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Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs Cisco Secure Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
316
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Check Point CloudGuard Netw...
Ranking in Firewalls
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
126
Ranking in other categories
Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), Cloud and Data Center Security (6th), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (6th)
Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
406
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 19.8%, up from 17.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 5.7%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

DineshKumar28 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 25, 2024
Effective threat prevention with responsive customer support
We are using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall Fortinet FortiGate has been invaluable. It has helped save costs due to its various features, reliable performance, very good UI, low latency, and stability. The Threat Intel engine in Fortinet FortiGate is highly rated for its effectiveness in…
PRASHANT GARJE - PeerSpot reviewer
May 22, 2024
Cost-effective, supports automation, and provides good security
We have done a lot of automation with the firewall, but sometimes, there are some failures because of some bugs. The fixes for them are still not available. We have daily or weekly communication with the Check Point people giving support in the India region, but we have not seen much improvement or response to our requests for some additional features. We are moving to infra as a code, so we are expecting more advancements in this product. Just installing the patches is not going to help us. They need to focus on this area. I expect Check Point CloudGuard to come up with some AI/ML integration. A firewall is the first L3 security device available to you. It is the single point that manages or processes the traffic for an organization. There is a possibility that the device goes down or gets rebooted for any reason. The integration of artificial intelligence with the devices can help us to know in advance that there might be a surge in traffic. There might be a spike in the traffic, so we can have some additional firewalls integrated. This predictive analysis has to be there. This way, if required, a second, third, or fourth firewall can come into the picture. All the firewalls will process the traffic simultaneously. I am expecting such capability. This sort of feature is available with AWS. We are deploying all the firewalls on AWS, but it would be easy if, in the future, such a feature is available from the OEM or Check Point itself. It will be very helpful for the organization. We have had a couple of outages because of some misconfiguration. They were human errors but there were no prior indications that if we were making these sorts of changes, this would happen. People making the changes on the firewall were not aware of this, and that is the reason why the outage happened. In a financial organization, an outage of even five minutes can cost a lot.
Daniel Going - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 26, 2022
Is intuitive in terms of troubleshooting, easy to consume, and stable
We use it for data center security for both the north-south and east-west. With Firepower, you get the next-generation functionality and the next-generation firewall features. Traditionally, when you have a layer three access list, it's really tricky to get the flexibility you need to allow staff…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."
"The web filtering feature and the intrusion protection system are the most valuable. It is a resilient appliance. I never had an issue with it in terms of any security breaches."
"It has improved our organization with control data."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"The solution is easier to manage than an on-premise firewall. It is easy to manage. The use of dynamic objects for these gateways made it easy to create the right rules and the right policies. Integration with Azure is also easy where we have to just add the subnets. In an on-premise setup, we have to add everything from scratch. We can automate a lot of actions."
"The tool's most valuable features are threat prevention and protection mechanisms."
"This software is great in overall performance since it can locate any trouble across the networking system and provide solutions before it affects workflows."
"The most valuable feature of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is the ease of use. It was not difficult to learn."
"The tool's most valuable features are inspecting internet traffic and IPS. We can manage the firewall using shared policies from a single management server."
"Its integration and use of features, such as advanced threat prevention, have helped us a lot with malware prevention and also with avoiding exposure to false positives."
"The router's anti-bot feature and network security for detecting malware and preventing its spread are critical components. Additionally, there are other features like antivirus, anti-malware, and a firewall. T"
"All the features that we subscribe to from CloudGuard NGTP are valuable. All the threat prevention and access control features give us the network security that we expect."
"The ASA has seen significant improvement due to the IPS."
"The most valuable feature is the access control list (ACL)."
"The product is quite robust and durable."
"The feature set is fine and is rarely a problem."
"Simple to deploy, stable."
"The TAC is always very helpful. We pay for Tier 1 support, so we get whatever we need from them. They always give us a solution. If they can't give us an answer that day, they get back to us within at least 24 hours with a solution or fix. I have never had a problem with the TAC. I would rate them as 10 out of 10."
"Valuable features include DMZ segmentation, and IDS and IPS."
"An eight because it's a good security solution. It's more mature than its competitors."
 

Cons

"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."
"It does not have key authentication for admin access."
"Backup can be improved."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
"The solution lacks multi-language support."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"We have the product deployed on Azure China. One crucial concern is the version limitation; unfortunately, in Azure China, we are restricted to running version R80. Our architecture has a Load Balancer, VMSS CloudGuard, etc. The duplication in this setup prevents the application from seeing the original client IP. This poses a problem for certain applications that require the original IP for login purposes. Although we managed a workaround with a different architecture involving a WAF, it is not as straightforward as the standard Azure setup."
"The documentation could be much better."
"The solution needs to improve the interruptions that happen during gateway upgrades."
"I think they have pretty much mastered what can be done. There are some nuances like when you fail over from one cluster member to the other, the external IP address takes about two minutes to fail over."
"Zero touch removes any independence for configuring."
"It needs to cover additional kinds of infrastructure, like containers and serverless options. It's somewhat limited in that area."
"When upgrading the firewall, the old VPC containing the firewalls needs to be destroyed. After that, a new firewall is redeployed in the setup. Additionally, there's a need to separate the routing, and the routing from the old VPC has to be recreated in the new one."
"CloudGuard Network Security could be improved in the area of upgrading in place."
"If Cisco could stop rebranding, combine all the CLIs/GUIs, and give a consistent experience, this would be great."
"The SSL VPN is, and always has been, painful to configure and the Java plugin does not guarantee a uniform deployment."
"In the future, I would like to be able to use an IP phone over a VPN connection."
"The management of the firewalls could be improved because there are a lot of bugs."
"We use the FTD management platform for the boxes. The GUI that manages multiple Firepower boxes could be improved so that the user experience is better."
"The user interface for the Firepower management console is a little bit different from traditional Cisco management tools. If you look at products we already use, like Cisco Prime or other products that are cloud-based, they have a more modern user interface for managing the products. For Firepower, the user interface is not very user-friendly. It's a little bit confusing sometimes."
"These firewalls are not for beginners."
"​REST API stability needs improvement in order for customizing resource allocation available to the user rather than just being there transparently. This way users can customize REST API and tailor it to their needs​."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have the full license that included all of the features and support."
"There is a license to use Fortinet FortiGate."
"Its price is affordable and lesser than Cisco. Cisco is expensive. In terms of licensing, there is only one issue. If a customer's license has expired a month ago and they do the renewal after one month, Fortinet renews the license from the start of the previous month. The activation of the product is done from the previous month, not from the date of renewal. The customers usually shout and complain that because they are paying today, the renewal should start from today. The support contract renewals or licensing should be renewed from the date of renewal, but Fortinet starts from the day it had expired. It is a loss for customers. They might have had some problems because of which they did not take the license one month before. Fortinet should work on this. Cisco doesn't do this. Cisco always starts from the day they apply for the license."
"Easy to understand licensing requirements."
"It is too expensive for us. My organization is very small, and we have a total of ten users. We have three internal users and seven external users. The FortiGate 100D series is too expensive for renewing the licenses."
"The main reason we chose Fortinet FortiGate was that the price was better than the competition."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is better than Cisco, Check Point, and Palo Alto. In terms of pricing, it's probably a better-priced firewall solution overall."
"The price for the device and software is high. However, the solution is of good quality and has a lot of features."
"The product's licensing costs are yearly."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"It's not very expensive. It isn't very cheap either. Its price is okay. It depends on how much money you have. It might be expensive for some companies. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The tool's pricing is good. Customers want it to be cheap. I consider the pricing to be elastic. CloudGuard Network Security is perceived as cost-effective compared to using the built-in tools provided by the cloud."
"CloudGuard Network Security is not too cheap."
"It is more expensive than other solutions and would be more competetive in the market if it came down in price."
"When customers compare it with Sophos or any other products, the price is on the higher side."
"There is flexibility in the different licensing models that are offered."
"It would be nice if pricing could do more to reflect the economy of the country where the product is being implemented."
"This product requires licenses for advanced features including Snort, IPS, and malware detection."
"We are partners with Cisco. They are always one call away, which is good. They know how to keep their customers happy."
"Pricing is high, but it is essentially a corporate decision."
"The product is expensive."
"Purchasing from the AWS Marketplace was easy. It was just point and click."
"The pricing could always be cheaper."
"Cisco devices are for sure costly and budget could be an important constrain on selecting them as our security solution."
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Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What do you like most about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
The tool's most valuable feature is its management console.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
CloudGuard is pretty expensive. Azure ends up being cheaper. They are fairly priced. It's not cheap. However, you def...
What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
The solution's future releases would benefit from incorporating more advanced machine learning capabilities for real-...
Which is better - Fortinet FortiGate or Cisco ASA Firewall?
One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. Fortinet Fort...
How does Cisco's ASA firewall compare with the Firepower NGFW?
It is easy to integrate Cisco ASA with other Cisco products and also other NAC solutions. When you understand the Cis...
Which is better - Meraki MX or Cisco ASA Firewall?
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports netw...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security
Cisco ASA Firewall, Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Cisco ASA, Adaptive Security Appliance, ASA, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance
There are more than one million Adaptive Security Appliances deployed globally. Top customers include First American Financial Corp., Genzyme, Frankfurt Airport, Hansgrohe SE, Rio Olympics, The French Laundry, Rackspace, and City of Tomorrow.
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Cisco Secure Firewall and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.