Check Point NGFW Reviews

The Next Generation Firewalls, the 64000 and 44000 series, provide us with support for large data centers and telco environments. They're quite reliable and provide great performance.

There are a lot of features which help us in providing a more secure environment for our organization, such as when we have Active-Active.

The most valuable feature is that the scalable 64000 Next Generation Firewalls are designed to excel in large data centers and the telco environment as well. We have a lot of these types of customers, and these Check Point firewalls support them.

In addition 

• it supports dynamic objects, which we use for security purposes
• the antivirus is quite effective
• the logging and tracking are quite easy
• overall, it is easy to use.

The area where Check Point can improve is the antivirus, as it only provides a small number of updates for it. Updates should be more frequent.

In addition, the certification process is quite expensive. It should be a little cheaper so that everyone can be trained and certified and have better knowledge of Check Point's products.

I have been using Check Point's firewalls for more than a year. My responsibilities include implementing changes on the firewalls and troubleshooting.

They're quite stable and quite good. Management is simple because we can implement a lot of changes on the firewalls through the central manager.

They're quite scalable because they support large data centers, while offering reliability and performances as well.

The initial setup is quite easy. You don't need much training for it. Deployment takes around one week.

We have different stages in the setup process and we follow all the stages. We have to give structure to the plan, outline what we need to do. That goes to our manager, our senior experts, for approval. Then we implement the changes after their approval. Once the changes are implemented, we have our team leaders who validate whether everything is good and as expected or not. Then we close it. This is the basic strategy we follow in our organization.

About 500 to 600 employees work on Check Point firewalls in our organization and they have different roles. For example, I handle network and security admin. There are also security associates, consultants, and analysts.

The pricing of Check Point's firewalls is good. It is not that expensive.

Check Point leading industry provides a complete solution that is required to perimeter security along with deep packet inspection for network traffic.

Check Point not only acts as a traditional firewall but it provides you with complete security for users who work from home. Work from home users observed that Check Point gives 100 % functionality without any trouble.

It offers centralized management to customers where they have an IT member so there Check Point management can work properly. It is available in a smaller range to higher. Customers can get it at an affordable price. 

As we vendor, we deployed the Check Point firewall in many organizations and they are renewing its license as they trust the product and support.

Whatever feature they want is possible with Check Point and 80.20 later versions are coming in, that feature set was previously not available. Customers are satisfied. 

No other firewall provides a feature set in log monitoring and threat detection blades.

Apart from it having very good features, I personally like the vulnerability assistance via report management which detects host and network vulnerability.

Most customers need reports which define how many users are infected, how many viruses and malware there is, botnet traffic firewall deteted all this type of information. Check Point is in a very easy and understandable format based on logs history.

Sometimes the stability related application, URL filtering, and troubleshooting issues take longer than expected. I observed some feature set that is very easy to add from the deployment team but Check Point needs a longer procedure so customers relating those features with Check Point firewall and Palo Alto.

Heavy load causes a higher CPU peek which causes us to need to reboot the device. Malicious activity database corrupts the directory or path and restoring it take a lot of time .

We receive performance but sometimes there are stability-caused issues. 

I have been using Check Point for three years. 

Check Point can defend Palo Alto if they work on stability.

Tech support is very helpful and provides the right solution.

We went from Sophos to Check Point.

The initial setup was simple.

We are only vendors.

The pricing is really negotiable based on other competitor solutions.

We primarily use the product to block traffic at the application layer, limiting access to YouTube and social media during busy periods while allowing it during lunchtime or office hours.

The product's primary benefits include effective intrusion blocking and improved network management. 

I appreciate the support provided as well. It is highly reliable and has a prompt response time. 

The system's operation could be enhanced. I recommend developing a management console that can more efficiently handle multiple Check Point devices, as we have multiple appliances across different sites. 

We have been using Check Point NGFW since 2016 for approximately eight years.

There are occasional issues, but they are typically resolved with subsequent updates. I rate the stability a six out of ten. 

We have three sites where we use Check Point NGFW. The first site has about 1000 users, the second site has between 800 and 900 users, and the third site has approximately 100 to 200 users.

I rate the product scalability as two out of ten. Improvement is needed as it could be more convergent, particularly for on-premises solutions.

We are currently using Check Point, Palo Alto, and Cisco.

Check Point's advantages include its lower cost than Palo Alto. However, it requires maintenance of many parts, as it is only partially GUI-based. In contrast, Palo Alto is mostly GUI-based, simplifying operations for our IT security team.

The setup process was straightforward. Some aspects in terms of maintenance are easier due to the GUI-based interface.

We took help from a consultant for implementation. 

I recommend Check Point Firewalls. It is a solid product with reliable support and frequent updates.

I rate it an eight.

I've been dealing with the Check Point environment for over eight years, ever since SPLAT, the R75 versions, and mainly with a multi-domain management (former Provider1) set-up. I also use the Smart Management Server, with a standalone/distributed deployment.

I'm currently engaged in the design, implementation, and maintenance of a large-scale Check Point firewall environment (~100 GWs).

Presently, the customer is using Check Point for perimeter security, IPS, threat prevention, encrypted traffic, as well as access to the internet, and multi-domain server architecture.

The Check Point solution has improved the way the customer organization functions.

People are working within the organization all over the world, across NALA, APAC, and EMEA regions. Having Check Point as a security vendor made it easy to assure people they could access the resources everywhere, from offices, homes, and across the globe, especially during the pandemic, safely.

One of the last implemented projects was replacing an obsolete Client Auth solution with Identity Awareness, including integration to AVD.

The solution plays an important role in preventing security incidents from happening and preventing malicious attempts to infiltrate into the organization while quickly adapting and reacting to any attempts. For example, it protected us against Log4J vulnerability a few months ago.

It is easy to administrate and maintain.

The product is very granular in the Logs & Monitor section and also intuitive to use.

It offers good control and visibility over users' identities and actions.

It provides central policy management, which is easy to manage and maintain.

The product offers great performance tuning features like SecureXL, CoreXL, HyperThreading, and Multi-Queue.

The study material and training need to be improved and become more accessible to security engineers working with Check Point.

Needs serious skills for advanced troubleshooting. The configuration might get a little bit too complex for regular engineers, compared with easy administration.

We've encountered a few limitations when trying to accomplish simple tasks required by customers. For example, changing a domain name inside an MDS environment or missing a function in the database which removes the domain object completely from the database.

There are plenty of bugs that are not documented, or with too generic error messages.

I've used the solution for eight years.

We use the solution as a perimeter and OT demarcation firewall. As we are a large utility company with a distributed network, Check Point plays a vital role in terms of network segmentation. Specifically, we need identity-aware authentication to give us the best VPN compared to other players in the market. 

Centralized management is a major plus of Check Point, which provides us with a better user experience. 

We use it to safeguard our office network on a routine basis. These firewalls protect against external threats, manage VPN access for remote users, and address various security scenarios. 

Our primary focus involves malware prevention, intrusion detection, and ensuring robust security measures to shield our office network from potential cyber threats originating from the internet. It serves as a traditional yet effective security system, providing comprehensive protection against hackers and potential risks associated with internet usage.

Check Point has a Purpose fit solution for our environment A lot of things need to be improved in Check Point NGFW. 

For example, their support team isn't very efficient and useful. The solution itself isn't easy to learn, making it hard for support to provide solutions. The design makes it so pockets (specific teams) have to work together when there's an issue, which creates a mess. Also, Check Point lacks competitive capabilities like SD-WAN and CGM app integration. 

Visibility needs improvement. For example, Fortinet shows all connected devices with IP addresses, MAC addresses, and sometimes usernames. More granular detail is crucial for security. 

Support efficiency, visibility, and adding competitive capabilities are key areas for improvement.

The product offers a robust and intuitive experience, catering to the essential needs of users. 

The Cleanup Rule's ability to discard unwanted traffic and the inclusion of default Autonomous Threat Prevention Profiles does simplify security measures; we're able to cater to various deployment scenarios. 

I was impressed by how easy it was to activate blades and implement them on a security gateway. 

The Smart Console's efficient user interface ensures that the changes to the policy are swiftly made. We're also able to maintain proper audit logs.

The solution requires improvements in the following areas:

- Having the Zone Alarm and the standalone endpoint VPN become compatible products. 

- Having Smart Console in-place upgrades with IP/fingerprint retention 

- A Mac version of the Smart Console.

- Streamlining of the endpoint solution and deployment options.

I've used the solution for ten years.

Technical support is excellent.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward.

We implemented the solution through a vendor. They offered excellent support.

We are resellers, and our customers need a robust and well-performing NGFW. The Check Point NGFW tool was acquired since they needed collaborators to have secure access to the company's resources and applications. This tool provides us with the alerts and corrections that must be made when finding a security breach in their environment. 

Check Point NGFW also provides a great capacity of features and helps us apply them to the organization. It has web filtering limited to third parties and SSL encryption. The application's administration is very simple and centralized since it helps them a lot in reporting and generating alerts.

The organization needed a tool that would provide various security functionalities in the organization, and so far, Check Point NGFW has helped them a lot. 

It has helped the company by applying access control policies and limiting access to third parties and only those who must enter the organization to use resources and applications. 

The application behaved very well with the current resources in the company network; it helped us to prevent several security holes found with web filtering and internal DDoS attacks. 

Check Point NGFW can quickly identify where the attacks are coming from, provide detailed and complete information on the attacks, and provide zero-day attacks in real-time.

One of the valuable characteristics of Check Point NGFW is that it presents very centralized management. Due to this, their security throughout and outside of the organization has improved. 

Many collaborators work from their homes or different places and help them filter and limit access to packet inspection with flexibility and speed that was not previously possible. 

The records that it shows and generates (depending on its configuration) make everything very visible to be able to adjust and correct in time. When superiors ask for administrative information, it provides great value. 

Its management web interface is very easy and user-friendly.

The tool provides what is expected in its security functionality. However, some points must be improved, such as the latency in the GUI entry. It takes a while to register and allow access to the administrative panel.

Customer service should be improved, both in the administrative and technical fields. Support cases have been generated several times, and it takes time to resolve the case. Finding support is a little bit hard. This needs to be improved.

I've used the solution for one and a half years.

For Check Point, the main cases are just perimeter security, network security, basically detecting threats on the network, antivirus, application control, visibility, login, and data threat prevention.

I like the GUI. In terms of functionality, it used to be the detection capability. Check Point has good security intelligence, which helps detect threats. They have the historical background to do that. But now, Fortinet is a bit better. 

A lot of things need to be improved in Check Point NGFW. One, their support team isn't very efficient and useful. 

The solution itself isn't easy to learn, making it hard for support to provide solutions. The design makes it so pockets (specific teams) have to work together when there's an issue, which creates a mess.

Also, Check Point lacks competitive capabilities like SD-WAN and CGM app integration. And visibility needs improvement. For example, Fortinet shows all connected devices with IP addresses, MAC addresses, and sometimes usernames. More granular detail is crucial for security.

So support efficiency, visibility, and adding competitive capabilities are key areas for improvement.

I have been with Check Point for a very long time. So, it has been almost six years.

I would rate the stability a six out of ten. There is room for improvement here. 

I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. My customers are mostly medium-sized businesses, but my clientele also includes enterprises.

There is room for improvement in the customer service and support. 

Neutral

I'm heavily biased towards Fortinet. Check Point is a direct competitor, so from my experience, it's a decent firewall. There are strong points and weak points, but Fortinet is superior for various reasons.

The initial setup is really straightforward. The GUI is very good. However, the issue I have is with the stability. In terms of simplicity, I don't consider Check Point to be a straightforward solution. Another point to mention is my experience in planning within customer environments. The outcomes are not always as expected. 

For instance, when setting up Check Point firewall and flat policies, the policies didn't take effect immediately. There was a situation where the policies took effect after about two hours. Such instances were mind-boggling. Regarding VPN issues, when implementing IP protection between Check Point and other vendors, remote access can be challenging.

In Nigeria, it's predominantly on-premises. Many organizations are moving towards cloud, but many others use a hybrid approach, both on-premises and in the cloud. 

A few are using Check Point in the cloud, but most test with Fortinet due to easier integration with public cloud providers like Microsoft. Public cloud vendors also have their own firewalls, like Microsoft and AWS. In terms of adoption, Check Point is behind in cloud adoption in Nigeria.

Overall, the process is very fast and depends on the type of deployment. For example, replacing a Cisco firewall with Check Point requires converting policies, which can take quite a while, depending on the size of the policy base. In my personal experience, setting up Check Point was very quick.

It's reasonably priced, but competitors offer much cheaper options. It's market-related, so the pricing makes sense for what Check Point offers.

My recommendation is to consider Fortinet as an alternative. Overall, I'd rate it a seven out of ten. There's room for improvement, especially since Check Point doesn't seem too focused on our region. 

In Nigeria, procuring the firewall and bundled services like technical account management and professional services can be challenging. The service delivery is not as efficient as one would expect, which wouldn't be the case for a European customer.

We have a very robust implementation of firewalls for a central site, a contingency site, and five agencies, all connected by MPLS. In each perimeter firewall, we apply the security features of FW, IPS, AV, and AB. Additionally, we have a VPN concentrator for VPN S2S and C2S.

Over time, Check Point's solutions have had fewer security breaches than their competitors, which is why they remain in high categories and quadrants, as they are a very robust technology. As pioneers in information security, Check Point has been innovating year after year in information security.

Since we implemented this architecture in our client, we have not had any security breach exploited and the organization maintains communication with its different sites through MPLS and VPN to secure and encrypt the traffic that passes through said connection.

In addition to the different security features that Check Point security solutions have, their integration with other technologies makes the security environment a complete security type.

Apart from the technological and innovative solution, a point in favor of Check Point is the support provided by the manufacturer, since over time, we have not had any case that is not resolved, they have a good escalation process and highly qualified staff. 

The process of opening a case has different options that are convenient.

Check Point could do better to include acceleration technologies like SD-WAN in an integrated or embedded way to provide these new features that Check Point never had and is of great importance in the market.

Its competitors have this SD-WAN technology, if it were not for the fact that Check Point has been more stable historically, this value would weigh negatively for Check Point when choosing a solution.

If Check Point includes this feature, they will be able to cover those architectures where traffic between sites must be protected and accelerated.

I have been using Check Point for ten years. It is a very mature and robust technology. R81 is a very stable version and always has great security features.

I consider that they have good support engineers at each level of escalation, according to the criticality of the issue.

Positive

I do use other technologies, however, Check Point is historically more stable for me, as they have had fewer exploitable security breaches.

Check Point has a good cost-benefit ratio.

We also evaluated Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Watchguard.