Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Check Point Quantum Force vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 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
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
580
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Check Point Quantum Force
Ranking in Firewalls
32nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WatchGuard Firebox
Ranking in Firewalls
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
127
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (11th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (7th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (18th), Application Control (5th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Abnet Tsegaye Belay - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Has strengthened perimeter security through AI-driven protection and unified management
I have noticed some limitations with Check Point Quantum Force. There is a limitation in integrating with existing infrastructure, such as orchestration and logging, specifically with VPNs. VPNs are hard and sophisticated to deploy on this firewall. However, it is improving currently. Some performance aspects need higher resources. If you do not give it higher resources, it will slow down your network. It is a trade-off - if you have higher resources, you will have good performance. The complexity of configuring a VPN needs to be improved because we need to go back and forth to configure VPNs. It has to be simpler to understand.
PS
CEO at ajuntament del Prat
Network protection has improved with stronger VPN connectivity but administration remains complex
Deploying WatchGuard Firebox was quite easy, but we have had some problems regarding the VPN and the administration of the tool and the two firewalls that we have. When comparing WatchGuard Firebox with our previous solution, Palo Alto, we have had some problems in administration because of the tools. I think that they have some aspects in their system that are cloud-provided, but they also have an on-premise solution, which makes this combination good. Although I should say that when compared to Palo Alto, we have taken a step backwards. In general, I would rate WatchGuard Firebox around 6-7; it is a good firewall, but they lack good administration tools. We experience many problems with the performance and administration tools on the web, including several issues with VPNs.

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 features of Fortinet FortiGate are its SD-WAN capabilities, such as dynamic routing, and other features, including security options such as antivirus, IPS, and IDS—all integrated into one device."
"Fortinet FortiGate protects against internet-based threats, both internal and external. It is scalable, stable, easy to use, and easy to install."
"Fortinet FortiGate has reasonable pricing and is easy to operate; it is efficient and represents the future for security, including cloud security and branch-to-cloud security."
"We are using the FortiGate 100D series. VPN, firewall, anti-malware, OTM, and intrusion prevention are useful features."
"The most valuable features of the FortiGate firewall include SSL inspection, VPN functionality, and threat intelligence features for preventing threats."
"The solution is used in my company since its management is very comfortable"
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Quota."
"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate include good functionality, though the licensing cost is a bit higher; their response time and throughput are very good advantages."
"The security features and layered security features are better compared to others."
"The outcomes from Check Point Quantum Force firewall gave us the ability to be fit and secure from the cyber world."
"The most valuable features I find in Check Point Quantum Force are the security policy features, including all security features that are provided by firewall, IPS/IDS."
"I recommend Firebox since this device will not let anyone down."
"One of the most valuable features is the Geolocation. Because we aren't a multinational corporation, it allows me to look at things which might be suspicious to make sure that they are legitimate transactions rather than people sniffing around the network."
"The main reason we went with it was the security protocols. They were more robust on this device."
"Zero-trust and threat-hunting services are most valuable."
"The most valuable feature for small and medium businesses is the support for various protocol proxies."
"The solution has increased productivity with our outside salespeople being able to connect into their computers and use those remotely."
"As a whole, it has a very low requirement for ongoing interaction. It's very self-sufficient. If properly patched, it has very high reliability. The total cost of ownership once deployed is very low."
"The technical support of WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response is generally helpful; we have had two issues related to the VPN, and we experienced 24/7 activity from their team—their support was very powerful as they responded very quickly and stayed online with us for two days."
 

Cons

"From a support perspective, I had more issues that I didn't think the person on my case handled the way I was expecting. We called them for a geolocation issue and we didn't get any proper assistance."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"At the moment, the main concern is the pricing and the type of licensing."
"There should be better customization in the IPS."
"There have been several vulnerabilities in the firewall. It is hackable, some of the images are hackable."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"Fortinet technical support is lacking, as OEM support is slightly better. Improvement in their technical support could include response time as well as having more technically sound people in tech support."
"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."
"Check Point Quantum Force does not have strong local support. We are based in India, and Check Point Quantum Force does not have extensive local support in our region."
"The complexity of configuring a VPN needs to be improved because we need to go back and forth to configure VPNs."
"I have observed weaknesses in Check Point Quantum Force, particularly when configuring tunnels from any point product to a peer, which has very complex configuration requirements."
"They need to stop the VLAN limitation. They have a VLAN limitation on the size of their boxes. It is the worst thing ever. They basically sell their boxes by the size and the number of VLANs it can handle, which is a real issue. You spend a couple of thousand dollars for a firewall, and you can only do 30 VLANs, which is extremely silly, as a matter of fact. It would be really great to have something for easier mass rule changes. It also needs a drag-and-drop function so that you don't have to constantly duplicate firewall rules. It would be nice to have such a feature because you got one WatchGuard, and you want to mirror its config and change a couple of things in another one and move some things around. It is not as easy as you would necessarily think. It is kind of expensive, and its pricing can be a little better for sure."
"The main trouble is the price of the product."
"Firebox would be improved with integration for endpoint protection solutions."
"When implementing a rule using a group of IPs, it is not possible to do that directly."
"We use WatchGuard to manage our failover for internet. If a primary internet goes down, it does a failover to the secondary the internet. However, what it doesn't do so well is that if the primary internet has a lot of latency but it's not completely down, it doesn't do a failover to the backup in a timely manner."
"The drawbacks are just sometimes not having the technical information that we need in order to easily make connections with all of our Internet-based clients."
"The area where I think this product can be improved is the user interface and the reporting. It can be quite difficult to find the correct logs and to actually find out what is going on. The digging can be time-consuming."
"The software in it could be a bit more friendly for an amateur user. I look at it and don't understand what half the stuff is. Looking at the interface, it is all mumbo-jumbo to me. It's not a simple interface. You have to be an IT guy to understand it. It is not for your average person to use, then walk away from it. It is much more entailed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is normal. If I compare it with other vendors, such as Palo Alto, it's normal. Palo Alto is expensive."
"If we have an older version, the support costs get quite high."
"I do not have first-hand experience with the rice of Fortinet FortiGate, but I have heard the price was reasonable."
"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."
"Each feature costs money, so it is important to study your needs."
"If you compare Fortinet FortiGate with Sophos and other firewall products available in the market, this solution is affordable."
"It scales well if you know what to buy from a physical box standpoint. They seem to offer something for every level."
"It's expensive, but compared to the competition it's okay."
Information not available
"The price of WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service is pretty reasonable compared to similar solutions."
"Its cost is okay. It is not too expensive, not too low. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of pricing."
"WatchGuard Firebox has good quality, but it is expensive."
"The cost was somewhere in the vicinity of $2,000 to $3,000 for each one..."
"We are utilizing an MSP licensing model and are content with the minimal amount spent on the devices rather than committing to long-term licensing."
"It's fair pricing, but it could always be reduced."
"Their price point worked, which is the reason why we stayed with WatchGuard."
"The solution is a bit more expensive than other options."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business357
Midsize Enterprise133
Large Enterprise188
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business92
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise15
 

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point Quantum Force?
In terms of pricing, setup cost, and licensing, many users and clients say that the pricing is high. The license stru...
What needs improvement with Check Point Quantum Force?
I have observed weaknesses in Check Point Quantum Force, particularly when configuring tunnels from any point product...
What is your primary use case for Check Point Quantum Force?
I am currently working with Fortinet Firewall, Fortinet Switch, Fortinet Authenticator, FortiNet Net, Fortinet Authen...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response, WatchGuard Application Control, WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention, WatchGuard Gateway AntiVirus, WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service
 

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
Information Not Available
Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Quantum Force vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.