Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Reviews

Our main use case for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is protecting our cloud infrastructure from advanced threats while maintaining consistent security policies across hybrid environments; we rely on it most for perimeter defense, traffic inspection, and automated threat prevention.

The advanced threat prevention feature of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security stands out the most to me. The threat prevention feature in Check Point CloudGuard is highly effective because it blocks attacks before they reach cloud workloads, using real-time intelligence and automated controls; one standout scenario for us was stopping a zero-day exploit targeting a misconfigured API, which CloudGuard detected and blocked instantly, preventing lateral movement.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security integrates natively in Azure, allowing security policies to follow workloads as they scale or move, and it also supports infrastructure as code tools like Terraform or CloudFormation for security.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has had a strong positive impact on our organization across several dimensions, especially in security posture, operational efficiency, and cloud agility. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has significantly reduced our organizational risk, particularly in cloud environments, with a measurable drop in misconfiguration, threat exposure, and incident response time, contributing to an estimated 30 or 40% reduction in overall cloud-related risk.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could be improved by enhancing its user interface, simplifying policy management, and expanding third-party integrations. The documentation has a learning curve, which can be dense and sometimes outdated. At first, I needed to learn different documentations, but now it is easier. More interactive guides, real-world examples, and clearer walkthroughs would help new users get up to speed faster.

I have been using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for around two years.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is stable.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is scalable.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security's customer support is very good.

I have saved time due to Check Point CloudGuard Network Security.

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is very good in Azure for me.

Since implementing Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, my confidence in moving workloads to the cloud has remained the same. I recommend Check Point CloudGuard Network Security because it is better for its security. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Check Point CloudGuard Network Security an eight.

Primary use case is to use it for protecting the network.

I am working with the platform, but unlike a typical customer using it for protection, we are mostly using it for deployment and debugging.

The overall network security is good. It's big-picture, all in one bundle. It's valuable to have everything in one place instead of spreading across different products.  

Unified security management positively affects a company's security operations. They have one unified view of the security. I can connect multiple gateways to the management and have it in one place. I can have reporting and views in a single pane of glass on the consolidated platform. 

It's easy to use. The management is the best on the market. It's very easy to work with, read, understand, and navigate.

It helps increase our customer's security posture. We can see in some cases CloudGuard improves our customers' posture overall. 

It should be more unified across all platforms. There are different kinds of releases for private cloud, public cloud (HA), NSX, and VSX. It is a little bit different on every platform where I install it, and each platform has many limitations like SMB or Maestro. So I need to know that and decide on which platform I should install it on.

I am using the solution for about eight years on a daily basis.

It's mostly stable. There were some stability issues. But most customers have high availability.

Check Point is a leader in firewall scalability. Check Point Maestro is good and Elastic XL looks promising but the code between maintrain and scalable platform should be unified to have a match 1:1 in the terms of commands and limitations. 

Sometimes the customer service is good. Sometimes it is very bad and I have nightmares from it. The worst thing Check Point did was to move the support to India. There are some good people, however, most of the time, the engineers are not very good, just at a basic level. This needs an improvement.

When I am working on a problem and need help, creating a ticket for a particular issue takes about two weeks to get somewhere. I have to describe the issue multiple times, show what the real issue is but lately I have some very difficult issues and I have good engineers assigned to it, so lately my feedback is positive.

Neutral

Cisco ASA and Juniper. My main focus is 95% with Check Point. So I am using only Check Point. I am familiar with other products, however, I am not using them.

It is very easy to deploy. I have the installation with ISO. With ISO, I can install a firewall, the management, or both of them. I can just choose, and it is very easy. The ISO is unified in the new version, R82. I can install a firewall, management, log server, smart event or a combination. This is very efficient.

We dont buy we sell/distribute.

We as a distributor work closely with the licensing. The pricing has some downsides. It could be better and there could be better scalability of the licensing itself. There are just some licenses which are not on the table. Licensing should be more agile and additive.

It was not needed.

My main use case for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is that we're using it to filter inbound and outbound Azure traffic from on-premises to Azure and from Azure to the internet.

I use it for filtering traffic between on-premises and Azure to secure an SAP application accessed from on-premises while the SAP is in Azure.

The best features Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers are security features, VPN capabilities, filtering, and IPS.

I rely on IPS and access control the most because it controls access to on-premises and from Azure.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has positively impacted my organization by making the network more secure and controlling the access to the applications.

I think Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is an ideal product, so I see no improvements needed.

If I had to think of one area where it could be improved or made easier, I would say that support isn't very good and documentation sometimes is lacking.

I have been using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for four years.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is stable in my experience.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security's scalability is good because we can put the firewalls in VM scale sets and scale.

The customer support is not good.

Neutral

I did not previously use a different solution before Check Point CloudGuard Network Security.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is that pricing was good, the initial setup is easy, and licensing is a bring your own license, so it's good to bring licenses already from on-premises.

Before choosing Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, I evaluated other options, including Fortinet.

My advice to others looking into using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is to deploy with scale set.

I would rate Check Point CloudGuard Network Security an eight out of ten because it's mostly complete and the support is a minor downside.

My main use case for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is network security for my network tunnel.

I have additional examples about my main use cases; it helps us with overall network security.

Check Point Cloud Guard provides a unified security management platform for consistent policy enforcement across all environments. Which makes scalability easy & decreases overall TSO.

The best features Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers include automation of network security and unified security management, which stand out to me because they streamline our operations.

The automation and unified security management have helped me significantly; it saves me eighty percent of the time and reduces errors.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has positively impacted my organization, leading to better productivity. It has increased our productivity.

It increased productivity by allowing my team to spend less time on manual tasks, which helps us to focus on other projects.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security can make deployment and configuration less complex.

I have been using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for around one year.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is stable.

The scalability of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is good.

The customer support is good.

I would rate the customer support an eight on a scale of one to ten.

Positive

I did not previously use any other solution like this.

The initial setup with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is straightforward, with no complications.

I am still calculating the return on investment; it has only been one year, so there are no answers right now.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing is satisfactory.

I did not evaluate other options before choosing Check Point CloudGuard Network Security.

My thoughts about the metering and billing experience are that it's fair and okay, though not very clear.

My advice to others looking into using Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is to go for it.

I chose that number because of the performance.

I have no additional thoughts about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security before we wrap up.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Check Point CloudGuard Network Security an eight.

We protect the cloud by uploading environments to the cloud and making the developments over the cloud.

We used to have an on-prem setup, and the implementation of the new one came naturally since it looks like the previous setup. I know the places for making configurations. 

I am only using the basic protection for the cloud, like a regular firewall, and I find it very useful. 

I feel safe deploying Check Point, and the security lets me sleep well at night. It made a major impact since we have to secure the cloud, so all of our projects had to be protected. We never thought about going to the cloud without security.

CloudGuard Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-premise. If anything looks wrong, I can get the logs from the same place for all the networks. The visibility is great.

It's helped us reduce organizational risk. 

CloudGuard Network Security has had a major impact on our confidence in Security cloud deployments and migrations. We have to secure the cloud. All of our projects have to be protected. That's the the impact. We never thought about going to the cloud without security. 

It should be more agile, as it seems to me that they took their on-prem devices and uploaded them to the cloud. Every time we need a new interface or something like that, we need to make major changes. This is a problem. 

When we try to install a new lab, it appears we need to reinstall the firewall because the interfaces were missing. This took a lot of time, and we had to use the professional service again. I believe this is the point that Check Point should improve.

I have used the solution for almost two years.

The solution is very stable. I can honestly say that I trust it.

On-prem, we are using Maestro, and the scalability is great.

I enjoyed support very much. We are getting premier support. It is amazing. My experience with them was excellent.

Positive

We tried the biggest competitors in Europe. We found that although they are more ready for the cloud, we am more comfortable using CloudGuard. It's easier to use since we come from the Check Point on-prem devices. I understand the menus and configuration. It comes naturally. In comparison, in terms of identifying threats, this solution is more or less the same as others. HOwever, this has more flexibility, We could use the same product and extend it right to the cloud. The deployment was very natural. 

We use Azure and GCP clouds. We used an integrator since we were new to the cloud. We used an integrator. The deployment took one day.

I used Check Point professional integrator. The experience was excellent. The person was very professional. 

The ROI is safety. I feel secure when I deploy Check Point. 

Basically, the pricing is the same compared to competitors. They are all in the same range.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. We've had some problems adding new interfaces in new environments, we do run into issues. For example, when we tried to install a new lab, it appeared that we needed to reinstall the firewall as the interfaces were missing. We had to reinstall, and it took a lot of time, and we had to use the professional integrator again.

We primarily use the solution for protecting the network perimeter and monitoring incoming and outgoing packets. Over the years, the product has evolved significantly by inspecting HTTPS and IPS and having antivirus and anti-bot capabilities. It has been interesting to observe how Check Point keeps pace with global security challenges and addresses them efficiently through policies on CloudGuard gateways.

In addition to blocking attacks and protecting the network, we benefit from the visibility into the logs, the simplicity, and the accuracy of reaching the events. All the capabilities are inside the solution. Unlike its competitors, it does not require extra licenses. It is well-integrated and very detailed. We can pinpoint the details to minutes, seconds, or milliseconds, and see what is going on. We can also see smart events and smart reports with pictures, graphs, etc. Through a single pane, we can see how our network environment is behaving. We can see any changes in the attack patterns, the number of logs, or any new events, which may give insights into an attack going on. We can also see if a new application was released by DevOps teams without telling us.

A big benefit of Check Point is that the same policy can be installed on-premises, on the cloud, with Kubernetes, with Dockers, etc. It works on huge devices or gateways on the cloud. It can work with Azure, Google Cloud, and others. The SmartConsole view helps handle all the environments with a single policy which makes it very easy. It enables working with a small team. A small team of five to ten people is enough for a global, worldwide network.

I found the access control policy through SmartConsole, which was formerly SmartDashboard, to be very valuable. It deeply explores source, destination, and port protocols. Competitors struggle to match this simplicity and effectiveness. The evolution of HTTPS inspections, threat prevention, and autonomous threat prevention are commendable. The consistent interface across versions ensures familiarity despite minor tweaks, maintaining a long-standing valid approach.

The visibility provided through logs, charts, and graphs, without requiring extra licensing, is excellent.

I believe that presentations on artificial intelligence indicate that analyzing logs via SmartEvent and SmartLog Security Event Information Management can offer insights into emerging trends and potential next steps. By correlating logs related to BYOD, BYOL, and Shadow IT, it will become easier to manage and hopefully mitigate or understand risks.

I have used Check Point solutions since NGX R65, which was a lot of years ago.

In my experience, recent versions with recommended jumbo hotfixes offer remarkable stability. There have been no unexplained reboots reported by customers.

While working with a customer using 561k gateways, handling 140 gigabits of peak traffic was successful. After that, they changed the product but maintained the same big picture while enhancing throughput and scalability. Adding more devices to security groups is straightforward. The complexity managed by Check Point developers is amazing. Check Point developers in Israel are ninjas. They have built a complete solution with amazing throughput and details. With a few clicks, there is elastic and protected network growth.

Sometimes I find that the VPN teams provide exceptional service, identifying issues promptly. Occasionally, ticket handling delays arise due to repetitive questions despite detailed notes. However, overall, my experience is positive, achieving a more than 75% success rate. Issues are eventually resolved through hotfixes or innovative solutions, supported by a robust knowledge base.

Positive

As an integrator and partner, we have the opportunity to see how other products work. SmartConsole itself is an excellent idea, and the management aspect of Check Point products significantly differentiates them. However, my opinion will be biased because I have been working with Check Point products for a long time, but I find Check Point's approach more simple and integrated. We do not need several devices or appliances to do verification at various layers. A simple gateway can deliver everything and secure the network.

On the perimeter of the network, it works as an employee hired to allow or deny based on the policies. It is able to follow the rules. There is simplicity. The capability of SmartDashboard to create rules, receive logs back from the gateway, generate all those insights, and pinpoint the events is amazing.

Compared to open-source solutions, there is more than 95% security. It does not handle only access controls; it has the capability of deep packet inspection to see what is going on and have insights into the intention of the malicious activity.

Its deployment model is a mix-and-match. Sometimes it is better to have it on the cloud because of the elasticity, but sometimes it is better to have it on-premises due to regulations. With the single configuration on SmartConsole, it can deploy policies on the cloud and on-premises. Some customers use Azure, and some use AWS. Having a Check Point solution makes them more comfortable because they know that it is a robust and mature product. It is not something built by a startup six months or one year ago.

I can set it up with my eyes closed, though typing the IP address is necessary. I am very comfortable handling initial client configurations and cabling. Although some view configuration as tedious, the results are satisfying once complete.

I believe that the return on investment largely revolves around network protection. An investment, such as 10,000 euros, aims to prevent costly outages or security breaches, which could be more expensive than the solution itself. Despite views on cost, the value lies in maintaining operational integrity with zero downtime or incidents, facilitating secure, ongoing business operations.

As a partner and solution provider for the last fifteen years, I have distanced myself from specific numbers. However, customer trust in the product is evident due to its comprehensive protective capabilities. Centralized appliances have mitigated previous CPU usage concerns, thanks to multi-threading and processing enhancements. Correct sizing assures minimal CPU usage, even at high traffic levels.

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. A ten might impede progress. They might relax and stop the progress. They should keep doing a good job.

This solution would be more beneficial for my AWS side, for our applications. The platform is utilizing AWS, so it requires further protection through some enhancements, which involve allocating more resources into AWS. Check Point serves as our system. I consider it a business case to protect that application work on the cloud.

Check Point is one of the key aspects of our security. It's protecting the e-commerce side and some functions on the public side of the website. It plays a large role in protection.

The types of prevention functions, such as the IPS and other advanced features, provide significant value. 

Check Point is a product that doesn't require a lot of patching throughout the year compared to some competitors. This stability is beneficial for my customer-facing application workload, as it minimizes changes to the infrastructure. 

Maintaining a stable infrastructure that doesn't demand frequent attention is important to me. For our security engineering team in the bank, Check Point is definitely a key aspect. It safeguards our e-commerce side, functions hosted on the public website, our DMZ zones, and the e-commerce hyper-converged infrastructure. 

Overall, it plays a vital role in protecting both our customer-facing and internal company infrastructure.

CloudGuard Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-premise. We can have a hybrid solution which can be managed easily alongside what we already have on-premises. Rather than than have team layers of management, for example, one cloud separate and one cloud on something else, doesn't make sense. 

The centralization affects our security operations. We are already using a lot of Check Point. What they are already doing has been good for us. However, CloudGuard will add another layer of protection for the things we have in AWS. Any reluctance the organization may have for goign into the cloud, or multiple clouds, will be overcome by solutions like Check point, which is giving us a layer of comfort for our critical workloads.

We're confident in secure cloud deployment and migration. We're already an existing customer and we have a level of comfort with the solution. We know it will give us that extra layer of security and play their role and do what they are supposed to do.  

One aspect that I noticed is that we already have a substantial Check Point setup, so management is a consideration. I'd like to have an ease of management. That's important. I am anticipating the introduction of features like AI or advanced supporting functions on the on-premises side. This would be beneficial by providing insights into capacity and enabling me to project future needs, such as enhancements or additional layers for the Check Point infrastructure. Ease of management and reporting would be crucial for capacity planning and budgeting. If I see capacity increasing, I want to be able to plan appropriately.

I have been using Check Point for many years. However, we began doing some changes in firewalls and handling replacements since last year.

I believe it will perform quite well if it remains similar to what we are already using.

There have not been any scalability issues yet.

I have never had to struggle with customer service. My suppliers are really good partners. They always support us, backed by Check Point. Even if I encounter issues, Check Point's account managers maintain a close relationship with us. Whether through suppliers or direct contact, they are always helpful.

I have used previous solutions, however, I won't mention specific names. Since 80% of us are using Check Point, it doesn't make sense to replace the remaining 20% with something else.

The setup cost is reasonable, and many engineers are familiar with Check Point, making it easy to find someone to do the job. Suppliers and Check Point account managers maintain good relationships with the customers and suppliers.

I use a supplier, one of Check Point's partners, to support us. We utilize two Check Point partners, Indiguity 360 and D2B, to assist us in our Check Point journey and management.

The setup cost is okay. The cost overall is somewhat high compared to other vendors, whether firewalls or cloud-native solutions. Check Point may be on the pricier side, however, in the long run, it proves its value.

We have not done a POC with any other product.

I'm not on the technical side; I'm more on the management side of the product. We do have some rollouts still pending with Check Point. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten since I've never had a negative experience. 

There were about ten people involved in the initial project. We conducted some POCs regarding customer security issues we were facing. We outlined ten cases, and these cases were created by a local Check Point engineer in Vilnius, Lithuania, to demonstrate scenarios. After testing all these scenarios, we realized that with certain preconfiguration or suitable configuration of Check Point products, including firewalls, we could effectively address the security cases we had. 

Currently, we have plans to develop more Check Point CloudGuard products, as well as some on-premise ones, and certify engineers. We also plan to demonstrate the value of Check Point products to about five or six customers, along with a local Check Point representative. 

Discussing cloud security and demonstrating its functionality can help build customer trust to initiate POCs and deep dive sessions with architects and others. This business is emerging notably in regions like Scandinavia, where there are more CloudGuard security projects with Check Point. We foresee a similar trend as the market matures and investments increase.

In our market nowadays, a topline risk is phishing. People can just open up malicious email and you can get terrible consequences. We're using Check Point to meet our demands for security, including email security. They have quite good email cloud security in Check Point. We have quite good ratio of getting getting phishing emails caught. Now, there is a lot of hybrid work from everywhere, from home, from the branches, from the main office, from the cafeteria, and so on. We want to manage everything, see how every employee is working, and provide secure working conditions for all the employees.

The products offer low false positives and excellent inspection of phishing emails, alongside monitoring of all internet traffic. These features provide significant value to the customers currently working with us. Combining these features into a single management platform that integrates with third-party vendors would be beneficial, providing a holistic view of all security solutions. This consolidation is essential due to the limited number of IT professionals capable of managing multiple platforms.

The network security has positively affected our confidence in secure cloud deployments and mitigation. When we speak about cloud security and show how it is working, we can get more trust from the customer to start the POC, to do sessions with a customer and architects and so on. Now, we have much more cloud CloudGuard Security and more cloud projects with Check Point. 

This year, I have noticed that Check Point is working on consolidating all aspects into one management platform to provide a comprehensive view. This platform should include Check Point vendors as well as third-party vendors. 

I am unsure what else can be done, however, customers need a holistic view of all security solutions across their platforms, which is critical at this moment due to the limited availability of IT professionals. 

More integration into one solution with increased automation would be beneficial.

Our company has been working with Check Point for three years. Initially, it took about one and a half years to finalize all the negotiations and get approvals from the IT side to start working with Check Point. Then, one year ago, we began a Proof of Concept (POC), which was aimed at IT technical staff and team leads.

There have been a few approaches and POCs, however, I have not observed any downtime. I understand cloud solutions depend on internet bandwidth and other factors, yet I have not noticed any risks due to the excellent bandwidth. I must say, it performs very well, so I have no concerns at the moment.

The understanding depends on identifying the customer's pain points. It often depends on the relationships we have with the customer and the shared information. Once you know the pain points, you know the best way to approach the problem.

Positive

We did not use a different solution. Perhaps my colleagues have tried other solutions, such as Fortinet, but I am not entirely sure. I think Check Point might have been one of the earlier adopters of cloud-related functionalities in our understanding. 

In our market, Check Point speaks more frequently about cloud security compared to Fortinet. We mainly work with two vendors: Fortinet and Check Point. My technical colleagues have been involved in some testing concerning cloud security.

The pricing is sometimes more expensive than some vendors. It's not a matter of pricing, it's a matter of what you get, from the customer's point of view.  

Building close relationships is crucial to understanding the pain points and discussing the best approach with Check Point representatives. This process can take time, making it difficult to rate satisfaction from one to ten.

Check Point is one of the best in the market. I would rate it nine out of ten, as not many well-developed products are available in the market, which is still relatively new. 

Cloud offerings are bringing new ways of working, applications, and security features. It is challenging to keep up with all the changes from cloud providers. For example, Check Point Cloud products are specific, and on-premise solutions offer more stability as updates can be managed internally. In cloud environments, updates are typically automatic, which can lead to downtime or lost connectivity. This issue is inherent to using cloud solutions as opposed to on-premise systems. 

I rate the overall solution nine out of ten.