Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs WatchGuard XTM [EOL] comparison

Check Point Software Technologies and WatchGuard are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Additionally, 96% of Check Point Software Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of WatchGuard users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

WatchGuard XTM [EOL] and Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) are direct competitors in cybersecurity, with Check Point Quantum Force offering superior features and pricing justification based on advanced functionalities.

Features: WatchGuard XTM [EOL] offers ease of use, reliable security controls, and network management. Check Point Quantum Force provides advanced threat prevention, integrated cloud security, and scalability features, with a focus on sophisticated threat defenses.

Room for Improvement: WatchGuard XTM [EOL] could enhance its threat prevention capabilities and increase scalability. Check Point Quantum Force may improve by simplifying deployment and expanding customer support resources.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WatchGuard XTM [EOL] is known for straightforward deployment and solid support, suitable for businesses of varied sizes. Check Point Quantum Force demands a more complex setup, supported by comprehensive customer service tied to its advanced features.

Pricing and ROI: WatchGuard XTM [EOL] offers appealing initial costs and respectable ROI for budget-conscious buyers. Check Point Quantum Force requires a higher upfront investment, promising higher ROI through its enhanced capabilities, reflecting a pricing strategy aligned with feature richness.

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March 2026

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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

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

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.

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San Naing Htun

Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Has improved threat prevention and protection but presents deployment and licensing challenges

The best features Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) offers are AI-powered threat prevention, zero-day protection, unified management, and scalability. These features have helped me in my daily work or my organization by allowing us, as a SAAS company operating across AWS, Azure, and handling external partner access or a multi-tenant model, to preemptively stop unknown attacks, which is critical. Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) has positively impacted my organization as it is a high-end enterprise grade firewall. I have noticed that it is very good if your SAAS business has high traffic volume, serious threat prevention requirements, and you are ready for the investment.

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Generalm4545

General Manager- IT & Automation - Serum at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Protects from attack software and hacking but it doesn't provide the reports in a readable format

In my opinion, image clarity is very important, because I don't get the proper image product on reports. This means that functionality is not there. My engineer does not know how he can replace an order. We attach a log after any kind of keys using a utility instead. For the internet policies that we are implementing, the policy should be based on proper protocols. We use the default policies and there are a number of third-party protocols that appear here. Management with WatchGuard XTM means that out of policy is the problem from our side. In this way, we can not do effective services for people with this one. The policy definition with WatchGuard XTM is not proper for all use case requirements. I've got weekly business reports that I am expecting attachments with from WatchGuard XTM that display data for all kinds of consideration which should be required. Main User Functionality Level Order must adhere to using the admin functionality on the registry, or else our users publish their own name. Maybe these recommendations are irrelevant, but I say that the issue to improve most with WatchGuard XTM is the Main User Function.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a flexible solution."

"We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."

"This is an easy solution to deploy."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the different types of profiling. It has been the most effective for me. The WAF and the antivirus profile are the most effective in network protection."

"The antivirus, malware, anti-malware, anti-spam, IP VPN connections, and firewall rules bring the most value for me and my clients."

"The most important features of Fortinet FortiGate are the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and firewall control applications."

"The interface and other reports are all user-friendly."

"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are that it does the job effectively and protects our environment."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Check Point NGFW as ten."

"The most valuable feature is the centralized management, which gives us control over all of the Check Point gateways."

"The tool provides great security."

"The software upgrade procedure is very easy; it just needs few clicks & we are done."

"The firewall feature and DDoS Protector, when turned on, keep away attacks from the outside. They also prevent users from accessing things on the Internet that they are not supposed to access."

"I love the interface of R.80.30. The R.80 interface is very nicely thought out with everything in one place, which makes Check Point easier to use."

"The Blades work fine and the performance optimization is great."

"The application control and URL filtering features are valuable since they allow very granular control of what is coming in and out of a network."

More Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) pros

"Setup and configuration is straightforward with excellent management interface."

"The VPN to link my system to my clients, the gateway security features as my first defense layer to my client’s networks, and the firewall/NAT policy are excellent, and I also love the alias feature as it allows me to configure items by common names instead of IP address."

"We switched because WatchGuard offered better value for money without sacrificing security."

"The multi-WAN feature allows us to configure multiple external interfaces."

"This product helped facilitate and protect our environment from the inside out, with features like DLP (data loss prevention) to content filtering all the way to port filtering and traffic shaping."

"The product is easy to use and is the fastest way to learn about firewalls."

"For the current network demand, I think the product is worth buying as it is not too expensive and it has almost all the features that I need."

"They have a reporting system which can store data over a very long period of time. Not many other firewall vendors provide a reporting system, but if they do, like Fortinet does, then you've got buy that as an additional product and that can be more than twice as expensive as the initial investment in the firewall. And without reporting over a long-term period, you're just about wasting your time."

More WatchGuard XTM [EOL] pros

Cons

"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."

"The renewal cost is much higher than other firewalls. It is not reasonable."

"FortiGate's logging and reporting could be improved. I would also like to see Fortinet add a guest management portal."

"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."

"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."

"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."

"They should do a better job in testing when they put out a new release because when a new software version is released, it is not always stable or does not always have all the previous features working correctly."

"Fortinet should improve its software, as we are seeing lots of firmware versions generated for each vulnerability issue. It becomes difficult for us to keep updating the firmware frequently due to bugs."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"SmartEvent Settings and Policy GUI, and the rest of external apps should be improved."

"The naming in the inline layers and ordered layers needs improvement. It makes things very complicated. I've seen quite a lot of people saying that. For audit policies, it is okay since it's very simple to see. However, this area is for very large organizations, which have too many policies, and they need to share all these policies. For small to medium-sized businesses, they don't need it. Even if somebody has 500 rules, if they try to use it, it can be very confusing."

"It is a bit expensive according to the required blades but it is a platform that is worth having as security in a corporate."

"Pricing needs to be lowered from start, this would be more effective than lowering it during negotiations."

"Of the areas of improvement that I want to see in this product, without a doubt, one is the technical support. In this time of globalization, with so many cyberattacks and risks, the Check Point support staff take a long time to attend to incidents due to the high demand."

"One area which is still lacking is the site-to-site VPN solution."

"When installed on Windows, the system with low storage space slows down."

"The complexity involved in the solution's initial setup phase and deployment process is an area of concern where improvement is required."

More Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) cons

"The initial setup is neither simple nor complex. If you know the base in networking and how the firewall works, you will be able to figure it out."

"Using the SSL VPN remote feature is great, but we additionally needed two-factor authentication, and employed a third-party product."

"One huge issue with WatchGuard XTM is that I'm not getting reports in a readable format. Readable means, I don't want Excel online. We repeat auditing when we trigger the report or setup calendar. That functionality is what we are looking for from WatchGuard XTM here."

"Sometimes the local firebox management tool is flaky."

"The problem is the high cost."

"Expensive Requires client-server application to use some advanced features"

"I feel that paying a yearly maintenance fee for firmware updates is not worth it in my opinion."

"Tech support is sometimes a little bit slow."

More WatchGuard XTM [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The main reason we chose Fortinet FortiGate was that the price was better than the competition."

"Its pricing is good. The advantages of Fortinet FortiGate over its competitors include good pricing and meeting our requirements at a lower cost."

"Fortinet is the least expensive solution."

"Fortinet FortiGate is reasonably priced."

"If you purchase a one-year subscription with the hardware and then you want to renew for the second year, it is very costly."

"Fortinet FortiGate is cheaper than Palo Alto. It is about 20% cheaper."

"The price could be lower."

"It is not the cheapest one, but its price is very competitive."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"Check Point brings good value for the money and is competitive in the market."

"The pricing for Check Point depends on your environment."

"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."

"The pricing is high compared to competitors."

"It is not a cheap solution, which is why we are looking for another one."

"Check Point NGFW is much cheaper than other platforms, including Palo Alto. Its scalability, especially with the Maestro solution, is a big advantage. If you're looking for good security at a reasonable price with a good return on investment, I believe Check Point NGFW is the way to go."

"The price of the appliance should be decreased."

"Pricing is good. The price is very reasonable for enterprise customers."

More Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) pricing and cost advice

"Like all other manufacturers, there are a lot of features and different pricing. The best is to talk to a representative."

"The licensing and renewal is very expensive."

"Get at least a maintenance contract for the updates and take a larger WatchGuard than you need. A WatchGuard creates new ways to secure your network."

"It costs less than the SO works and others (like SonicWall, Cisco, and Barracuda) without increasing so much CPU use."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

12%

Outsourcing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Marketing Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	360
Midsize Enterprise	135
Large Enterprise	190

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	161
Midsize Enterprise	95
Large Enterprise	198

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	3

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Comparisons

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 19% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

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Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW)

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW)

Compared 13% of the time

Sophos Firewall vs Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW)

Compared 6% of the time

OPNsense vs Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW)

Compared 4% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW)

Compared 4% of the time

More Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) Competitors

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

March 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW)

March 2026

Download Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) product report

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

February 2026

Download WatchGuard XTM [EOL] product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

Check Point NG Firewall, Check Point Next Generation Firewall

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

Check Point Quantum Force NGFW provides centralized management with scalable security for network perimeters. As a reliable firewall, it ensures advanced threat prevention and offers seamless integration, making it suitable for various network environments.

Offering comprehensive security, Check Point Quantum Force NGFW helps control ingress and egress traffic, secures data center firewalls, and integrates seamlessly with cloud and on-premises setups. Users appreciate its application control, deep packet inspection, and identity awareness features for enhanced protection against cyber threats. Despite pricing issues and interface complexity, its IPsec VPN and robust logging provide valuable insights into network activities.

What are the key features of Check Point Quantum Force NGFW?

Centralized Management: Simplifies administrative tasks across different environments.
Advanced Threat Prevention: Shields against evolving cyber threats with real-time protection.
Deep Packet Inspection: Analyzes traffic to prevent intrusions without impacting performance.
Application Control: Manages access to applications, enhancing security policies.
IPsec VPN: Secures remote connections with encrypted tunnels.

What benefits should users consider for Check Point Quantum Force NGFW?

Scalability: Adapts to the changing needs of organizations of different sizes.
Integration Capabilities: Works alongside existing systems for a comprehensive defense strategy.
Logging and Reporting: Offers detailed insights into network activity and threats.
User-Friendly Interface: Streamlines management with intuitive controls despite initial complexity.

Check Point Quantum Force NGFW is deployed across industries for securing network boundaries, supporting critical data center operations, and enabling secure VPN connections. In finance, it helps meet stringent compliance standards, while in healthcare, it's crucial for protecting sensitive patient data through robust security protocols.

Check Point Software Technologies

Small businesses need big security, too, and the WatchGuard XTM Series firewall/VPN appliances deliver that strong protection, but without the hefty price tag. Enterprise-grade security includes full HTTPS content inspection, VoIP support, and optional security subscriptions like Application Control and Intrusion Prevention Service.

WatchGuard

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

AVG, Cyren, Kaspersky Lab, Lastline, NCP engineering, Trend Micro, Websense

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Sophos and others in Firewalls. Updated: March 2026.

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