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Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs Contrast Security Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 16, 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 WAF (formerly C...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th)
Contrast Security Protect
Ranking in Application Security Tools
32nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Protect is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Check Point CloudGuard WAF0.6%
Contrast Security Protect1.0%
Other98.4%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

MK
CISO at Pink Solutions
Cloud security has strengthened risk posture and improved advanced threat visibility
There are some API gateway and API securities I mentioned. If these are incorporated with AI-related features, particularly those seven key vulnerabilities I mentioned—token theft and tool poisoning—that would be beneficial. AI-related features are not included yet in Check Point CloudGuard WAF. However, they are present in FortiGate. That is the advantage of FortiGate now. FortiGate is stopping all AI-related vulnerabilities now. FortiGate has this capability. It is unfortunate that even Palo Alto also lacks one or two of these features. Check Point Quantum is very good, without a doubt. However, their capabilities are not in comparison with Palo Alto. There are some features, but there are some gaps in comparison with Palo Alto.
ToddMcAlister - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
It provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks.
I rate Contrast Security Protect eight out of 10. Overall, it's a solid product, but I deduct a couple of points because of the interface and some shortcomings in the reporting. If you have a large enterprise where you're dealing with a lot of servers, then it makes sense not to use the internal MySQL database. You should use something like Oracle or Microsoft SQL, but if you don't have many transactions, the embedded MySQL database works great.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It helps me sleep at night, providing peace of mind."
"From a security perspective, it is quite good."
"The first valuable feature is that it is not a complex process to get it up and running. It was not complex at all. We were in a close relationship with the team that developed the app, and it worked in a few hours. The second valuable feature is the information that comes out of it."
"The tool performs device health checkups and updates us. It helps us to be compliant with regulatory policies."
"Check Point CloudGuard WAF delivers clear efficiency gains over traditional WAFs in three main areas: operations, accuracy, and cost optimization."
"The biggest benefit from Check Point CloudGuard WAF that I saw is that it comes with one solution that completely outperforms its competitors."
"The most effective CloudGuard feature for threat prevention is its web app protection."
"The automated policy creation and threat intelligence have helped my team by reducing manual configuration and saving time, and the threat intelligence updates ensure immediate protection against new threats, simplifying daily operations and improving response speed."
"The solution has excellent real-time capabilities."
"Protect provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks."
"Contrast Security's support is great. They're willing to spend a lot of time on your problem."
"The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives."
"The Protect solution allows applications to continue to run, even with known vulnerabilities, but will report or block attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities."
 

Cons

"It was costlier than other solutions."
"Cost reduction and trial period extension should be considered with some lucrative discount offerings in buying standard versions."
"I would like to be able to integrate the theme of Artificial Intelligence to help review issues and to monitor and view the security issue while also suggesting and interpreting and additionally configuring solutions - basically, acting as an interpreter."
"CloudGuard for Application Security, like the other Check Point applications, has been presenting major latency problems when entering their administrative portal."
"When I migrate the traffic from our mobile application to CloudGuard, we are not getting what we expected."
"Check Point CloudGuard WAF can be improved; initially, the setup is very complicated, and there's not a lot of documentation available, plus it didn't have something for anti-bot, but other than that, it is fine."
"They should improve in the delivery of more detailed reports with more information."
"They need improved latency in the main window."
"We're not using it much anymore because we had some performance issues."
"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."
"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."
"Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration."
"Protect's reporting GUI is very basic. To get all statuses from the APIs, we needed to write our own KPI dashboard to provide reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Check Point CloudGuard Application Security's pricing is comparable to other products in the market."
"The pricing is competitive compared to other solutions on the market. So, the licensing cost is average."
"The sales team or account managers from Check Point are top-notch. As I am using other products as well, my pricing was competitive compared to others."
"I find the pricing to be reasonable."
"I work for an Indian banking client. In India, companies are on a budget. The company liked Check Point very much, but it was a little bit costly compared to FortiWeb. However, it had more features compared to FortiWeb."
"As Infiniti customers, the pricing is manageable, as we have allowances dedicated to each Check Point product. The price is not as high compared to other options I have dealt with in the past."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly and competitive."
"If the pricing for the Infinity platform covers everything, it would be more straightforward. I had a hard time selling it to our CEO as a former CFO because of the differentials. There are different deltas year to year over a five-year period. It is very difficult to explain. It would be easier to digest for our executives if there was a flatter scale"
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
26%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudGuard for Application Security?
Check Point CloudGuard WAF is expensive. It is a little bit expensive. You cannot avoid this from an Israeli product. Israeli products follow a certain pricing model. If they could reduce the cost ...
What needs improvement with CloudGuard for Application Security?
While Check Point CloudGuard WAF is a strong solution, it could be improved in a few areas such as simplifying and customizing the user interface and reporting database. Improving API security dept...
What is your primary use case for CloudGuard for Application Security?
Check Point CloudGuard WAF's primary use is protecting web applications and APIs from application layer attacks in the cloud. I also use it to protect public-facing apps.
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Also Known As

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard AppSec
Contrast Protect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Orange España, Paschoalotto
Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs. Contrast Security Protect and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,719 professionals have used our research since 2012.