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Check Point NGFW vs Hillstone E-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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 Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
364
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Check Point NGFW
Ranking in Firewalls
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
323
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Hillstone E-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
36th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (10th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point NGFW is 3.0%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Jivesh Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient traffic management and employee focus with advanced security features
To improve Check Point NGFW, I would suggest that AI features, such as Auto AI autopilot, would be greatly appreciated because they can automate most of the tedious tasks that take a lot of time. Having features such as AI can make the process easier. A specific task I'd like to automate with AI in Check Point NGFW is adding multiple users, users and address group configuration of address groups and addresses, along with exporting firewall addresses in a certain format. That kind of feature should be there, or if we try to export the data from the Check Point firewall, we get only group address group names without seeing whatever members of the address are included. Check Point should provide the feature of exporting group data with address groups, so when I export address books, only the group name is visible in the Excel file. Instead, it should show the actual members of the groups getting exported. That kind of feature would be appreciated.
TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good features like URL filtering, IPS, and IDS to users
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. When we updated the tool's features, everything became okay. The tool only had some memory-related problems. It took the tool a month to fix the issues.

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 is the bundled subscription, which is IPS, TV and web filtering."
"The main benefits that Fortinet FortiGate brings to customers include that if you're going for a single fabric with core switches, access switches, and APs, compared to legacy Cisco or Aruba, the Fortinet FortiGate does not require a controller for the access points."
"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, as it is with other Fortinet products."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances."
"The simplicity of the configuration and the stability of the product are most valuable. The VPN concentrator is very useful."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"The most valuable features are application control, regulation, and threat prevention."
"It provides end-to-end resolution."
"I like the Next-Generation Firewall."
"It is easy to use, and its management is the best. Check Point has a great unified management solution for firewalls and security products."
"It is always on the top of the list of best firewall solutions."
"The simplicity of the access control is the most valuable feature for us. It gives us the ability to easily identify traffic that is either being allowed or denied to our network."
"There are several ways to implement it."
"Everything is easily managed through their Smart Console dashboard. It's a very easy-to-understand dashboard that provides a detailed view."
"The installation is easy, we have not had any complaints from our customers."
"Five out of five ROI."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ransomware protection that the tool offers."
"This solution has two main features that we find very valuable; a threat-intelligence option, and a web/application filtering option. The technical support team are very good and very quick."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It only took a few hours to deploy."
"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients a secure connectivity."
"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."
 

Cons

"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"FortiManager has not been my favorite. I don't use it and cannot say I really care for FortiManager for managing the firewalls."
"I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"Their support's response time can be better. In the past six months, they took quite a long time to respond to the support tickets."
"It could use better throughput on some of the smaller boxes for the branch offices."
"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."
"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."
"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."
"It would be nice to have comprehensive documentation and training resources that can help users and administrators to better understand and utilize the full range of Check Point's capabilities."
"Sometimes there are security bugs, which is frustrating."
"Check Point NGFW should concentrate more on the SMB market, as solutions in this space are not as strong in security."
"Management: Check Point should move away from its current architecture wherein it mandatorily requires a management server to manage the gateways. They should develop A feature in the gateway itself so that no management server is needed for policy and gateway management."
"Check Point should quickly update and expand its application database to have what Palo Alto has."
"The Antivirus feature is something that could be improved. We don't get much from the Antivirus update in comparison to their competitor's firewalls. It needs to be more advanced because Check Point is nowadays sent all over the world. Therefore, the Antivirus feature should be of very good quality and cover all virus checks. I would also like the Antivirus updates to be more frequent."
"Check Point's capabilities are limited from a firewall perspective."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"The tool only had some memory-related problems."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost-wise, there is not much difference from Sophos, but feature-wise, we get more features."
"It is expensive. You need to pay for the subscription every year, which is very expensive. The subscription includes technical support and hardware exchange in case of failure."
"Setup cost may be not so low, as you expect, because it depends on different factors, but TCO for 5 years may pleasantly surprise you."
"I would say that all things considered, the pricing is pretty good."
"This is not a cheap solution but it isn't expensive, either. It's a good solution for the right price."
"Easy to understand licensing requirements."
"Some of our customers are using Sophos and SonicWall due to price concerns, as they can't manage the pricing of Fortinet FortiGate."
"The beauty is the price performance ratio is great with FortiGate. It provides all the features we needed and the price is comparable with others' firewalls. The price is quite competitive with the firewalls with similar features."
"Check Point NGFW is expensive."
"While it may be slightly more expensive, when compared with competition it is reasonable."
"Licensing issues may be confusing at times."
"The licensing is straightforward; there are only three types of licenses that include NGFW, NGTP, and SNBT, so the organization can choose its license according to their requirements."
"Licensing is pretty straightforward and is based on the blades available, such as NGFW, NGTP, and NGTX."
"The product provides value for pricing in terms of performance and technical features compared to other firewalls."
"Check Point solutions are very expensive here. They're good, but they're expensive... Check Point is only useful for customers that have a big IT budget."
"This product is not cheap and there are additional costs that depend on what model or package that you buy."
"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable. It depends on the model. The product's pricing is around 600 USD. You need to buy a software license to activate the features. You need to pay around 150 USD for that."
"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
14%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
45%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
How does Check Point NGFW compare with Fortinet Fortigate?
I have experience on both from Disti and channel experience. Please find below my comments (nothing new as such). -Ch...
Which would you recommend - Azure Firewall or Check Point NGFW?
Azure Firewall is easy to use and provides excellent support. Valuable features include integration into the overall ...
What do you like most about Check Point NGFW?
Check Point NGFW provides essential security, featuring no-obligation access for secure connections, strong intrusion...
What do you like most about Hillstone E-Series?
The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hillstone E-Series?
Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low.
What needs improvement with Hillstone E-Series?
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the fire...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Check Point NG Firewall, Check Point Next Generation Firewall
No data available
 

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
Control Southern, Optimal Media
Bank of China Macao, Instituto Tecnológico Bolivariano, Ministry of Labor in San Salvador, FEDCO
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point NGFW vs. Hillstone E-Series and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
858,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.