We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and Fortinet FortiGate-VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Check Point NGFW is praised for its extensive security features, centralized management, and virtualization capabilities. Fortinet FortiGate-VM receives appreciation for its stability, reliability, and user-friendly interface.
Check Point NGFW needs enhancements in integration, hardware upgrades, cost and pricing, stability and security, setup process, load balancing capabilities, technical support, and reporting. Fortinet FortiGate-VM requires improvements in key activation, log management, cloud management, IPsec failover, monitoring tool, setup and configuration, performance, firmware updates, log settings, GUI capabilities, costs, technical support, and integration.
Service and Support: The customer service for Check Point NGFW has garnered varying opinions, with some customers appreciating its helpfulness and responsiveness, while others believe there is room for improvement. Fortinet FortiGate-VM's support has received a mix of feedback. Certain customers commend its prompt response times and expertise, while others highlight concerns regarding delayed responses.
Ease of Deployment: Check Point NGFW's initial setup can be complex and may require expertise and experience for certain configurations and migrations. Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers a generally straightforward and easy setup process, aided by Fortinet's support and assistance.
Pricing: Check Point NGFW has a high setup cost, yet offers flexible licensing options. Fortinet FortiGate-VM has competitive pricing and includes support without extra charges.
ROI: Check Point NGFW provides cost savings, simplicity, and strong security enforcement, resulting in a favorable ROI. Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers stability and enhanced security, guaranteeing a positive ROI when purchased initially.
Comparison Results: Check Point NGFW is the preferred choice when comparing it to Fortinet FortiGate-VM. Check Point NGFW stands out for its extensive security features, such as URL filtering, intrusion prevention systems, identity and access management, and application control capabilities. Additionally, it offers centralized management and virtualization options, as well as stability, user-friendliness, and scalability.
"The SD-WAN feature is the most valuable. This feature evolved from link load balancing. It has helped us in terms of our uptime and privatizing applications whenever we experience an outage. The SD-WAN feature has been a plus for us. Two-factor authentication has allowed us to add more users in terms of remote working. We have two-factor authentication for remote workers to authenticate them before they get on the network."
"It's very easy to configure."
"The initial installation is very straightforward."
"This solution has helped our organization by having strong functions and a reliable firewall."
"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."
"The product offers very good security."
"Check Point NGFW has helped us to significantly reduce our risk of cyberattacks by providing comprehensive protection against a wide range of threats, including malware, viruses, ransomware, phishing attacks, and zero-day threats."
"HTTP forwarding is something I haven't seen elsewhere."
"The most valuable feature is the centralized management, which gives us control over all of the Check Point gateways."
"Check Point NGFW provides essential security, featuring no-obligation access for secure connections, strong intrusion prevention, and comprehensive antivirus protection."
"The SmartView monitor and SmartReporter help us to monitor and report on traffic."
"It is easy to configure and it is a valuable antivirus protection. I especially like the IPS feature of this product."
"Check Point provides dedicated blades to monitor network traffic, which helps while troubleshooting network and packet-related issues."
"We can precisely determine who has access rights and who is granted permission, regardless of their connection point."
"The combination of SD-WAN and VPN capabilities is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features are the web proxy for protection and web gateway for deployment."
"Fortinet-VM is more scalable than the hardware version. If you're using an appliance, there are limitations in terms of hardware specs. So if you want a more scalable firewall, you can get a VM and install it on a high-end server."
"Web filtering and the IPS functionality."
"The solution's initial setup process was very easy."
"The standard features, including the filtering, are quite good. All the basic features are pretty useful for us."
"The solution is very easy to set up. It doesn't take a lot of time and offers a quick deployment, so you can start using it almost right away."
"The technical support is very good."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"I think there could be more QoS features"
"Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting."
"The solution needs to improve its integration with cybersecurity."
"They could improve by lowering prices."
"It is a bit expensive according to the required blades but it is a platform that is worth having as security in a corporate."
"SmartEvent Settings and Policy GUI, and the rest of external apps should be improved."
"There is nothing more that I need in terms of improvement."
"The only downside to Check Point, is, due to the vast expanse of configurable options, it does become easily overwhelming."
"In the past year, we faced severe downtime that lasted many days due to a misconfiguration."
"The speed of technical support is very slow and is something that should be improved."
"It will be good if the product is rack-mounted."
"his is not a good solution for enterprises. It's better for smaller companies."
"The solution should provide more useful GUI features."
"We encountered scalability issues in IPSec Module. The tunnels freeze sometimes."
"The interface needs to be updated and simplified."
"It should have the SD-WAN feature. This would increase the number of features that are available in the box."
"It would be useful to have integration with different reporting tools. This is something we are sorely missing. It would be a plus to have reporting integrations. It would be good to have more integration with the identity suites, such as Office 365 and Azure Active Directory, of different providers that we use. Integrations are already available, but it would be nice to have some more advanced options."
"The one thing that could be improved is the integration with the exchange. The gateway level controls can be enhanced a bit more. For example, it's still little here and there. You do get malicious attacks and suspicious emails like spam. It's not like Sophos where we got a lot of spam email, and yet, it's still relatively vulnerable. It can be upgraded, maybe with a fifth-generation firmware that it is ready for unknown threats."
"The tool is expensive."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 277 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Check Point NGFW writes "Good antivirus protection and URL filtering with very good user identification capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and Azure Firewall, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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