WatchGuard Firebox vs ZoneAlarm comparison

WatchGuard and Check Point Software Technologies are both solutions in the Anti-Malware Tools category. WatchGuard is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0, while Check Point Software Technologies is ranked #19 with an average rating of 7.5. Additionally, 94% of WatchGuard users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Check Point Software Technologies users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 9, 2025

ZoneAlarm and WatchGuard Firebox are two competing network security solutions. While ZoneAlarm is appreciated for its competitive pricing and straightforward customer support, WatchGuard Firebox is often preferred due to its comprehensive feature set and effectiveness, justifying its higher cost.

Features: ZoneAlarm provides robust firewall and antivirus capabilities, secure browsing, and advanced download protection. WatchGuard Firebox offers more advanced threat detection tools, such as intrusion prevention and detailed reporting. These features make WatchGuard Firebox particularly suitable for complex security challenges.

Room for Improvement: ZoneAlarm could improve its documentation clarity and interface for seamless user experience. It might also enhance its threat detection capabilities. WatchGuard Firebox, on the other hand, may benefit from a simplified deployment process for small to mid-sized businesses. Reducing its cost and improving user accessibility can enhance its appeal further.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ZoneAlarm is known for its easy installation process tailored to small to mid-sized environments and has user-friendly customer support. WatchGuard Firebox, while offering comprehensive customer service including on-premise assistance, has a more complex deployment model that is well-suited for enterprise environments.

Pricing and ROI: ZoneAlarm generally offers lower setup costs, appealing to budget-conscious buyers. WatchGuard Firebox, with its higher initial cost, is often seen as providing greater long-term ROI due to its advanced security features. For those who view security as an investment, WatchGuard Firebox is the favorable choice.

To learn more, read our detailed WatchGuard Firebox vs. ZoneAlarm Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard Firebox vs. ZoneAlarm

December 2025

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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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Pedro Soteras

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.

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Bala_Krishna

Director at esupport Solutions Pvt ltd

Security suite has protected individual devices from threats, while installation and network features require improvements

BIG-IP is actually the LTM, Link Load Balancer, which comes with ASM, meaning Application Security Module. It consists of multiple modules, such as ASM, SWG, and a domain DNS manager. ZoneAlarm allows defining trusted and public networks, which helps maintain security in public Wi-Fi environments. It offers comprehensive protection, securing PCs against threats. Users do not experience any system slowdowns while scanning. Harmony Browser protects all your browsing activity and is bundled with Harmony Endpoint and Harmony Connect. It provides a small but effective security layer and sometimes comes packaged with the larger Harmony suite.

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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

"FortiAnalyzer's capability to provide detailed reporting based on various criteria is highly valuable."

"It is simpler to configure. It is not like Cisco Firepower, where you go crazy trying to follow the Cisco documentation to figure out how to configure one little thing. Unlike Cisco Firepower, where you can't do everything through the web interface and you have got to do some command line stuff, Fortinet FortiGate SWG is simpler. There are four different things in Cisco to get in, which is not the case with Fortinet FortiGate SWG. It is one of my favorite solutions to work with. I would much rather work with it than Cisco Firepower, for example. Even though I've got 20 years of Cisco experience with different firewalls, I would much prefer this solution."

"Their proxy-based inspection is responsive and secure."

"The strengths of Fortinet FortiGate include network security, VPN, site-to-site tunnels, client VPN solutions, two-factor authentication for VPN clients, and SD-WAN for branch level. We have implemented these solutions for various customers."

"The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."

"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."

"It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."

"We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"I like intrusion detection the most."

"The reports are detailed."

"The most valuable features include the ability to raise alarms when there are issues, easier configuration compared to other vendors, centralized update management, and keeping the product updated efficiently."

"We had many bottlenecks before deploying WatchGuard Firebox, but when we switched to a higher version of our firewalls, the bottlenecks were solved."

"WebBlocker has the best URL category database ever."

"[A] valuable feature would be the branch office. We have five offices throughout the United States, and it coordinates the connections of those offices."

"When you download the executable file from the internet, it automatically sandboxes to make sure it's not doing anything incorrectly."

"WatchGuard Firebox offers a satisfying VM and hardware"

More WatchGuard Firebox pros

"The phone access scan stands out as the most valuable feature for me."

"It is quick and easy to configure."

"ZoneAlarm protects all computers from viruses, spyware, and hackers."

"It is easy to use through interfaces and easy to configure each of the customizations we created based on the characteristics that we wanted."

"The product's most valuable feature is the detection engine due to its ability to identify threats."

"It gives us security for the users' mobiles and ends up protecting us in a significant way."

"Personally, I find the Game Mode of the Firewall very useful."

"The solution maintains reasonable scalability."

More ZoneAlarm pros

Cons

"The area that Fortinet may improve is customer support."

"FortiManager has not been my favorite. I don't use it and cannot say I really care for FortiManager for managing the firewalls."

"Performance on the box and technical support are areas where Fortinet FortiGate can be improved."

"The solution lacks sufficient filtering."

"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."

"I would like to see improvements in some of the hard drive features on FortiGate so that we can generate reporting within a single box."

"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."

"The UI/UX experience can be a little better."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"In terms of what could be improved, I would say their web blocker feature. It is still quite a confusing setup, especially when you want to filter out a particular category for granularity. For example, you do not want to filter Facebook but you do want to filter Facebook games only. It can be done, but the process to do it is very confusing."

"There could also be better reporting. For example, there should be more out-of-the-box management reports."

"The licensing can be a bit expensive."

"I'm not really impressed with the reporting side of it. It may be something I just haven't figured out very well, but it's hard to filter down on reporting of the actual valuable information that you would want. There is a lot of information out there so you have to have some kind of tool capture it and then filter through. So far, I haven't found the reporting side of the WatchGuard to be that user-friendly."

"Multi properties could be added to the solution in the future to make it better."

"There is a problem with the RAM - it's eating up resources. The RAM utilization sometimes reaches up to 80% - 95%, and what we do is just restart the firewall."

"There is room for improvement in the threat protection, data packet inspection, and performance of the solution. Generally, it's just a lower-end product. It does the job but doesn't do it very well."

"The time they take to classify an application once they find that it is unknown can be better."

More WatchGuard Firebox cons

"We'd like better performance of the network equipment. There are high-speed environments where an immediate response is required."

"The solution's efficiency in threat containment and overall protection needs improvement."

"ZoneAlarm should be a light application that does not take too much memory in mobile phones."

"Some of our users say that the interface is a little bit outdated for 2020, and want it to be more modern and cozy."

"They should release a single update with all the necessary characteristics to avoid being in a cycle of consecutive updates."

"I would like it to be integrated with the Check Point centralization solution like Infinity Portal. It would be great to be able to manage it through the same website."

"They need to update and improve the features available for Mac."

"Perhaps the primary area for potential enhancement is to make it faster, ensuring a more seamless experience while maintaining robust security features."

More ZoneAlarm cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing is good. It's average or normal as compared to Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls."

"The solution is cheap."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable for an SME."

"Work through partners for the best pricing."

"It is not expensive as compared to Cisco."

"Compared to Palo Alto, which we have used in the past, pricing and licensing are okay."

"For the performance that we get, the price is reasonable. There are cheaper options, but they may not deliver the same kind of performance that we want. For the performance they provide, the price is acceptable."

"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is an expensive solution."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"I think the tool is quite competitive compared to the other brands."

"I spent $600 or $800 on this product and I'm paying a couple of hundred dollars a year in a subscription service to keep the lights on, on it... It works out to $100 or $200 a year if you buy several years at once. It's fair."

"The price of the solution is not expensive, it is less than FortiGate."

"The price of WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service is pretty reasonable compared to similar solutions."

"I haven't seen the pricing since 2017, but it was competitive. SonicWall, Barracuda, and WatchGuard were all about the same price when we did our last pricing."

"The cost was somewhere in the vicinity of $2,000 to $3,000 for each one..."

"WatchGuard had a very competitive price. It was only 10 to 20 percent more than a single instance device but with that extra cost it provided a second load balancing device... unlike other brands whose method of hardware and software licensing would have doubled our cost."

"The solution is cheap."

More WatchGuard Firebox pricing and cost advice

"We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for ZoneAlarm, which is cheap."

"We use the free version of the software, but it can be upgraded to the paid Extreme Security edition."

"The pricing is reasonable, with a yearly renewal license costing seventy dollars."

"This is a freeware product and I recommend using it."

"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Comms Service Provider

13%

Hospitality Company

10%

Educational Organization

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	357
Midsize Enterprise	133
Large Enterprise	188

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	92
Midsize Enterprise	27
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	4

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...

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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...

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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 ...

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What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.

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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...

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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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ZoneAlarm?

ZoneAlarm has an acceptable price. Not much detail can be provided as I am not the one to judge the price.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ZoneAlarm?

Check Point support needs improvement. Currently rated at 9 out of 10, more support is required. There are some conce...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ZoneAlarm?

I work with vendors such as F5 and deal with F5 as a reseller. I work with F5 BIG-IP regarding F5 Shape Security. BIG...

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 6% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Sophos Firewall vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 7% of the time

OPNsense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 7% of the time

Sophos UTM vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs ZoneAlarm

Compared 35% of the time

Check Point Harmony Endpoint vs ZoneAlarm

Compared 10% of the time

Malwarebytes Teams vs ZoneAlarm

Compared 7% of the time

Bitdefender Security for AWS vs ZoneAlarm

Compared 6% of the time

Avira Antivirus vs ZoneAlarm

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard Firebox

January 2026

Download WatchGuard Firebox product report

Buyer's Guide

ZoneAlarm

January 2026

Download ZoneAlarm product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response, WatchGuard Application Control, WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention, WatchGuard Gateway AntiVirus, WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service

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

WatchGuard Firebox is a high-performance firewall known for its ease of setup, offering robust security with layered protection and centralized management capabilities.

WatchGuard Firebox stands out for its intuitive management and high throughput, addressing security needs with features like VPN, web filtering, and threat detection. Its centralized control and reporting abilities, along with Active Directory integration, make it popular among varied organizations. Its user-friendly interface and ongoing updates enhance usability and reliability. However, there's a call for better cloud-based administration, scalability, and improved integration with third-party vendors.

What are the key features of WatchGuard Firebox?

Ease of Setup: Quick and straightforward installation process.
GUI: User-friendly graphical interface for simplified navigation.
VPN Features: Secure and efficient virtual private network management.
Web Filtering: Advanced filtering for safer browsing experiences.
Threat Detection: Proactive monitoring and detection of cyber threats.

What benefits or ROI should be evaluated?

Centralized Control: Streamlined management from a single point.
High Throughput: Efficient data handling and processing capacity.
Stable Performance: Consistent and reliable operational functionality.
Active Directory Integration: Seamless connection with user directories.
Customer Service: Strong support service for customer inquiries.

WatchGuard Firebox is implemented across industries to secure internet gateways and protect data in multi-site businesses. Its applications span from Unified Threat Management (UTM) and intrusion prevention to compliance support in business environments requiring secure connectivity through VPNs.

WatchGuard

ZoneAlarm protects you by preventing hackers from remotely accessing and controlling your device, and lets you know which apps have excessive permissions so you can decide whether they threaten your privacy.

Check Point Software Technologies

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

Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence

Terma, Optix, Samsung Research Amercia, SF Police Credit Union, Independence Care System, Mattias Thomsen, Carmel Partners, Desert Research Institute, CRIF, FXCM Inc, US State Agency

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard Firebox vs. ZoneAlarm

December 2025

Free Report: WatchGuard Firebox vs. ZoneAlarm

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