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Azure Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
317
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Azure Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
19th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (12th)
Check Point CloudGuard Netw...
Ranking in Firewalls
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
127
Ranking in other categories
Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), Cloud and Data Center Security (6th), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.5%, up from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Firewall is 2.3%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

DineshKumar28 - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective threat prevention with responsive customer support
We are using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall Fortinet FortiGate has been invaluable. It has helped save costs due to its various features, reliable performance, very good UI, low latency, and stability. The Threat Intel engine in Fortinet FortiGate is highly rated for its effectiveness in…
Charan Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use and configure but could be more robust
The cost of the solution has increased. The robustness of the software could be better. It should be able to cover host-to-host traffic or HTTP traffic. Configurations can be better. The workloads need to still have free access. The encryption and decryption process is not that seamless. It's a little heavy compared to a FortiGate or other firewalls.
PRASHANT GARJE - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective, supports automation, and provides good security
We have done a lot of automation with the firewall, but sometimes, there are some failures because of some bugs. The fixes for them are still not available. We have daily or weekly communication with the Check Point people giving support in the India region, but we have not seen much improvement or response to our requests for some additional features. We are moving to infra as a code, so we are expecting more advancements in this product. Just installing the patches is not going to help us. They need to focus on this area. I expect Check Point CloudGuard to come up with some AI/ML integration. A firewall is the first L3 security device available to you. It is the single point that manages or processes the traffic for an organization. There is a possibility that the device goes down or gets rebooted for any reason. The integration of artificial intelligence with the devices can help us to know in advance that there might be a surge in traffic. There might be a spike in the traffic, so we can have some additional firewalls integrated. This predictive analysis has to be there. This way, if required, a second, third, or fourth firewall can come into the picture. All the firewalls will process the traffic simultaneously. I am expecting such capability. This sort of feature is available with AWS. We are deploying all the firewalls on AWS, but it would be easy if, in the future, such a feature is available from the OEM or Check Point itself. It will be very helpful for the organization. We have had a couple of outages because of some misconfiguration. They were human errors but there were no prior indications that if we were making these sorts of changes, this would happen. People making the changes on the firewall were not aware of this, and that is the reason why the outage happened. In a financial organization, an outage of even five minutes can cost a lot.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"What's most important is the ease of use."
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the different types of profiling. It has been the most effective for me. The WAF and the antivirus profile are the most effective in network protection."
"The ECC management and the GUI that offers single interface management are the most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate."
"It is a safe product."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"We secure the entry point to the virtual data center with the firewall."
"The solution should be capable of self-scaling, which is one of the features we like about it."
"It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature."
"Among the most valuable features are the DDoS protection that protects your virtual machines, the threat intelligence, and traffic filtering."
"We use the solution for application and server deployment."
"Network filtering is valuable. The scalability capability from the cloud-native service helps us a lot because it simplifies our day-to-day maintenance activity."
"The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"Implementing CloudGuard has resulted in an excellent return on investment over one hundred percent ROI."
"It is a good-to-use tool that is also flexible."
"It's a high-performance device. The network performance is also really good. We check how much time it takes for the servers. Our network performance has increased since using this solution."
"Workflows across the company ecosystem have can flow smoothly without experiencing any challenges."
"When browsing, it scans sites to ensure that they are safe and that no harm can be caused."
"Our clients choose CloudGuard as a natural progression of their solutions. They understand Microsoft and CloudGuard fits."
"Its blades and VSLS (Virtual System Load Sharing) work fine."
"The security configuration features have enhanced the reliable coordination of programs and data safety."
 

Cons

"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"​It needs to improve its ISP load balancing.​"
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"Monitoring and reporting could be better."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"The threat intelligence part could be better. I don't see why our customers have to get an additional solution with Azure Firewall. It would be great if they made it on par with Palo Alto."
"One thing that would help engineers adopt it better is the documentation."
"It needs a lot of improvement, especially on intruder detection. They are working hard on that."
"The solution doesn't offer the same capabilities of Fortinet. It should offer intrusion prevention and advance filtering. These are two very useful features offered on Fortinet that Azure lacks."
"There are a number of things that need to be simplified, but it's mostly costs. It needs to be simplified because it's pretty expensive."
"Azure Firewall has limited visibility for IDPS, no TLS inspection, no app ID, no user ID, no content ID, no device ID. There is no antivirus or anti-spyware. Azure Firewall doesn't scan traffic for malware unless it triggers an IDPS signature. There is no sandbox or machine learning functionality, meaning we are not protected from Zero-day threats. There is no DNS security and limited web categories."
"For large organizations, a third-party firewall would be an added advantage, because it would have more advanced features, things that are not in Azure Firewall."
"Azure has new versions including a premium firewall. But I would like to see them not put the premium features on Azure Firewall Premium alone because it is quite expensive."
"The initial deployment using the ARM template in Azure was straightforward, but migrating to Terraform added complexity, although we managed to make it work."
"We miss full blade support for all blades that are compatible with the cluster. Especially notable is the lack of support for Identity Awareness in active standby environments for customers. In our setup, transitioning to Connective clusters would be preferable for maintaining connections during failover situations."
"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security should give productive reports as per business requirements. It needs to improve support since the time-limit extended beyond a day. It should include more seamless API integrations."
"The solution lacks the capability to scale effectively."
"Micro-Segmentation functionality for EAST-WEST traffic is not native and requires integration with a third-party OEM."
"The challenge mainly revolves around the slower functionality of virtual IP switching in Azure Virtual Network compared to on-premise solutions. On-premise, switching between clusters is faster, taking only a few seconds, while in Azure, it can extend up to five minutes. The downtime is a concern for us."
"In the past year, I noticed that the challenging part, especially in the cloud, is upgrading to the next release of the firewall. Unlike on-premise upgrades, it's not as simple in the cloud. You need to recreate the machine, which makes the process more complex."
"The solution’s technical support, DNS security and training could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is more expensive than Sophos. Fortinet is overall more expensive than Sophos. The small range of Fortinet, such as 60F and 80F, is more expensive than the small range of Sophos. Sophos is cheaper. In addition, if you jump from 80F Series to 100F Series, the price doubles."
"Fortinet costs are 25% lower than the high-cost provider. There is an equipment cost and a recurring monthly cost for licenses and technical support."
"The price is highly competitive when compared to other brands that offer similar functionality."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate could improve, it is expensive."
"The pricing for the product is alright."
"They are very competitive, but we like to have the factory warranty taken care of."
"Fortinet Secure SD-WAN delivered the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) per Mbps among all other vendors."
"Fortinet is competitive price-wise."
"The solution is cheaper than other brands. My company has an enterprise contract and we finally got a good price with Azure."
"Azure Firewalls operate on a pay-as-you-go model, similar to cloud services."
"I rate the product pricing a five out of ten."
"It is pay-as-you-go. So, you pay based on the usage. If I remember it well, there is a basic fee, and there is a traffic fee. It is not per month. It is per hour or something like that. It is not so expensive."
"The total cost of ownership is much less than Palo Alto, Cisco, or any other brand."
"Before choosing this solution, we evaluated others, and we found this to be the most cost-effective."
"Azure Firewall comes with Azure native services. We did not buy any kind of license for it. Whether you have a free subscription or a pay-as-you-go model, you can deploy the Azure Firewall service... The amount that you use will determine how much you pay."
"Azure Firewall is quite an expensive product."
"We explored both pay-as-you-go and build-your-own-licensing models, and found both to be competitive."
"The pricing and licensing have been good. We just had to do a license increase for our portion of it. We had that done within a couple of days. Given the fact that it's purely a software-based license, it ends up being even quicker than doing it for an on-prem firewall."
"The pricing is highly competitive and advantageous, offering great value."
"The product is expensive but also valuable."
"It is fair. Its license covers all the features. There is a cost-benefit. The licensing for the cloud is better than on-premises because, with on-premises, you have to pay separately for different things."
"When customers compare it with Sophos or any other products, the price is on the higher side."
"I like the flexibility because I am pretty sure you can use the same license on Azure or AWS. I forgot the name of the license, but there is a specific type you can use that lets you interchange them, and that is pretty good. I like that."
"It is an expensive product, but when you realize that you need it, it does not feel so expensive. We have had a good experience with them as partners. They have helped us with designing and having good architecture and the best equipment at the best prices. We find it a good deal."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What is a better choice, Azure Firewall or Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?
Azure Firewall Vs. Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls Both solutions provide stellar stability and security. Azure Firew...
How does Azure Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks VM Series?
Both products are very stable and easily scalable. The setup of Azure Firewall is easy and very user-friendly and the...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...
What do you like most about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
The tool's most valuable feature is its management console.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
Pricing is high, over $25,000 USD annually. The package offered includes features we may not need, and more flexible ...
What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
The pricing is too high. We pay more than twenty-five thousand USD per year, which could be reduced. Moreover, Check ...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Information Not Available
Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.