We performed a comparison between Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and Fortinet FortiGate based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Check Point is notable for its VPN Blade, IPS Blade, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade. It provides advanced threat prevention, centralized management, and a focus on cloud security. Fortinet FortiGate is commended for its all-inclusive bundle solution, user-friendly interface, and robust security capabilities.
For Check Point, there are areas that could be improved including cluster creation on AWS, data protection visibility, DLP feature, user interface, integration, cost reduction, documentation, and flexibility in deployment. Fortinet FortiGate could benefit from enhancements in SSL VPN, multi-factor authentication, reporting capabilities, GUI interface, software support, scalability, user interface, web application firewall and DDoS protection, troubleshooting of VPN connections, and protection against attacks and ransomware.
Service and Support: CloudGuard Network Security's customer service has received mixed feedback, with some customers expressing satisfaction with the technical support, while others have mentioned concerns regarding response time. Some Fortinet customers have found the support to be good, while others have felt the need for improvement.
Ease of Deployment: Check Point offers an initial setup that is straightforward and simple, although it may require technical expertise. The deployment time for this solution can range from one day to a few days. Fortinet FortiGate's setup is generally not too complex and straightforward, with deployment times varying from a few hours to two months.
Pricing: Check Point CloudGuard is known for its high setup cost, however, it provides excellent security and value. Fortinet FortiGate offers a reasonably priced and competitive setup cost, with a good balance between price and performance. That said, some users have mentioned that the renewal price for FortiGate is often higher than the initial purchase price.
ROI: CloudGuard Network Security has demonstrated a return on investment (ROI) ranging from 80% to 85%. Users have experienced increased benefits and found that management is easier compared to other options. Fortinet FortiGate has proven to be cost-effective, resulting in savings. Additionally, it has enhanced security measures, delivering positive outcomes.
Comparison Results: Check Point CloudGuard is the preferred choice when compared to Fortinet FortiGate. Users appreciate CloudGuard's user-friendly interface, ease of use, and comprehensive security features like VPN, IPS, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade. CloudGuard also offers scalability, stability, and a focus on cloud security.
"SSL/TLS traffic inspection features are used for advanced threat prevention against secure SSL traffic."
"The CloudGuard Network Security's most valuable feature is implementing IPS for accessing our data center and server environment in Azure. It helps us to prevent attacks. By protecting our environment with Check Point, which we were already familiar with, it provided a solution that extended into the cloud environment."
"The most valuable features are the ease of administration with the cloud management extension and the cloud licensing model."
"Now, we can filter which websites users can access and block categories that are a risk. For example, we can block social media and gambling sites. This has helped to decrease the risk of access to malicious content on the internet."
"I like how straightforward it is and simple it is to implement in the cloud."
"The solution has been quite stable."
"We consolidated from three management consoles and three clusters to only one, which is a big improvement."
"The ease of deployment has been nice. It is like managing any of our on-prem firewalls."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"Provides good firewall security and has great VPN features."
"The Fortinet FortiGate local partners were good. I did not have direct contact with Fortinet support."
"Improvements needed include better integration with Azure features to match on-premises capabilities."
"The initial setup is difficult. It took me three tries to get it right. The setup took two or three hours."
"In the past year, I noticed that the challenging part, especially in the cloud, is upgrading to the next release of the firewall. Unlike on-premise upgrades, it's not as simple in the cloud. You need to recreate the machine, which makes the process more complex."
"Its price is fair, but it can be more favorable."
"The cost needs improvement as it is currently quite expensive."
"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security should give productive reports as per business requirements. It needs to improve support since the time-limit extended beyond a day. It should include more seamless API integrations."
"The only pain points we have had with it were when we did major version upgrades. Rather than being able to do incremental upgrades on those, we had to completely redeploy. I know that has changed recently, but we had some hiccups when we did the upgrades. This is the only issue we have had."
"Some more built-in marketplace templates would be nice. It would be nice to see more vendor assistance in deployments and backup of recoveries versus having customers rely upon that themselves. That would make it a lot more seamless and aligned with the standard on-premise model that is there. Check Point can extend the same posture that they have to CloudGuard and make that transition very seamless."
"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"The visibility of the network can be better. The GUI can be improved for better visibility of the network flow. Other solutions have better GUI in terms of network visibility."
"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."
"I need user-behavior analytics, to find threat scenarios from inside the organization, insider attacks. That would be very helpful for us. In addition, I would like next-generation features for small and medium businesses. These businesses require UTM, all in one product. Fortinet must include it."
"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 7th in WAN Edge with 112 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 1st in WAN Edge with 306 reviews. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is rated 8.6, while Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security writes "The solution has good threat emulation, threat extraction, and reporting features". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is most compared with Azure Firewall, VMware NSX, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, whereas Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Check Point NGFW. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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Hi,
I've been working with gateprotect UTM recently. It's cost effective and much easy to work with compared to Fortinet and Checkpoint UTM.
http://www.gateprotect.com/en/Products/easy-use-eGUI
With the quick guide packed with screen shots, and clear simple instructions, you'll get to know how easy and simple it is to get the gateprotect UTM up and running in no time.
http://www.gateprotect.de/landing/start/start-en.html
Also note gateprotect UTM has been identified as a top choice for SMB in Gartner UTM firewall survey, which makes it a reliable product/solution.
http://www.gateprotect.com/en/gateprotect-identified-top-choice-small-medium-sized-businesses-gartner-utm-firewall-survey-0
http://www.gateprotect.com/en/gateprotects-positioning-gartner-magic-quadrant
Go for checkpoint
regards
kapil yadav
Hi
Both options are good but i would recommend the Cyberaom as i have had a
chance to work with it before.
Other options is Cisco Ironport .
Regards
Brian
Hi Russell,
I advise you to go with Sophos if not I advise you to go with Fortinet.
Did you ask your team to check Sophos demo I sent?
Regard
Maroun Jean Abboud
Mobile : 00961 70943122
Skype :maroun_abboud1
Both devices are good. Checkpoint is one of the market leader who gives a
good UTM solution. Fortinet is cheaper when compare to checkpoint and
flexible.
You may try the Paloalto which gives more attention on zero day attacks.
Thanks & Regards /*Ramesh M*
At this point in time all of the major firewall vendors marketing Next-Gen firewalls provides similar features. I recently participated in a 2 day meeting with sales and engineers with Fortinet. I have to say Fortinet has come a long way in the last few years and am beginning to like their product more and more. In terms of feature set the two products are nearly identical.
When comparing the two vendors there a clear separation in which product focus is clear. Fortinet is a major winner in their smaller units and provide the most bang for your buck. When central management with datacenter and enterprise sized firewalls are required you will find Checkpoint is the leader. In your question you mention CheckPoint UTM. When mentioning this I immediately think of the UTM-1N (old Model) or 620 (New Model). This is a standalone unit and is in the $500.00 - $800.00 range. A comparable unit would be a Fortinet FG-30D. These are the lower end units and I would not recommend them for a solution involving the number of product blades/features you have listed. I have a FotiWifi-60D for my home and it works quite well. I have all the blades configured and enabled. In my home we have 3 sometimes 4 occupants running games and/or streaming video constantly. We average 90GB of internet traffic a month. I have found the FortiWifi-60D able to keep up with the load but at times does peak in CPU and Memory.
A major difference between Fortinet and Checkpoint is their GUI. I find the Checkpoint GUI to be much more intuitive and easier adapt to for new users. Fortinet on the other hand, excels in the CLI with a Cisco/Avaya mixed interface and help structure. Checkpoint is Linux based and almost any Linux command functions on their systems, however, there is limited tab completion and no mid command assistance.
In regards to the firewall blade aka port based firewall I do not see one vendor being better than the other. I would leave this as a preference for what you are used to and what works best for you.
I am going to lump Web Filtering, Layer7- App Filtering together. Both Fortinet and Checkpoint have powerful next-gen capabilities. Both vendors approach web filtering application filtering in a similar way. Utilizing category based URLs and Applications with recommended risk levels. Fortinet published their application/web catalogs at http://www.fortiguard.com. Checkpoint published their URL categorization at https://www.checkpoint.com/urlcat/main.htm and Application Catalog at http://appwiki.checkpoint.com/appwikisdb/public.htm. At this time I can confirm Checkpoint has 6,578 applications identified while Fortinet has roughly 3,500 (Please confirm with your sales rep on this number as I got it from their catalog’s last displayed number of applications and it could have been a display limit rather than the total identified).
I do not have experience with Checkpoint’s IPS and Antivirus in an implemented production use so I can’t provide am accurate comparison. Based on Fortinet’s demos and my experience I would say that it is a comprehensive product. Due to Fortinet’s market (Non-enterprise businesses) and their licensing model (comprehensive of all features) they have a higher rate of discovery, writing a signature, and deploying it than Checkpoint. Also if you purchase the FortiSandbox (enterprise class product) you will have a good result for zero-day attacks.
In the VPN space I currently have a preference for CheckPoint. I find that their approach is very simple, easy to understand, and reliable. Fortinet provides a Wizard based configuration for their VPN tunnels as well as a manual creation process. I find the approach to be more complicated than it needs to be.
Note on Sizing… When it comes to FortiGate if you can afford it start your specs at FG-100D. I have found the lower models to have some quirks. If you are looking for a centrally managed solution Checkpoint includes base central management with all of their models starting at 1100. If you are going to centrally manage your firewalls I would suggest purchasing a VM based Open Server for management and logging. The equivalent would be a FortiManager.
I hope this helps,
Christopher L. Butler
Christopher L. Butler CCP-Network, CCA-Netscaler
We have chosen Fortinet after a long evaluation effort, while CheckPoint was our next best option. So you can't go terribly wrong with either. The reason we chose Fortinet is that it provided us a better bang for the buck. Be careful, however, with the advertized throughput of Fortinet devices as you often get only 50-70% of the advertized value, so size your devices accordingly.
One thing to consider is that UTMs are often not as good as a dedicated product, especially when it comes to web proxies. You should carefully consider your requirements and compare them with the capabilities of the UTMs you are considering. One tricky issue we are facing is web proxies for mobile devices, and there we are considering a cloud-based web proxy solution.
As far as dollars per protection, I would say Fortinet is your solution. I found this article pretty helpful: http://www.itgweb.com/blog/the-top-10-reasons-to-choose-a-fortinet-next-generation-firewall