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Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs SMX comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Check Point CloudGuard Netw...
Ranking in Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (8th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), Cloud and Data Center Security (5th), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (3rd)
SMX
Ranking in Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP)
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) category, the mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is 1.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SMX is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security1.3%
SMX1.1%
Other97.6%
Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP)
 

Featured Reviews

Devraj Kc - PeerSpot reviewer
network and security engineer at Max international
Cloud security has strengthened compliance and now protects internet access for our workloads
The best features Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers are its threat emulation and threat extraction blade as well as bring your own license where you can use the on-prem Check Point CloudGuard and decommission it to use in the cloud. I believe Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has impacted our organization positively because it is one of the stable products that I have used till now, and we do not have to upgrade Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for any sort of CVE or bug in its OS and it is very stable. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has decreased the organizational risk because it provides compliance with HIPAA as well as PCI DSS by means of its compliance blade. It makes it easier for us to determine if we are compliant or not. It made me more secure because when you talk about security, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is on top of the list with 99.8 in blocking malware according to the Miercom list. I believe it has had a positive effect and we have not had any incidents.
AD
Manager of Contracts at ACCIONA
Real-time data access enhances compliance and contract coordination
There is room for improvement in enhancing AI capabilities for threat detection, especially in tracking different locations. It would be ideal to develop more in terms of databases for cross-checking performance across various locations. Additional improvements could be made in post-hacking capabilities, KPIs, specific APIs, and data structures for a product manager.

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 feature for me is that you have just one license. You can test and implement everything you need with one license. You do not need to pay for separate module licenses when you want IPS or other features."
"The easy management of the policies is great for us because we are a small team and having easy management is great and useful for us."
"The most valuable features are the VPN Blade, IPS Blade, the URL filtering, and the Applications Control Blade."
"Since deploying Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, I have seen about a 40% drop in cloud network alerts, which has cut down noise and false positives, helping my team save roughly 25% of time previously spent on manual investigation and threat cleanup."
"We find Check Point valuable because they are 100% focused on security. It totally closes the potential vulnerability channel. We can check our mail and our attachments and we can scan everything easily. We get an immediate report about the situation of the attachments. We can discover if the target's security attack was started from phishing, etc. We also enjoy using the additional features that protect our internal customer from targeted attacks."
"The scalability is very good; again, very user-friendly. I wouldn't even say "user-friendly" because, as long as you deploy it properly, you can kill an EC2 and it will spin up another one right away, within about a minute and a half. And it will be ready for production right away."
"The VPN features in CloudGuard Network Security have been the most valuable for us."
"The program is very stable."
"Its automation capabilities are beneficial for checking compliance with suppliers and vendors internationally during logistical transitions."
 

Cons

"Check Point CloudGuard is not a feature-centric product because Check Point concentrates on security."
"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security can make deployment and configuration less complex."
"The customer support is not good."
"The complexity to deploy should be decreased."
"It should be more agile, as it seems to me that they took their on-prem devices and uploaded them to the cloud. Every time we need a new interface or something like that, we need to make major changes. This is a problem."
"The cost is relatively high compared to the cost of other products in the market."
"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."
"The convergence time between cluster members is still not perfect. It's far away from what we get in traditional appliances. If a company wants to move mission-critical applications for an environment to the cloud, it somehow has to accept that it could have downtime of up to 40 seconds, until cluster members switch virtual IP addresses between themselves and start accepting the traffic. That is a little bit too high in my opinion. It's not fully Check Point's fault, because it's a hybrid mechanism with AWS. The blame is 50/50."
"There is room for improvement in enhancing AI capabilities for threat detection, especially in tracking different locations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is been higher than other solutions, but it seems like it's turning downwards."
"It is not expensive."
"When customers compare it with Sophos or any other products, the price is on the higher side."
"I do not know the exact price, but it is fairly priced. It is neither cheap nor costly."
"We are using our BYOL. We are using our existing Check Point discounts to work with licensing. Overall, it is very competitive. Its pricing is reasonable to me."
"Licensing is available on a monthly or yearly basis."
"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."
"There is flexibility in the different licensing models that are offered."
Information not available
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885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Construction Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Performing Arts
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business67
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise76
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Although I do not know much about the pricing or setup costs, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is very cost-effective. If you want to secure your organization completely from all ends agains...
What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could be improved with faster policy propagation across large multi-cloud environments and more intuitive dashboards for complex rule sets.
What needs improvement with SMX?
There is room for improvement in enhancing AI capabilities for threat detection, especially in tracking different locations. It would be ideal to develop more in terms of databases for cross-checki...
What is your primary use case for SMX?
I use the solution for projecting deals regarding the decarbonization of high-value clients. Additionally, we are involved in managing and processing data in various contexts.
What advice do you have for others considering SMX?
I would recommend SMX because the information is available in real-time for different functions, significantly reducing the need to search for data. On a scale of one to ten, I rate SMX an eight ou...
 

Also Known As

CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Software Technologies, Sophos, Bugcrowd and others in Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP). Updated: March 2026.
885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.