We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and Fortinet FortiGate-VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Check Point NGFW is praised for its extensive security features, centralized management, and virtualization capabilities. Fortinet FortiGate-VM receives appreciation for its stability, reliability, and user-friendly interface.
Check Point NGFW needs enhancements in integration, hardware upgrades, cost and pricing, stability and security, setup process, load balancing capabilities, technical support, and reporting. Fortinet FortiGate-VM requires improvements in key activation, log management, cloud management, IPsec failover, monitoring tool, setup and configuration, performance, firmware updates, log settings, GUI capabilities, costs, technical support, and integration.
Service and Support: The customer service for Check Point NGFW has garnered varying opinions, with some customers appreciating its helpfulness and responsiveness, while others believe there is room for improvement. Fortinet FortiGate-VM's support has received a mix of feedback. Certain customers commend its prompt response times and expertise, while others highlight concerns regarding delayed responses.
Ease of Deployment: Check Point NGFW's initial setup can be complex and may require expertise and experience for certain configurations and migrations. Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers a generally straightforward and easy setup process, aided by Fortinet's support and assistance.
Pricing: Check Point NGFW has a high setup cost, yet offers flexible licensing options. Fortinet FortiGate-VM has competitive pricing and includes support without extra charges.
ROI: Check Point NGFW provides cost savings, simplicity, and strong security enforcement, resulting in a favorable ROI. Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers stability and enhanced security, guaranteeing a positive ROI when purchased initially.
Comparison Results: Check Point NGFW is the preferred choice when comparing it to Fortinet FortiGate-VM. Check Point NGFW stands out for its extensive security features, such as URL filtering, intrusion prevention systems, identity and access management, and application control capabilities. Additionally, it offers centralized management and virtualization options, as well as stability, user-friendliness, and scalability.
"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."
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiGate is good."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall."
"It is easy to use. We chose this product for the possibility to have virtual domains (VDOMs). We are building another company in the group, and we would like to split the firewalling rules and policies between these two companies. Each company would be able to manage its own policies and security rules, which is an advantage of Fortinet FortiGate. We can define VDOMs, and every company can manage its own VDOM as if it has its own physical firewall, but in fact, we would be using the same physical appliance because we are also using the same internet lines. So, it allows us to reuse the existing resources without the disadvantage of having to compromise on policies and security. Each company can choose its own way of working."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"Only allows authorized connections and prevents vulnerabilities in a network."
"Log storage gives us insights when required."
"The successful performance of the security blades has shown the value of the investment along with the comparable success of leveraging the NGFW over a separate specialized security solution."
"We found a very successful implementation of the virtual private network client, since, for some time now, everyone has been working from home."
"When applying application control, we can ensure user access to the internet in accordance with company policy and easy implementation if some users need exception access."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The detection rate for any cyberattacks/suspicious activity is very high (more than 90%)."
"If you want to share traffic loads to both cluster members you can use the active-active feature, if you don't want to share traffic loads you can prefer active standby."
"The thing that I like the most is that they're very willing to work with us to resolve issues that they haven't taken care of before in their product."
"We like FortiGate-VM's IPS features and its ability to create multiple virtual firewalls."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are its flexibility and scalability. This solution is available as a license, which allows us to activate it based on the specific needs of the customer. This gives us and the customer a great deal of versatility and customization options."
"I did like the ability to back up the configuration into the cloud, as opposed to having to store the configurations or just downloading them, the backups, to local devices."
"The setup is simple."
"The solution is stable."
"FortiGate integrates well."
"The reporting is good."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool."
"The pricing could always be better."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"Something worth mentioning is the need for Spanish support and better representation for teams in the Latin American area."
"In the future, some of the features that I would like to see would be the ability to integrate environmental solutions such as the metaverse or blockchain so that we can see them also in applications directly and on mobile devices or natively."
"Check Point can improve a little better in their technical services, especially in the Indian market."
"The policy installation module should be improved."
"We have run into an interface expansion limitation, and thus it would be helpful if products lower in the stack would offer more interface expansion options."
"It could be easier to access the installation of the Hostfix for VSX solutions. The CLI commands help us understand how virtual firewalls behave in terms of processor, memory, and other aspects. More graphic visualizations of CPUSE commands would be a welcome improvement, and Check Point could expand scripts to run within the solution for multiple tasks."
"The whole solution has room for improvement."
"I really want to see geo-blocking as a feature of NGFW."
"Technical support could be better."
"The product has issues with integration. I would like to see better integration in future releases of the product."
"It would be better if it could provide you with options before completely blocking anything through the web filter. If you are doing a deep SSL inspection on the site if it says it's expired, it doesn't give you the option to continue at your own risk. I can't say that it's bad, but SSL internally isn't really a requirement. However, its security features can help. Right now, we have people going out and spending on purchasing the SSL certificates for internal sites."
"Fortinet devices are acknowledged as highly potent and come with a notable cost. These devices offer extensive visibility, an array of configurations, and a range of security features. However, there's room for enhancement in their routing and switching security aspects, akin to Cisco's offerings. A noteworthy aspect here is Meraki, which offers cloud controllers. If FortiGate were to introduce a similar cloud management solution, it could strongly compete with both Meraki and Cisco products. Cisco operates in two sectors: enterprise and SMB. Particularly in the SMB market, they hold sway due to their convenient cloud management features. For instance, Meraki's cameras and wireless access points can be easily controlled through their cloud management portal. If FortiGate were to provide cloud-based management solutions for SMB customers, it could cater to a significant portion of the market, considering that a substantial number of customers fall within the SMB and mid-level enterprise categories."
"Support could be improved a little."
"The users must buy FortiSIEM to get advanced analytics."
"The solution can improve by adding separate interfaces for proxy and flow-based usage."
"The operating system isn't stable, so it goes to memory counters every night."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 103 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 27 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Check Point NGFW writes "Robust control and security that enables a comprehensive application management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "Flexible with good cloud management and a straightforward user interface". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Azure Firewall and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Netgate pfSense. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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