We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and Fortinet Fortigate based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet’s lack of an option to deploy firewalls on multiple endpoints is a definite downside. Although Fortinet received better feedback for its support, Check Point is the winner in this comparison.
"The technical services always replied in a very fast and effective way."
"The most valuable feature for us is the VSX, the virtualization."
"We have found the central management (Smart Console) to be very helpful in managing all the firewalls and keeping the software/hotfix versions up to date."
"With the outstanding capabilities of Check Point, we managed to have stable site-to-site VPNs with all our partners and with every other vendor's devices."
"The different hardware models focus on a wide spectrum of the market, so any company can choose a model that makes sense for them from the range."
"Making configuring numerous layers of security policies easy to use was always one of the things I liked most about their firewall solution."
"The Network Address Translation (NAT) will always be a valuable feature as it allows me to turn my private cloud to the public at the click of a button and have secure control over the accessible servers/applications."
"It's a lightweight solution, requiring minimal storage, resources, and memory to operate effectively."
"The pricing is great and very reasonable."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"Anti-Spam web content filterinG."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"Until you have some experience, the installation and configuration are difficult."
"The only thing that we've seen is instances where console and administrative interfaces get locked up or freeze, and we have to get the machine rebooted."
"There is no clear way to report incorrect classification to support and a business is neither happy nor forgiving when they cannot receive mail from a crucial business partner."
"The policy installation length is still too long. It was promised that the time would be severely reduced in newer versions, but it is still too long."
"Some features, like the VPN, antispam, data loss prevention, etc., are managed in an external console. In the future, I'd like all features in the same console, in one place, where we can see and configure all features."
"Check Point can scale but at times we have experienced some issues."
"Unfortunately, the API is not fully complete and also it is not an API which I would refer to as a RESTful API as there are different endpoints for the same entity."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"In some cases, its initial setup could be hard for customers."
"For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial."
"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Check Point NGFW writes "Good antivirus protection and URL filtering with very good user identification capabilities". 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 NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Cisco Secure Firewall and Azure Firewall, whereas Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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I have worked for several years with the Check Point platform (NGFW) and it is by far more stable in hardware and software.
It is a very friendly platform and easy to configure. It is true that it is a bit expensive according to the required blades but it is a platform that is worth having as security in a corporate.
We are using both but the GUI and clustering on the FortiGate side look better/easier/more comfortable.
And I do agree with others - Check Point is expensive and Fortinet FortiGate has many models offering less expensive implementation.
I have experience on both from Disti and channel experience. Please find below my comments (nothing new as such).
-Check Point GUI is a bit complicated,
-Application and Web filtering are better than Fortigate.
-IPS and AV are more effective than Fortigate. Overall more stable than any other firewall
Support: not up to the level like Fortigate and lack of trained resources (in the gulf).
Check Point is expensive.
Fortinet has many models and is more affordable than Check Point. It also provides outstanding support. GUI is more user-friendly.
We had this same discussion recently with my organization. It came down to the security of the platform.
Fortinet has had a number of breaches over the last 2 years and this was a key factor in our decision.
The challenge with Check Point will be the transition from our existing firewall and taking advantage of the various features across our organization.