeter defense, and traffic inspection, facilitating sophisticated threat prevention strategies.

Check Point Software Technologies

Cisco ACI provides advanced capabilities with features like seamless integration with VMware and APIs for programmability. It offers centralized management for streamlined operations, efficient micro-segmentation, and robust security, addressing modern data center needs.

Cisco ACI brings automation to data center infrastructure, enabling transitions from legacy to modern environments with centralized management. Organizations benefit from optimized server farms, seamless integration with VMware, and support for Kubernetes, making it suitable for large-scale environments. Offering support for healthcare, finance, and public sectors, Cisco ACI facilitates tasks such as virtual networking and multi-site connectivity with application-centric and network-centric designs.

What are the key features of Cisco ACI?

Seamless Integration with VMware: Ensures smooth operation with existing virtualized environments.
Programmability via APIs: Offers flexibility in network configuration and management through APIs.
Centralized Management: Provides a unified view of the network, simplifying oversight.
Automation: Reduces manual configuration workload, speeding up deployment.
Scalability: Adapts to growing network demands with ease.
Robust Security: Enhances protection against threats with comprehensive security measures.
Efficient Micro-Segmentation: Improves network segmentation for security and efficiency.

What benefits or ROI should users look for when evaluating Cisco ACI?

Streamlined Operation: Reduced complexity in network management.
Enhanced Performance: Improved network and application efficiency.
Cost Efficiency: Better resource allocation reduces operational costs.
Improved Security: Advanced features for increased protection.
Scalability: Allows growth without significant redesigns.

In the healthcare industry, Cisco ACI supports secure and efficient data management, accommodating regulatory needs and enhancing patient data handling. Financial institutions benefit from robust security and seamless integration with existing infrastructures, facilitating smooth transaction processing. In the public sector, it's utilized for reliable network management and servicing a diverse range of applications.

Cisco

Sample Customers

Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs. Cisco ACI