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Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Cisco IOS SSL VPN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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
6.1
Check Point Harmony SASE users see cost savings, productivity boosts, and security improvements, though some find returns complex to quantify.
Sentiment score
6.7
Cisco IOS SSL VPN is highly rated for its security, ease of use, and minimal impact on performance.
Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) blocked access to those URLs at the network level before users could click through.
Pre Sales Consultant at Redington Group
We are saving 40% of our time, which is good.
Cloud Security Engineer at Punch Powertrain nv
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Check Point Harmony SASE provides responsive, knowledgeable, and professional support, with most users expressing high satisfaction despite occasional delays.
Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco IOS SSL VPN users praise the effective customer support, highlighting timely service, comprehensive documentation, and strong local assistance.
I would rate support 10 out of 10.
Pre Sales Consultant at Redington Group
People working really hard, listening to every issue and request, and replying within hours.
Security Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
We contact support regularly, especially for deployments, and they are very responsive.
Technical Services Lead at Telenet Solutions
When Cisco first took over, it was a bit more difficult to get support, but they now integrate it without differentiating the support for Linksys versus full-blown Cisco switches.
student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Check Point Harmony SASE offers impressive scalability and flexibility, smoothly adapting to growing user bases and organizational needs.
Sentiment score
7.8
Cisco IOS SSL VPN is scalable and efficient, supporting diverse user bases with flexible licensing and expandability.
The cloud-native model ensures we are not tied to any specific location or hardware, which has been a great game changer in terms of agility.
Pre Sales Consultant at Redington Group
I would rate it nine out of ten for scalability.
Cloud Security Engineer at Punch Powertrain nv
Check Point Harmony SASE's scalability is good; it can handle growth easily, allowing me to easily add another region and gateway to have more people join in.
Security Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
It integrates well with Cisco's ecosystem, providing flexibility and options to connect to diverse environments.
Technical Services Lead at Telenet Solutions
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Check Point Harmony SASE is praised for stability, reliability, and minimal issues, with high uptime and efficient performance.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco IOS SSL VPN is highly stable and reliable, with users experiencing minimal issues and continuous service even during power failures.
There are some lags and glitches with connectivity, so I would rate the stability as between seven or eight out of ten.
Cloud Security Engineer at Punch Powertrain nv
After the last improvement, I can say it is much more stable now.
Technical Lead at Netsmart
Check Point Harmony SASE is stable most of the time, but there are still some issues that are hard to troubleshoot.
Security Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Linksys can be fairly stable for easy environments, but in more complex network environments, Cisco is definitely a lot more stable.
student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cisco IOS SSL VPN is extremely stable.
student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Check Point Harmony SASE needs improvements in performance, user interface, integration, documentation, scalability, and features like SD-WAN and firewalls.
Cisco IOS SSL VPN requires improvements in language support, pricing, GUI, compatibility, deployment processes, and enhanced remote access options.
A local data center in Turkey would enhance the product, as currently, our Internet traffic goes to another country, which is problematic for us.
Technical Lead at Netsmart
One area for improvement is integration with third-party identity providers.
Pre Sales Consultant at Redington Group
The product is lacking features that other competitors have, making it quite challenging to migrate customers to this solution because it feels very much unfinished.
Security Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
There have been issues with operating systems where newer updates cause problems with backward compatibility.
Technical Services Lead at Telenet Solutions
I believe Cisco could support easier configuration and having tools that allow for easier management and configuration.
student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Check Point Harmony SASE offers competitive value for large enterprises, though its pricing isn't the cheapest for smaller firms.
Cisco IOS SSL VPN is costly compared to FortiGate and Aruba, though discounts exist and pricing reflects its stability.
Cost efficiency is a consideration, as SASE products are not the cheapest security products.
Technical Lead at Netsmart
The cost is a bit expensive for most users.
Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
It is a bit expensive.
Cloud Security Engineer at Punch Powertrain nv
For more than one hundred users, it costs about $60 per seat.
Technical Services Lead at Telenet Solutions
 

Valuable Features

Check Point Harmony SASE offers secure, efficient, and centralized network management with real-time threat intelligence and zero trust access.
Cisco IOS SSL VPN provides secure, user-friendly remote access with strong encryption, seamless integration, and efficient management, ensuring high user satisfaction.
The firewall management is the most valuable feature for me.
Cloud Security Engineer at Punch Powertrain nv
The Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) feature is a major highlight as it gives users seamless and secure access to internal resources without requiring a full-blown VPN, which improves both security and user experience.
Pre Sales Consultant at Redington Group
The Zero Trust and segmentation have helped my team and our customers significantly because we are able to protect every scope and allow the work-from-home users to access internal resources while passing through a threat prevention gateway, ensuring that everything is safe.
Security Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
The solution is also very scalable, offering up to one hundred licenses for free, and can integrate well with Cisco's ecosystem, such as Cisco ISE and NAC.
Technical Services Lead at Telenet Solutions
Configuring QoS on Linksys is pretty easy, especially compared to Cisco QoS, which I am certified in, as it helps ensure that the bandwidth for voice or other applications doesn't bleed over into the data links.
student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
The valuable features of Cisco IOS SSL VPN are the ease of use and the speed.
student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Check Point Harmony SASE (f...
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Firewalls (13th), Anti-Malware Tools (6th), ZTNA as a Service (4th), ZTNA (3rd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (5th)
Cisco IOS SSL VPN
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) is 2.7%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco IOS SSL VPN is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81)2.7%
Cisco IOS SSL VPN2.0%
Other95.3%
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

Nasseer Qureshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre Sales Consultant at Redington Group
Delivers seamless and secure remote access while enhancing security posture
Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) offers strong features, but there are areas that could be improved. One area for improvement is integration with third-party identity providers. It works with standard SAML and SSO, but we would prefer deeper integrations with solutions such as Ping for more advanced identity-based policies. Additionally, a mobile-specific client or lightweight agent would be helpful for securing access from smartphones, especially in BYOD environments. We would appreciate more granular reporting and analytics, including better drill-down capabilities to investigate specific users or app activity. The logs are comprehensive, but filtering them can sometimes feel messy. The user interface on the management portal could be more intuitive, especially when managing multiple sites or remote offices. Some of the policy configuration steps are nested and could be streamlined.
VM
student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cost efficiency and ease of setup define network management while potential improvements in complexity handling are noted
Optimizing and configuring for network segmentation is the biggest thing for helping with segmenting traffic management. Configuring QoS on Linksys is pretty easy, especially compared to Cisco QoS, which I am certified in, as it helps ensure that the bandwidth for voice or other applications doesn't bleed over into the data links. In the past, Linksys has been pretty good at network protection, segmenting off that protection for unauthorized access or cyber threats. Cost savings and ease of use are the benefits I've seen from Linksys. It's a little bit less complex to set up and configure compared to Cisco switching. I utilized the VLAN support feature in the Linksys switches. A lot of the networks I have were broken up by VLAN, and I definitely configured them for different VLANs. The best feature of Linksys in my opinion is cost, as they tend to be more cost-effective compared to larger switches or Cisco switches.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Harmony Connect?
The product's initial setup phase is very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Harmony Connect?
I am not aware of the pricing, setup cost, and licensing, but I would say the setup cost is our resource, and we have invested many hours into this project.
What needs improvement with Harmony Connect?
Check Point Harmony SASE needs improvement as it is a very new product that lacks very basic features, and it can start working more with the customer for better implementation. The product is lack...
What needs improvement with Cisco IOS SSL VPN?
I have not found any areas that could be improved so far. I am not sure how Cisco IOS SSL VPN can continue their improvements for the future, but I think it is a great product. To stay on top, they...
 

Also Known As

Check Point Quantum SASE
Cisco SSL VPN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aqua Security, Cognito, Multipoint, Kustomer, Postman, Meredith
MST Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs. Cisco IOS SSL VPN and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.