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Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN comparison

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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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
1st
Ranking in WAN Edge
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
588
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Check Point CloudGuard Netw...
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
3rd
Ranking in WAN Edge
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (8th), Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (1st), Cloud and Data Center Security (5th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (3rd)
SteelConnect EX Enterprise ...
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
26th
Ranking in WAN Edge
23rd
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 12.3%, down from 20.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is 2.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate12.3%
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security2.8%
SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN0.9%
Other84.0%
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
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.
Jason Best - PeerSpot reviewer
Data center network architect at Cloudwire
Analytics feature is very granular and comprehensive, although complicated to use
It's like an SD-WAN project basically. You really need to make sure that the product matches the needs of what the customer's trying to achieve and their overall strategy to meet their core business requirements. I think a certain customer made a mistake in choosing this solution because a large part of their network was Cisco and they had firewalls that were from Fortinet. I think they would have been better off and it would have been better from a CAPEX, OPEX point of view. It would've been more advantageous for them to have maybe chosen a Cisco or Fortinet solution based on their existing environment. Make sure you understand your network correctly before you try to implement any SD-WAN solution. That was one of the good lessons I learned about SD-WANs with this specific product. I wouldn't say it was a fault of the product. I would say it's more a fault of the CTO who tries to do things quickly without taking into account the existing environment or give the internal faculties the time to provide real low-level design implementation. It was more of a management mistake than from their technical team. In the next release, I would like to see things like integrated security but with local internet breakout instead of using third party solutions like NetScaler or Palo Alto. I would also like to see the integration of things like a VPN so that if you have remote sites where you might have remote workers that need to access the site from home or something, there's a VPN solution. Those are two key features and hotspots in the sort of global crisis. I would rate Riverbed a seven out of ten. I could never give any solution a 10 cause they all have good and bad points. To get any solution to a ten is pretty much impossible. If I was to rate it against others like Fortinet, I would probably give Fortinet an eight or nine. Again, I think you have to be careful because it's very subjective. I think it really depends on the type of environment, the type of customer you're deploying the SD-WAN solution for, and from which perspective you're looking at like if you an operator, if you're a large enterprise, if you're looking for a plug and play type solution. If you're looking for more of a security solution, I would go for Fortinet. It's kind of tough to say. I'd probably put the clouds a little bit ahead of the game because it does what it's supposed to do and easily. It's a little more of a plug and play type solution. Fortinet, for example, is more complex. I put it in a close second place, it's better from a security perspective. It has integration with FortiGuard. After that, I would put Riverbed in third place.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."
"A strong point of FortiGate is the graphical interface is complete and easy to use."
"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."
"We've actually replaced 30 or more Cisco routers that were doing these VPN connections, and we replaced them with the FortiGates in order to provide Point-to-Point connectivity."
"I've found the solution to be very good."
"Consolidated our network environment at all locations, but mainly at our datacenter."
"I value it's IPS and application control solution."
"The solution is very stable."
"At that moment, when we were doing a PoC, Check Point was ahead of them when it comes to implementation, deployment, and ease of use."
"The notifications, the visibility, and the deployment are the most valuable. It could be packaged in such a way that it took a lot of time and resources off our hands, so it was more efficient."
"The solution's most valuable feature is scalability. We can increase the number of CPUs, memory, and firewall throughput easily. Using CloudGuard Network Security for managing cloud firewall rules is considered easier than using the normal security groups provided by Azure or AWS."
"Customer Service: Excellent – the vendor always supports us and is very proactive."
"We have unified management. It is one of the advantages of this product."
"The stability of the solution is fantastic."
"We consolidated from three management consoles and three clusters to only one, which is a big improvement."
"The analytics is the most valuable feature because it was very granular and very comprehensive, although a little complicated to use."
"The analytics is the most valuable feature because it was very granular and very comprehensive, although a little complicated to use. If you're really interested in knowing what's happening on your network, it's a very good solution. That was the .NET Profiler part of the solution."
 

Cons

"One issue is that they have retired SSL VPN for existing devices. This causes significant effort for us to change customer setups."
"One of the weaknesses of the solution is something we noticed, especially after comparing the tool with SD-WAN features, since, unfortunately, in a massive scale size environment, the solution is not good. I"
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall's performance and threat intelligence could be improved."
"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."
"I feel they need to work on the alert and event logs."
"The solution could improve by having some additional features, such as IBS and better cloud administration."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"The way everything is set up could be easier. Currently, people need a lot of experience and knowledge to administer it and to link it to devices."
"CloudGuard functions just like any other firewall. It functions very well. The only thing that could maybe be improved would be to integrate some tools that are not integrated with the SmartConsole, like the SmartView Monitor that we need to open on a different application to access."
"The solution's integration with cloud providers has seen significant development in the past months, but there is room for improvement for better integration."
"I'm quite satisfied with the solution. I don't have any notes for improvements."
"Having a web UI in the VSX (or something similar) would be nice."
"It is pretty great in all aspects, but the integration could be easier, especially with Scale Set and related features."
"We are having issues with updatable objects in the Scale Set solution. It needs to be fixed by Check Point."
"Our biggest complaint concerns the high resource usage for IDS/IPS, as we cannot turn on all of the features even with a recent hardware upgrade."
"CheckPoint CloudGuard could be better at solving cases."
"The routing scalability needs improvement. We have run into a lot of limitations and also primarily from a routing perspective, things like RSPs line support."
"The routing scalability needs improvement. We have run into a lot of limitations and also primarily from a routine perspective, things like RSPs line support. It was supportive but not really supportive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is average."
"Pricing is lower than Cisco."
"The price for the Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable. Secure SD-WAN is free of charge. If you have their firewall, it's free of charge. It's very tempting."
"When comparing the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG to other solutions it is expensive. The price could be better."
"I would say that all things considered, the pricing is pretty good."
"Fortinet is the least expensive solution."
"This is not a cheap solution but it isn't expensive, either. It's a good solution for the right price."
"It is cheaper and more competitive compared to other options. For example, when comparing Palo Alto products to others, Palo Alto tends to be more expensive. If you compare Cisco's platform, including Cisco Meraki, with Fortinet products, you'll notice that Cisco's offerings are generally higher priced than Fortinet's firewall solutions."
"It is expensive."
"It is fair. Its license covers all the features. There is a cost-benefit. The licensing for the cloud is better than on-premises because, with on-premises, you have to pay separately for different things."
"The pricing and licensing have been good. We just had to do a license increase for our portion of it. We had that done within a couple of days. Given the fact that it's purely a software-based license, it ends up being even quicker than doing it for an on-prem firewall."
"The licensing model has since transitioned to a cluster-based variant."
"As a partner and solution provider for the last fifteen years, I have distanced myself from specific numbers. However, customer trust in the product is evident due to its comprehensive protective capabilities."
"Pricing-wise, it is pretty competitive. However, I would like to see more flexible licensing. There should be more of a consume what you need and true-up type of model."
"I do not know the exact price, but it is fairly priced. It is neither cheap nor costly."
"We pay approximately ‎€150,000 ($166,000 USD) per year."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Construction Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business364
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise191
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business67
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise76
No data available
 

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?
Although I do not know much about the pricing or setup costs, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is very cost-ef...
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 env...
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Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security
SteelConnect, Riverbed SteelConnect
 

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
Roxtec, Software Solutions Company, Rignet
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.