Check Point NGFW Reviews

It's just enterprise firewalls, firewall clusters for redundancy to secure the company network from the internet, and as well as a data center firewall, for example, if you want to split up subnets to control traffic between them.

The management is very handy and intuitive, and it has a lot of features. I think it's one of the products in this market which has the most possibilities.

I saw some other firewall vendors or firewall solutions from other vendors. And maybe I like it because I'm very familiar with Check Point and the management of the Check Point gateways. So, probably, I'm just not aware of how other solutions work and how to use them. 

We also see or have a lot of customers with Palo Alto. That's also a solution we see a lot, but we have been a Check Point partner for more than seven or eight years since the beginning of our company. We have done a lot of research on firewall solutions. 

In our opinion, it's one of the best because the management is very handy. So it's easy to implement every possible configuration, and you have a good oversight of your rule set. 

If I compare it with Cisco Meraki, for example, if the rules grow, then it's very hard to get oversight or to have oversight over the whole rule set. So then it becomes hard to manage.

With Check Point, it's easy because even when you have 200 or more rules, it's still very user-friendly, and you can still quickly manage your whole rule set.

What I like about Meraki is the whole cloud-managed feature, where it can configure gateways in the cloud and preconfigure it as well. So I don't need to have access to the device or create a configuration in the cloud. 

And as soon as the firewall comes online connected to the internet, then it downloads its configuration from the cloud. I think Check Point does also have such a solution, but I'm not aware that it's as easy as Cisco Meraki. Sometimes it would be nice if they would have the same possibilities.

I have been using it for about five years now. 

I have not yet faced any challenges with performance or stability. Sometimes when we implement core firewalls, there are applications that have longer session timeouts than the Check Point firewalls in the default settings. 

Windows has a default session timeout for about two hours, I think, and Check Point's is one hour. So, it's not a performance issue, but the application will not run as well as before the security gateway analyzes and blocks traffic. So, it depends.

Scalability  is a very good point of Check Point's solution. They can scale very well and very large.

The technical support is also very well and specific. It's very useful to have technical support from Check Point.

Positive

I have experience with Nutanix Flow. It's also possible to enable training in Nutanix Flow where you can redirect the traffic to Check Point gateways. I think that's a very useful feature if you need layer seven traffic analysis and blocks. But I don't have any customers, or we don't have any customers, who use chaining. We also don't have any customers who use a micro-segmentation solution from Check Point. So, I'm not aware if they have a comparable solution like Flow.

For the initial setup, you need a good knowledge of the operating system, Gaia OS. It needs some knowledge to get started, but if you've done it once, then it's easygoing.

Normally, we check the customer's requirements. Then we start to deploy the gateway and start with a basic rule set so the customer is able to refine it for their needs. If we are in charge of creating a complete rule set, we will bring all the requirements into a concept and then create a rule set in a more suitable way.

Some customers have very basic requirements. If it's just to deploy the gateways, then it's very easy and quick. You just need maybe a few days and a maintenance window outside of business hours. But there are also customers who have a lot more requirements, like scanning or analyzing the traffic for subnets inside of the network. 

For example, a core firewall can be very time-consuming. You need to do a lot more research and concepts or write concepts on how to achieve that. That can take a few months.

For maintenance, you need to know what you do. It can be difficult if you don't know what you want to achieve. If you are not aware of network security, then probably it's not that easy, and you may run into configuration errors or mistakes. It's easy to manage, but you have to know what you do.

Check Point is not the cheapest vendor in the market, but it has everything you need compared to other solutions. So that's probably the main reason for the cost or the prices. I think it's probably on the same level as Palo Alto.

I would recommend Check Point to other users who are looking into implementing it.

I would advise others to compare or write down their requirements and have a look to see if Check Point is able to fulfill all the requirements.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

The customer purchased Check Point 6200 Firewalls to replace their aging Cisco ASA firewalls on the perimeter of their sites. The Cisco Firewalls must be replaced due to insufficient capacity.

It is envisioned that the initial migration will be a direct replica of the ASA configuration, with the client expanding the solution post-migration, with Check Point NGFW features.

This project consisted of the following deliverables:
• Rule base is migrated like for like, in which ASA Firewall zone-based rules will be converted to Check Point Parent/Child layered rules.
• Firewall zones to be imported and reviewed post migration by client.
• NAT rules will be migrated “as-is”.
• Geo-location rules from FTD will be honored and mapped into Check Point.
• Client-based blacklisting will be migrated into the solution, using external feeds via URL.
• A single IPS profile consisting of a clone of the vendor's “out-of-box” balanced profile (optimized).
• 1X site-to-site VPN.
• Integration into Client’s Cisco ISE solution for RADIUS-based admin authentication.
• NGFW licensing and blades to be installed on firewall devices, to allow features to be enabled in the future and expand the solution.

The Client wishes for the ASA firewalls to be replaced with a Check Point systems solution, which consists of 6200 Plus Appliances. 

The initial requirement was to migrate the configuration in an “as-is” state, with the necessary licensing purchased and installed to enable expansion of the solution with next-generation feature sets in the future.

The solution was able to meet and exceed the client's requirements thereby improving the client's environment.

The management server is software-based.

Firewalls and licensing include:
• FW
• IPS

The solution provides a single pane of glass management of rules/logging.

The solution supports IPsec tunnels FOR 1X IPsec VPNs.

The solution integrates with the client’s Cisco ISE RADIUS solution for administrative access.

The compute power of the appliance is great. The Check Point appliances are considered NGFW devices and can process both the ASA and FTD requirements on a single instance, removing the requirement for an expansion SSD module and/or additional hardware.

We'd like an option that can convert other vendors' NGFW configurations to supported Check Point NGFW config for ease of migration.

Check Point configuration options can be very enormous and overwhelming.
Check Point comes with a very lean learning curve even though they offer a robust knowledge base. 

A lot of configuration cannot be accomplished via the web interface or the smart dashboard software and must be done manually via the command line interface.

I'd like to see some built-in automation for the firewall alerts/events to trigger an automated response or recovery.

I've used the solution for three years.

The solution is stable with frequent version and management updates.

The solution is highly scalable and expandable.

The solution offers great customer support.

Positive

We used a different solution and needed more processing power and functionality which this had compared to industry competitors.

The setup was straightforward yet third-party device migration contained a lot of manual configuration conversions.

I implemented this myself.

Pricing can be relatively more expensive when compared to industry peers, however, the functionality makes up for the price difference.

We also evaluated:

• Cisco NGFW
• Fortigate NGFW
• Palo Alto NGFW

This is a great overall solution.

We're an international research laboratory, focused on thermonuclear energy experiments. Due to strong remote collaboration, and to control network communication, we choose the Check Point NG Firewall solution.

Most of the personnel are researchers. We also have a strong collaboration with a University and take care of a European Ph.D. on thermonuclear fusion, as the future clean energy.

We aim to constantly improve firewall technology, which is a key strategy nowadays. We've chosen Check Point in 2007 and step-by-step upgrade and expand cyber security deployment using their solution. 

We appreciate the support and escalation when issues are in place. We really appreciate the solidity of the solution, the redundancy, we own a couple of appliances in failover. 

We use Check Point to grant VPN access both for clients and also in specific site-to-site IPSec remote connections.

I like the dashboard, redundancy, log analysis, threat prevention and ISP, and VPN.

The dashboard has clean and focused menus and tabs, that offer immediate access to important information and configuration. 

Log analysis is really powerful considering the enormous amount of logged data. 

We use a specific function to control bandwidth occupation based on protocols and IP subnetworks.

Fundamental is the interoperability with RSA SecurID, Windows AD/Azure.

We're in the process of moving to the MS O365 cloud, and Check Point helps us with this.

Maybe the VPN clients could be improved, however, only from a cosmetic point of view. They use a very old GUI and should help remote assistance in case of problems to make it more accessible in terms of getting log/debug information. On this, I suggest an approach like ZOOM US, where is clearly defined the application life cycle, and users warned over time.

We're in the process of moving to a cloud hybrid solution based on MS Azure, and on that field, quite common nowadays, it seems that more has to be done, moving from on-premise historical deployment. 

IoT should be considered in future development.

I've used the solution since 2007.

It is an absolutely stable solution. It is easy to put maintenance on an appliance without losing any connectivity.

The last release, R81, is impressive, at least in these first months, having recently upgraded from R80.

My experience is good, both on technical issues, and commercial support during renewal.

Positive

We previously used a Cisco PIX firewall.

The setup is somewhat complex, however, technical documents are clear, and the most common solutions are well described.

We implemented it with a third party and in-house. The support company that helped in Italy is fantastic.

We may need more time to measure ROI.

Check Point is not a cheap solution, however, on cyber security, we prefer to stay with a key player.

We constantly verify other vendor solutions, such as Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Sophos.

The device is being used for perimeter security devices across multiple clients across sites. Check Point has not only improved our organization - it also has given us holistic perimeter and endpoint security protection throughout the enterprise.  

Our sites across the globe have Check Point perimeter protection.

Pros include:

• Internal Network Protection from outside network
• VPN connectivity for secure data transmission across multiple vendors
• File download antivirus security
• URL Filtering
• Application filtering
• Malicious domains blocking

The solution has helped out organization stay safe with its depth application filter, URL filtering, and SSL inspection. It's mitigated a significant amount of risk for corporate users as well as to host services at our terminal that need access from the internet. By far, it's the best security solution one can adopt for their organization. 

It's:

• Reduced attacks on DMZ servers
• Blocked access of malicious destinations hit by internal users
• Complete visibility about what is going and what is coming via internet
• Check Point is the industry’s unified cybersecurity architecture that protects businesses against sophisticated 5th generation cyber-attacks.
• Having multiple checkpoint products under the same roof provides consolidated security.
• Ultimately saving cost by having better centralized solution

The solution has a lot of valuable aspects, including:

• IPS & IDS
• Sandbox (Threat Emulation & Extraction)
• Ease of management
• Reports for analysis
• Better technical support
• Stateful inspection
• Application-aware boxes
• Threat detection capabilities
• Hyperscaling

Data loss prevention, compliance, threat emulation, and other blades overall make this a robustly unified platform for the implementation and management of security controls.

Since it is Layer 7, we are able to get down to the application level and block certain applications from even running.

Since it has an IPS in place, we are able to see possible attacks that have been prevented by the firewall.

The perimeter antivirus can be improved. It's not as good as other leaders.

Additional features that could be good to have/improved include:

• Modular capabilities 
• Integration with VMware and NSX products per client requirement
• 3rd Party support product is very limited 

The solution can integrate with other vendors to form IPsec connectivity with redundancy - which is only possible now between the CP to CP FW only.

The licensing part is a bit tricky. The product can simplify this further for ease of use.

They need to work on log size optimization.

Antivirus signatures should be updated in real-time.

We've used the solution for the last eight years.

The stability is very good.

The scalability is very good.

Technical support has been great.

Positive

We did not use a different solution previously.

The initial setup is straightforward. 

We had a vendor assist us.

We haven't used other products.

We also looked at FortiGate and Palo Alto.

The reason we have the Check Point Next Generation Firewall is that it's our main perimeter firewall in all our branches around the world. It secures the IT infrastructure in all of our environments and our subsidiaries. We also use it to set up tunnels between all our sites.

We have multiple versions from the legacy R77 to the latest R80.40.

In today's world, there are a lot of risks related to infrastructure security, malware and more. The Check Point has multiple blades in the same product, which improve security in IPS, application control, and URL filtering. You don't need to buy multiple, separate products to achieve the best security.

The basic most valuable feature is the firewall itself.

The management platform, dashboard, graphical user interface, are one of the best, if not the best, in the business. It's the most intuitive and it's really user-friendly in day-to-day operations.

The VPN means you can communicate in an encrypted manner between sites. 

The application control and URL filtering are also very beneficial. They enable you to tighten security and decide which applications or websites you want to grant access to. In our company, we don't allow anyone to freely access the internet to surf all websites. Some sites may be sensitive and some of them may be inappropriate. It allows us to control the traffic.

Their management features are the best, from one point of view, but they are too heavy. For example, if you are looking at a configuration file, you can't just browse through it and see all the configurations like you can with other vendors, like Cisco and Fortigate. With those solutions you can just go over the configuration file and read all the objects and the policies, etc. 

Because of the Check Point architecture, the data file itself is huge if you're comparing it to the data files of other vendors. The difference is something like 3 Mb to 1 Gb. It's not so straightforward. 

The data process is also not so simple. You don't just load a text file which has all the configuration. It's a more complex process to restore it from a backup, when it comes to Check Point.

I have been using Check Point's NGFW for approximately 10 years.

One of my issues with Check Point is the stability. There have been too many bugs, over the years, when I compare them with other vendors. Their QA team should do better work before releasing their GA versions.

If you're looking for scalability and you need to add more power and performance and to scale up, they have a new solution, but I haven't used it yet.

In terms of the extent of our use, it's our main firewall. Everything flows through it.

We currently have four direct users and all of them are security engineers. I'm doing most of the deployment and the others are responsible for the day-to-day operations. In the overall company there are more than 10,000 users, and the traffic throughput is around 10 Gb.

They have a very extensive Knowledge Base on their website, which is very helpful. But if you contact their technical support, not all of them have all the skills. If you open a ticket it may take a while to be resolved. It can take more than a month until they finally escalate it several times internally and then, finally, find a solution. But the first tier is not too technical.

The previous solution, Contivity, was before my time in this company and I don't think it even exists anymore. The Contivity was only a firewall and our company wanted more features and benefits. It didn't have next-generation firewall options, like URL filtering, user identity, and IPS. As risks evolved in the data security field, our company needed to adapt.

The complexity of the setup depends on which branch we're setting it up for. If it's a new branch, we can spin up a new firewall in less than an hour or so, do all the configuration, and it's ready for production. But if we're replacing an existing solution, the migration process may take some time and the people involved need more extensive knowledge, compared to spinning up a new firewall.

If it's a complex environment and you're migrating from one solution to another one, or even from an older version to a new version within the Check Point platform, I would recommend not to do it by yourself. In those cases you should use a third-party partner or Check Point Professional Services.

I did most of my deployments by myself, but in our headquarters, where there was an older version of a Check Point version, and they wanted to migrate to a new one, I used a partner. The partner I used was SafeWay, a company in Israel. They have quite extensive knowledge and they are very professional.

It's hard to measure ROI in financial terms, but our productivity has gone up with the new version of the R80 because we don't need to wait for one administrator to log out of the management system for another to be able to log in. Multiple administrators can now work simultaneously on the platform. That productivity increase can be seen as a form of ROI.

Use the basic sizing tool to do the correct sizing so you don't waste too much money, because it's not a very cheap solution when compared to other vendors. There are other vendors that are more affordable.

There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees, except maintenance.

We have not evaluated any other options.

My best advice would be, if you are not as skilled, that while you don't really need to use the Check Point Professional Services, you should use a partner that has good knowledge of the device. If it's just a straightforward deployment without all the features, it may look simple but there are too many options. Eventually, you may use 30 percent of them. I don't think you will use 100 percent of all the features that are available.

Overall, I'm a little bit disappointed because of the numerous bugs that there are.

I would rate it at seven out of ten because their management platform and the dashboard. It's the most intuitive and user-friendly in day-to-day operations, as long as you're not dealing with the bugs.

Generally speaking, it's like any other NGFW. It's quite a versatile solution for many aspects. It's not like a separate solution for firewalling, but a separate solution for web access. It's just very convenient to have everything in one box. On the other hand, when you need something, like a very top-rank solution for very specific things, like network intrusion prevention or network intrusion detection as a component of NGFW, I would say it looks weaker compared to the well-designed solution for its purpose. It has the same issue as many other versatile or unified solutions, so it's really convenient.

From our point of view, including me and my colleagues, I would say it's really good that they have a lot of integrations with third-party companies. Integrations with third-party companies are really convenient. API offers many convenient ways to integrate with open-source solutions. It's very, very good when you have everything in one package and one bundle.

If you check each and every point from this part, you will find some flow in an area, or you will discover another flow in another area. It's unfortunate, and not a usual situation and it is not just for NGFW but for any other tool, making it a disadvantage where improvements are required.

For the next release, I would prefer the tool to be more flexible in terms of general deployments because some additional companies must be deployed as a basic one. For those who have been working with their solutions for a relatively short amount of time, it would be better for the tool to offer an adequate knowledge base, not just very superficial information, or maybe not too much in that spot, something like average stuff. The tool should be more flexible in terms of deployment, and a more adequate knowledge base should be available.

About the UI, it is hard to comment because it has been more or less the same for many years. Professionals have already been using the tool's interface for many years. From a contemporary angle, the tool's interface looks a bit outdated from a UI point of view. The UI has been more or less static in terms of changes for the last couple of years. People can get to the UI and work with it in a couple of months, but compared to any other solutions on the market, which are more flexible and more rapidly evolving, I would say that UI should be considered for improvement.

I have been using Check Point NGFW for two to two and a half years. My company is a partner and reseller of the solution.

For stability in high-load networks, I rate the solution a six to seven out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the tool an eight to nine out of ten.

There could be some performance issues under the heavy deployments and heavy load, but generally, if you are talking about the general scalability, it is quite good.

The tool is suitable for large and very large enterprise businesses. From our company's practice, I would say it is meant for banks and financial institutions. It is also quite popular in heavy industries. I would say it has a more or less wide list. It is more or less very popular in banking.

The tool can be scaled up, but even despite high scalability, it requires a lot of extra companies to bear a high-load environment and high-load networks, making it a bit unfair, especially when comparing some of the numbers with the real-world statistics it likes too far from reality.

The solution's technical support is fine. I rate the technical support a nine to ten out of ten.

Positive

If ten means easy, I rate the product's initial setup phase a six to seven out of ten. It is not a plug-and-play solution. It requires much more skill and effort for the specialist to set it up properly. Even if there are any PoCs, you can easily discover the difference between the easy setup process and the more difficult setup phases, and I would say that Check Point falls under the latter category as it takes much more time and effort. Sometimes, it could be buggy, and you just need to fix some other firmware or software update.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model for large and very large enterprises.

The time to deploy the solution depends on the stage because you can talk about the initial deployment or you can talk about the deployment, including the integrations. I would say that the integrations would be really time-consuming. For the initial deployment, I would say it is a couple of days if it is not really a large installation and a couple of weeks are needed for the initial deployment.

ROI is like an artificial point in connection to a solution like Check Point NGFW, and its numbers are quite questionable.

Suppose the company has too many different solutions from different vendors. In that case, it becomes a greater burden in terms of support and everything, especially in terms of management of these solutions. I would say that Check Point would be a good choice if they are planning to migrate. If it is something like a choice between one NGFW from a vendor and you want to move into the Check Point NGFW, it becomes a bit more tricky. It becomes really hard to say about the ROI because it is just like a different approach. If you are moving between a lot of different solutions from different companies, then ROI will be really good and attractive.

The tool's price is reasonable in case you are not using it in a high-load environment. If you are not expecting significant increases or peak increases in loading, it should be fine. If it is a really highly loaded VLE environment, and if you try to rely on the tool's official numbers, I would say you can put your environment and network in jeopardy because it becomes really unstable. For the last couple of years, the situation has changed, and it has become really tricky to understand why the tool's official numbers aren't aligned with real-world numbers, which is a big problem for the VLE customers because when they are just trying to consider their official stats and official scalability numbers, it might be tricky. VLE customers should have, like, a 20 to 30 percent extra, or else, at this point, it becomes much more expensive.

The tool's prices don't make any sense because we are not talking about MSRP prices for VLE. We are talking about the discounted prices, which could be a really, really huge gap between the MSRP and the discounted price. I don't think these numbers will highlight any beneficial aspect of the price for you.

There needs to be accuracy in terms of scalability. It should be well-designed, and if the customer does not have enough resources or their own resources, it is better to involve an adequate number of SIs. The system integrator will do the trick, and if a person is experienced, then everything can be really good in terms of the certifications, the statistics, and everything else. The system integrator should do everything properly, but it will be quite expensive, especially if we are talking about large and very large enterprises. For mid-sized businesses, it should be fine because it is less tricky, and even the normal specialized person on the customer side should be fine with using it, as it can be quite easy. In any case, scalability is a bottleneck here.

I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

Primarily, it's used for customers who want to add their network security.

The IPS protection is the most useful feature that I found from Check Point. It has a feature called WatchTower, which helps you manage the device using a mobile. That's the most used feature. 

Other than that, it's quite simple. All the other features are what you find in all other firewalls. So the best feature that I find from Check Point is WatchTower.

The setup is a little complex compared to its competitors. That's what makes it stand out. Other than that, it could always be done by another product, but they have a lot of IoT products. This is definitely something like a Check Point Quantum device.

I have been using it for two years. The version I use is R8x series. I'm not exactly sure, but it's the latest version.

It is a stable product. 

It is a very scalable solution. 

The customer service and support have been good.

Positive

I used Sophos XG. We (my company) still use Sophos, Check Point, and FortiGate. We use all three firewalls in our environment.

Check Point has a really good feature where they give us a subscription for IoT device protection, which other vendors don't have. Sophos, I don't think they have it. 

Fortinet charges for it separately, so that's an additional cost, but with Check Point, the feature is built in. It's not an additional license.

Moreover, Check Point has started promoting a lot. It's well known here in our region.

The initial setup is complex. It's pretty easy to maintain.

We deployed it for customers. So maybe if we do a big deployment, it could be difficult.

The pricing is reasonable compared to the features that you get.

I highly recommend it to users who have a lot of IoT devices.

It all comes down to one simple thing:

"If you have IoT devices, I highly recommend Check Point NGFW. If you don't, it's a bit complex compared to Fortinet and Sophos."

But once you get the hang of it, you can quite easily configure the device.

Moreover, Check Point has a certification program if you want, and you can learn with that. They also have a separate certification program that you can take, a paid certification program.

I am satisfied with the documentation by Check Point. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

Our customers have been using it for the network security.

Unlike Fortinet, where the log loading process can take up to a month, Check Point stands out for its efficiency. While other solutions may only provide logs for a short period, such as one or two months, Check Point impressively retains logs for up to six months on some machines and at least three months on others. This extended log retention period is a significant advantage for our customers, providing them with valuable insights and enhancing their overall security posture.

One of the most advantageous features of Check Point firewall is its multi-interface capability. While traditional firewalls typically have a single interface, Check Point stands out by offering tools with multiple interfaces. This capability, now known as SmartConsole, allows users to manage policies, security objects, and routing points all from one dashboard. This contrasts with other firewalls where users often have to log in separately to access different functionalities. The hierarchical structure of communication and management in Check Point firewalls adds complexity, making it more challenging for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities. Additionally, Check Point introduced SD-WAN functionality in December 2013, further enhancing its capabilities and staying ahead of the curve in network security.

There's a significant area for improvement when it comes to pricing. While frequent updates and patches are released, which is commendable and adds significant value, the loading time for SD-WAN updates can be excessively long.

The feature we're eager to see enhanced in Check Point is reporting, particularly in terms of highlighting past reports. Currently, if we create a rule for a report in the morning, we expect to receive an email highlighting it. While we can set this up, the issue lies in segregating the project into separate reports.

I have been working with it for five years.

Occasionally, we face certain issues and downtimes. Downtime varies depending on the type of changes or updates being made. For instance, a version upgrade typically requires only fifteen minutes for reboots. However, for patch updates or version updates, downtime can extend to at least one hour. In some cases, especially in custom environments, downtime may exceed two to three hours.

It provides good scalability. Despite having only three customers, I've implemented the firewall for over a thousand users. These users are situated in factory environments, meaning there are thousands of endpoints, including those connected via VPN.

I am relatively satisfied with the level of technical support provided. We primarily work with Indian support teams, and while some technical engineers are exceptionally intelligent and quick to resolve issues within ten to fifteen minutes, others may take longer. However, the crucial aspect is that they eventually provide an answer or escalate the issue if needed. When I contact support, I first inquire about the assigned person, and if I am familiar with them, I proceed with the interaction. Otherwise, I prefer to escalate the query to another region to avoid wasting time. I would rate it eight out of ten.

Positive

We have experience working with Fortigate and Palo Alto in the past. In Sri Lanka, Check Point has a strong marketing presence, which influences customer decisions.

The initial setup can be complex and may pose a challenge, especially for those without prior experience. Setting it up for the first time requires careful attention and a level of expertise to navigate effectively.

The deployment process begins with configuring the firewall's IP and other settings. Once this initial configuration is complete, we proceed to the AI portal. In the AI portal, the first step is to configure the interfaces. After configuring the interfaces, we proceed to install the created interface. Next, we move on to the SmartConsole. To access the SmartConsole, we download it from the app portal. Once the SmartConsole is installed, we can easily create rules for logging purposes, manage objects, configure networking, and VPN, and other technical tasks from the SmartConsole. Routing and related tasks are typically handled in the data portal. One individual is enough for the deployment. The duration of the setup process varies depending on factors such as the complexity of the customer's environment and the site architecture. For instance, in a relatively simple scenario with just two VLANs and a couple of VPNs, the configuration could be completed within a few working days. Maintenance is essential, with upgrades and patch updates being mandatory at least once every six months. This ensures the system remains up-to-date and secure.

Our customers are pleased with the return on investment. The occasional bugs and updates, common to all firewalls including Check Point, are being addressed promptly. The platform is regularly updated to ensure optimal performance.

The price is on the higher side.

While the cost may be a consideration, the level of security provided by Check Point is exceptional. In my experience, I have not encountered any cyber attacks. The only negative experience was not related to the firewall but rather to customer issues with the router. It's important to remember that compromising security for cost savings can ultimately lead to vulnerabilities. Therefore, investing in high-security solutions like Check Point is worthwhile. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.