Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall Reviews

We had planned on using this product as our multi-tenant firewall. After one year, we stopped using it because there was a problem with supporting some of the protocols.

The most valuable feature is the console management. It is very good and the security was great.

The interface is not user-friendly.

We were told that we would receive training but it came late and we had already started to deal with the product, which ultimately caused problems because we did it incorrectly. If the vendor focused more heavily on training as opposed to implementation then it would be a big improvement.

The UTM features are missing.

Application filtering is supported at a high level, but not at a low level. If I want to allow access to Facebook, yet not allow the user to access videos, then I am not able to do it with this product. Essentially, I'm allowed to block but I'm not allowed to limit. With other vendors, I can impose limits.

They need to add support for the Routing Information Protocol, RIP.

There is no support for the Built.io NIC driver.

I had been working with the Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall for about one year.

We had Forcepoint NGFW running on a virtual machine and it was very stable.

From the design that we took, it had the ability to scale up to 250 clients. That was good for what we needed but we failed with the first customer and could not complete the implementation for the second one.

In our environment, we had ten users.

We contacted technical support but it was not the typical support situation where we opened a ticket and they responded. We were in contact with them directly. Because it was irregular, I cannot judge how good or bad the support would normally be.

We are currently using three other vendors including Check Point, Fortinet, and Palo Alto. These have always been there but we were hoping to add Forcepoint as another option.

The initial setup is complicated and difficult to do.

By comparison, we have a very large number of products implemented in our environment and we can deploy most of them ourselves.

The deployment took almost seven months and ultimately, we failed. During our work on the deployment, we had two people handling the maintenance.

We received assistance directly from the vendor. There were several people who took part in the implementation including five from our side, one from the vendor, and two from the distributor. The help that we received from them was awesome.

The distributor knows the product more from a theoretical point of view. When it comes to the hands-on experience, they know the basics. When the person from the vendor came, they knew more about the product but had no experience with the multi-tenant aspect. So, for the part that we needed, they were failing. We spent a lot of time and received help from different people, and it was still a failure in the end. We disposed of the product.

We paid for a subscription license, vendor support, and the training.

We are a large service provider and we are always looking for new solutions. We had evaluated solutions by Sophos and SonicWall, although we decided that we were going to try Forcepoint.

We would not say No to another try with Forcepoint if, for example, they come back to us with a new version in another year. It would have to have documentation to show that what we want to do is now supported.

We tried a few implementations and we did not have very much success because the interface is not user-friendly and the product is complicated. If we had the training on time then it may have been easy but that wasn't the case.

The biggest lesson that I learned from using this solution is that you can't trust what people tell you. When they say that they will take care of things and support it, that is not included.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this solution is to make sure that the training is completed first, ahead of trying to implement it.

I would rate this solution a four out of ten.

We are a platinum partner of Forcepoint. We work on most of the Forcepoint portfolio, such as web security, event security, and DLP at the endpoint level as well as at the laptop level. 

This solution can be used for different use cases. You can deploy it as an IPS near the data center zone. You can also put it in-line, which is recommended most of the time not only for Forcepoint but also for many other next-generation firewall vendors. Otherwise, you need to deploy it as a normal next-generation firewall and enable some specific IPS policies on the firewall itself. One of our customers needed encryption between remote sites.

We have a professional services team that handles the implementation of these solutions. We install the latest version of this solution. Most of the customers ask for an on-premises deployment. There are some customers who ask for a private cloud deployment.

It is a stable solution, and there are no issues so far.

Its management center should be easier to use. The management interface of Forcepoint is unique and a little bit different from some of the firewall solutions on which people might have worked before. Sometimes, the customers say that it is not very friendly, and we help them with how to use this management interface. It just takes a little bit of time, and after some time, it gets easy to manage or use. It is quite similar to Palo Alto, Fortinet, and legacy Juniper solutions. 

Their support should be faster. We have received complaints that they are not responding fast, which is not good for the vendor and us.

I have been working with this solution for almost five years.

It is stable.

We have around 50 users of this solution in our company.

Their technical support is not bad, but it is also not good at the same time. It should be faster, especially for the RMA. We understand the situation related to the pandemic, but their response wasn't good even prior to that. I believe it is something related to logistics.

The initial setup is of medium complexity. It is neither straightforward nor complex. If you want to implement a new firewall, you need to connect it to something called SMC or security management center, which is the main thing. It is the brain of the firewall, and without that, you cannot manage the firewalls. There are certain steps that need to be done on the SMC to do the configuration of the firewall. 

We are not a big company. We have two post-sales people who provide professional service. We have two to three pre-sales people as well as technicians.

I would recommend this solution in general. We have collected a lot of feedback from customers related to the management, which we will forward to Forcepoint, and then after some time, they will take action on that.

They have improved a lot since they were acquired from McAfee. Earlier, if you wanted to access SMC, you needed remote desktop access to the server or you had to install a small software from the SMC as a client to control the firewall. Customers used to ask us about why they cannot access the firewall management by UI or browser when most of the other firewalls already have such access. We received a lot of such feedback from customers, and when we escalated this to Forcepoint, they took a serious note of it. After some time, they released that option. You can now access the management center through UI, which is a good improvement.

I would rate Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall an eight out of ten.

We primarily provide the solution to our customers.

I don't create the use cases. I just deploy as required.

Largely, the solution is used for protection. It can be used for various purposes, including URL filtering, spam filtering, and VPN.

The URL filtering is the most valuable aspect of the product. I've used the VPN for that. It's of great value to the customer.

The solution is stable.

The product can scale well.

Technical support has been quite helpful in the past.

The company should work to improve its VPN capabilities.

For the most part, there aren't really any features or services that are missing.

The implementation may be a bit more complex for a person who doesn't have much experience with the process.

The company should update the URL filtering database. They need to enhance the URL filtering and make it easier to customize.

I've been dealing with the solution for the past two years or so.

The solution is mostly stable. We've just had a little configuration issue around the access and net policy. However, beyond that, it's been pretty reliable.

The solution scales well. If a company needs to scale, it can do so with ease.

Lately, I have not needed their services, however, I have contacted them in the past. I find them to be very helpful and responsive. They have a good support team. We are quite satisfied with them.

I also work with Palo Alto and Check Point.

You cannot say this is a simple product. Comparatively, to other products, such as Fortinet's Firewall, it's much more complex. It has an Azure Server client-server architecture. You need to install the entire management server separately and you need the client's GUI to manage the console. 

Deployment takes a while. It may be ten to 15 days for a medium-sized organization. I've mostly installed this in mid-sized companies.

There is some maintenance required. Often, we offer a monthly health checkup to our clients and we would provide maintenance services. 

I handle the installation for clients. I understand the process and can do everything for them.

This is an expensive product compared to Fortinet, however, it is cheaper than Palo Alto. That said, I can't speak to exact pricing. A different team manages the sales and licensing aspects. 

You can compare this solution to a few other vendors. For example, most of the features available in this product are also available in other products as well. If you're talking about Check Point NG and Palo Alto, Forcepoint is very similar. Palo Alto and Fortinet use a single appliance. However, Check Point and the Forcepoint have a  server-client with the architecture actually. We need to install the GUI from that. And a management server and engine we'll install separately too.

We have a partnership with Forcepoint. We are resellers of the solution.

We have clients that have the solution, and therefore we tend to deal with different versions of the solution. It might not always be the latest.

I would recommend the solution. I would rate it at an eight out of ten.

We give consultancy and propose technology based on the customer's design. We also do long-term deployments. Normally, our solutions are deployed on-premises. We have some key projects where almost everything is deployed on-premises. We also manage the solutions and infrastructures with firewalls, network devices, etc. We have a great experience with different technologies, and Forcepoint is one of them.

The feature that we like the most about Forcepoint is that we know the technology and have confidence in it. 

We can have several functionalities to simplify operations and management. We can combine functionalities like log ownership to review the number of devices in the infrastructure. 

Its interface is complex when compared with a firewall like FortiGate. Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall needs a management console, whereas FortiGate doesn't need any console. When you have a few devices, a console is not really necessary. It's good to have a private console only when you have a lot of devices.

We began to work with Forcepoint when they got Stonesoft several years ago.

Our projects are not very demanding in terms of performance. Therefore, we don't have any special requirements for scalability. We have some customers for whom we manage this kind of technology, and the scalability or performance is achieved by deploying a greater data appliance.

I might have contacted them for some questions related to managing instances. We sometimes had problems with registering or activating licenses on the manufacturer portal. I haven't opened any ticket personally. My colleagues have contacted them for technical support, that is, for problems that go beyond the basics of the Forcepoint configuration, such as for replacing some faulty components. Their experience was good in general.

I'm not in the technical part right now, but based on what I have learned from my technical colleagues, the initial setup is not very difficult. When you have experience in setting up or working with these technologies, it's not difficult to set up a firewall. 

We have certified people to manage this technology. We manage the infrastructure for our clients.

We are managing a customer's infrastructure where we have two pairs of Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall working without any major problem. 

I would recommend Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall based on your needs. It's very useful for us to mix several technologies on the same platform to increase its security level. We have experience with Check Point, FortiGate, Palo Alto, and StrongGate (which became McAfee and then Forcepoint). Many times, we combine two or three technologies into the same platform without any problem. However, we did have a horrible experience with Forcepoint in the past. Some of the project deployments were not very great, specifically for applications offering very specific services to users. 

I would rate Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall an eight out of ten.

I provide Forcepoint services to my clients.

The blocking, based on the signal provided, is the solution's most valuable aspect.

From my perspective, the user interface is decent.

Decryption needs improvement. It could be better in terms of the bandwidth and in terms of the speed of the tasks.

The solution needs to build upon its network functionality. It needs to be a bit smarter.

Communication with the cloud will be integral to the future of this solution. It needs to be easily deployed with the cloud going forward. 

The solution would also benefit from working within a multi-cloud environment. It should work with everything from Google to Azure to Salesforce. They need to have a more complex API to be able to successfully connect with other clouds and stations.

I've been using the solution for about one year now.

The solution is stable. It's reliable. We have no issues there. We don't see any bugs or glitches. The solution doesn't crash.

A company would have absolutely no problem scaling this solution. If a team needs to build it out, they can do so quite easily.

We've contacted technical support in the past. They are decent. They provide enough support services to cover our needs. We are satisfied with the level of service they've provided us so far.

The initial setup is easy to get started and the deployment itself is pretty simple.

The customer's infrastructure can really be diverse, however, and that will affect deployment. There are different complexities involved in the setup from the client's side. That's where complexity can really come in. The infrastructure, routines, and network traffic all vary and bring in their own unique challenges.

Typically, deployment takes about a week to complete.

We're a developing company that works with a lot of legacy suppliers that offer clients security solutions. From my perspective, such legacy supplier companies such as McAfee, Checkpoint, and Forcepoint. We help our clients implement certain solutions.

I would absolutely recommend the solution. When it comes to the ease of deployment of the functionality, I would strongly recommend it. Forcepoint has great security functionality. 

However, one downside that is I see is that they need to improve some network functionality. This is very important due to the fact that network functionality is very crucial when it comes to deploying the solution.

I would rate the solution seven out of ten overall.

It is stable and scalable. In addition, their support is great. When you ask them for something, they provide support, and if required, they also involve the R&D team to help you to resolve the issues in your configuration.

They need to increase the local support here. There are also some bugs or fixes on which they need to work. They very well know about these bugs.

In terms of licensing, I would like them to either increase the number of features in a single license or make licensing more flexible.

I have been using this solution for two years.

It is stable.

It is scalable. We have many customers, and some of them have from 500 to 1,000 users.

Their support is great.

Its initial setup is easy, but it also depends on the size of the implementation. 

The implementation of email security and web security is also easy, but the implementation of DLP is very complicated and can take six to eight months. You can install the software in an hour, but there are a lot of configuration changes, and some critical information must be gathered from the customer for implementation and configuration, which takes time.

The number of people required to deploy and implement this solution varies. We have four or five technical staff members who can do the implementation. We have the same number of people for its support after the implementation. From the customer side, a local team is required to work with and manage this solution.

Everything in Forcepoint comes with an individual license, which is kind of a problem. In our last meeting, they said that it may change at the beginning of 2021, and they will try to merge some licenses together. Customers will get more features than what they got previously. We will wait and see.

Forcepoint is a very big company with a very good product line. It fulfills most of the needs of the customers, especially enterprise customers in the financial sector. I use Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall as well as the DLP, web, and email solutions from Forcepoint. No other solution can compete with Forcepoint's DLP solution. We are going to keep using Forcepoint products. Some of our customers are only interested in Forcepoint. 

I would rate Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall a nine out of ten.

Many of our clients have a two-stage firewall. They use one vendor in the data center and another on-prem, so we have to choose between Forcepoint or Cisco. There are choices, but many of our clients have Forcepoint.

Configuration is not easy because it has an old-fashioned interface. The configuration interface is highly complex, and it's been the same for years. They have to change the interface.

The structure of the configuration interface isn't like Palo Alto or FortiGate where you can do everything from a single screen. With Forcepoint, you have to import or assign rules because it's working with SMC, the central firewall management. Also, you cannot communicate directly with the product. You have to communicate with the product through the management interface. 

The dashboard also should be updated. 

I'm the PS manager, and our team is working with many products, including an email gateway and Forcepoint Next-Generation Firewall. We've been using it for more than four years.

Forcepoint's stability is satisfactory, for the most part, but when you have a log increase, you will face issues. If the hard disk is full of logs, it won't accept any configuration. 

If you want help from the support desk, you have to contact tech support and ask them to access the product to go through more troubleshooting. It's the same with web, email, and DLP.

We use multiple firewall solutions, including Cisco, Palo Alto, and FortiGate.

Setting up Forcepoint is okay, but you have to import the device and establish tunnel communication between the device and the SMC or the central management team. Deployment takes about five days from beginning to final confirmation, and we have a team of about six people for managing Forcepoint. According to the policy, you have to do things according to the number of clients behind the firewall. It's not straightforward, and it depends on the number of parameters or assets as well as the configuration the customer requires.

The license is based on the number of clients behind the web gateway. If you increase the number of agents, the license will cost more. 

We use it for SD-WAN, IPS, VPN, and subscription keys on the cloud or have an MDM on-premises. 

I like the IPS. IPS is the master feature. I depend on the firewall and sandbox.

Management could be better. They can improve the management. I think all our customers can't accept firewalls that have standalone management. So, they prefer Fortinet or Palo Alto. But overall, inspection and other features are working fine.

I have been working with Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall for four years.

With Forcepoint, we can cluster as a team firewall, and we can do great without downtime. Our sales team can sell Forcepoint because of this feature.

I would give technical support an eight out of ten. We had an issue with them because we had only support level one for each case we opened. We want them to improve their technical support because I still have three cases open from this year. From January until now, technical support didn't solve it. I feel like it's an easy case like the client's VPN and user ID, and it shouldn't take around five months. 

The initial configuration is straightforward, and we can use it with the cloud. But sometimes, there are network issues we can't see when we're using the ethernet cable. I think you need an engineer with some experience before implementing the first implementation by yourself.

The time it takes to deploy this solution depends on the features I have to implement or configure. Normally, it takes five or six working days, but it might take another week if I have issues with the VPN or user IDs.

We are an integrator. 

We have just a subscription for the cloud, and this license is great. The license is so good.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall an eight.