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Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs ShieldX comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Check Point Quantum Force (...
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
346
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (6th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (2nd)
ShieldX
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Microsegmentation Software (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) is designed for Firewalls and holds a mindshare of 2.8%, down 2.9% compared to last year.
ShieldX, on the other hand, focuses on Microsegmentation Software, holds 2.5% mindshare, up 0.4% since last year.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW)2.8%
Fortinet FortiGate13.3%
Cisco Secure Firewall7.8%
Other76.1%
Firewalls
Microsegmentation Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ShieldX2.5%
Illumio Segmentation22.3%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation18.6%
Other56.599999999999994%
Microsegmentation Software
 

Featured Reviews

DS
Network Security Engineer at Connecting Cyber Networks
Advanced threat prevention has protected our perimeter and simplifies daily security operations
Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) can be improved in several areas. First, the interface could be a little more intuitive for new users. The Smart Console is powerful, but it has a steep learning curve when you start using it. Some simple functions for common tasks would help. Second, the initial setup and configuration take quite a bit of time and expertise. It would be helpful if there were more guides, wizards, or templates to speed that up. Third, the price model could be more transparent and flexible. The license cost can add up quickly, specifically when you want to add more advanced features. Finally, I would appreciate seeing better integration with some third-party security tools we use. Right now, we have to do a lot of manual work to make everything talk to each other. Overall, these are minor things. The core product is really solid and does what it is supposed to do very well. The documentation could be more comprehensive in some areas. When we run into issues, the documentation does not have clear answers, so we end up contacting support. Speaking of support, the response time could be faster sometimes. We have had cases where we need help with a certain security issue, and it takes longer than we would prefer to get a response. As for features, it would be nice to have more general reporting options so we can customize reports for different teams and stakeholders without having to do manual work afterward. One more thing, better mobile access to the dashboard would be helpful. Sometimes we need to check on security alerts when we are away from the office, and the mobile experience is not as smooth as it could be. Again, these are improvements that would make it even better, not issues with the core product itself.
MP
IT Director at park holidays uk
Proactively monitors, blocks, and reports what it has blocked; and self-updates meaning there is zero maintenance
The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput. The traffic through our website depends on holiday bookings. It's very quiet in November through January, and then our traffic picks up quite rapidly and, at our peak, we will take in excess of a million pounds of business a day through our website. The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides. Uptime on the system has been 648 days and we do very little to it because it self-updates and alerts. It does everything that we need it to do, so the administration side of it is zero. One of the beauties about ShieldX is that it's such a good "fire-and-forget" product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The sandbox feature is great."
"Management integration is holistic as centralized management has been core to the solution for decades."
"The high availability setup of Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) is outstanding, and whenever any hardware fails, whether active or standby, the second hardware takes care of all connectivity, and there will be no loss of connection or session seen by users."
"By far, it's the best security solution one can adopt for their organization."
"We can also run policies with two or more people simultaneously without problems or the risk of developing the wrong policy."
"Configuration and deploying are easy."
"It is generally easy to configure and manage using SmartCenter."
"One of the valuable characteristics of Check Point NGFW is that it presents very centralized management."
"ShieldX has been designed from the very beginning to work well in cloud environments. It understands autoscaling, automation, and auto-configuration. These are the things which are important in today's operating environment."
"Very often, when new challengers come in, what they do is they end up coming in at a lower cost with more functionality."
"Once you install it you can virtually forget about it; it's very low-maintenance and high-protection."
"The Adaptive Intention Engine is fantastic. It allows us to develop security policies using the language of our internal customers. It's machine-learning applied to security workflows. That allows us to much more easily construct the policies that will protect those workflows."
"ShieldX makes it a lot easier and a lot simpler to define your policies and define your rules, and that greatly reduces the opportunity for user error."
"The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput."
"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX."
"We were able to see what devices are talking to each other, giving us more visibility."
 

Cons

"Debugging is very complex when compared to Fortinet, for example. That's the worst thing about Check Point. The deployment of the solution is harder than it is with the competitors. But after you've deployed it, the operation is easy."
"The price is middling. It's much more expensive than Fortinet, although not so expensive when compared with Palo Alto."
"The interface could be better."
"The perception is that Check Point NGFW is expensive, especially when all software modules are included."
"Technical support could be improved."
"Check Point, being our perimeter firewall, has failed quite a few times mainly when handling BGP."
"One of the most complicated aspects is the VPN Configuration, which should be simplified in future releases."
"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."
"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory. We can't seem to set it up."
"With any kind of tool like ShieldX, where you're in the cloud instead of a traditional firewall, you're using CPU resources in those environments to provide the protection. So there's a cost associated with CPU resources. I'm pressing upon them to make the product much more efficient and use less CPUs to do the same thing."
"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so."
"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so. As the vendor continues to evolve and add future functionality, we want to make sure that we are still keeping up with the integrations, etc. Time will be the key factor here. The proper support for some of the latest technologies, Docker containers, etc. They need to keep up with threat landscape, so we will see how the security get layered. This is what we are going to be keeping an eye on."
"There should be a bit more customer care, with regular review meetings on it or regular reports. It would be nice to have a quarterly or biannual review of what ShieldX has blocked."
"I would like better reports and in-depth reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is too high."
"The solution is significantly more expensive than Fortinet, although this holds true to a lesser extent when compared with Palo Alto."
"The price is on the higher side."
"The pricing for Check Point depends on your environment."
"Check Point NGFW can be expensive compared to other competitors, but the price matches the functionality and efficiency of the solution."
"Check Point is competitively priced; however, there is an additional charge for the Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) and it is easy to understand."
"In terms of quality versus price, Check Point is very balanced."
"I have done licensing and contracts for multiple firewalls. The license and contract configuration is completely fine, but if it is possible to make them cost a bit less, then this would be better."
"We are very happy with the pricing and licensing. It's about getting a site-wide license. One of the challenges that we've had with our previous vendor had been the cost of licensing."
"ShieldX also enables us to migrate to cloud environments faster. That is an important part of it for sure because it takes the exact same policies that we would apply to our on-premise environment and enables us to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."
"For a three-year deal we paid £55,000 plus tax... But, and this is a big "but," this was over two years ago. ShieldX had only just hit the market. We were the first company in Europe to buy ShieldX."
"Security policies are now applied as applications are going up. Because it's automated, we don't have the three to four week delay. The insertion of applications in the cloud for us dropped from an average of three to four weeks to a couple of days."
"ShieldX ensures that we can have the separation needed for our environment to avoid drastically increasing the cost on the licensing side. From this perspective, it's been very positive and helpful."
"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX. It might not be the big name out there, but it does everything that you are looking for in microsegmentation at a very low price."
"We are actually expecting our costs to drop in the coming year, but it is just a matter of the licensing expiring. That is going to happen in the next six months or so. Then, we will start to see a decrease in overall spend."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
25%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Insurance Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business164
Midsize Enterprise93
Large Enterprise199
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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). -Check Point GUI is a bit complicated, -Application and Web filtering are better t...
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 cloud platform, autoscaling, and the ability for users to create virtual IP addr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point NGFW?
Our experience with pricing for Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) has been mixed. The initial setup costs were fairly significant because we needed to buy the hardware appliances and then pay for th...
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Also Known As

Check Point NG Firewall, Check Point Next Generation Firewall
APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Control Southern, Optimal Media
Iowa State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Cisco and others in Firewalls. Updated: August 2026.
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