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Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

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)
Check Point CloudGuard Netw...
Ranking in Firewalls
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
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 (7th), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (6th)
Check Point Harmony SASE (f...
Ranking in Firewalls
17th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (5th), Anti-Malware Tools (7th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (7th), ZTNA as a Service (5th), ZTNA (3rd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.7%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable
In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.
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.
reviewer8099174 - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure access with an intuitive design and straightforward controls
In terms of improvement, Perimeter 81 could enhance its reporting and analytics capabilities to provide more detailed insights into network activity. Additionally, expanding integration options with a broader range of third-party tools would be beneficial for seamless compatibility with various existing systems. As for additional features in the next release, it would be great to see advanced threat detection and response capabilities integrated into the platform. This would further enhance security by proactively identifying and mitigating potential threats. Additionally, improved mobile device management features and more comprehensive user behavior analytics would be valuable additions to meet evolving cybersecurity needs.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."
"The interface is very good."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."
"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."
"Check Point CloudGuard is quick to deploy and easy for the customer to use."
"It's possible to sync the Check Point Management with the cloud portal, therefore allowing automated rules to be set in place whenever creating a new VM."
"It is dynamic and agile, and its features and utilities continuously improve and evolve."
"The query feature is going to be a game-changer for us as we move forward."
"Customers appreciate the CME plugin for automatically understanding assets within the cloud. This information appears in the manager, allowing users to tag the assets and adjust policies and rules accordingly."
"The scalability is very good; again, very user-friendly. I wouldn't even say "user-friendly" because, as long as you deploy it properly, you can kill an EC2 and it will spin up another one right away, within about a minute and a half. And it will be ready for production right away."
"It matches what we have on-prem. We kept the same management and the same functionality that we were having on-prem. It has simplified things for us because there is no new dashboard to touch."
"When browsing, it scans sites to ensure that they are safe and that no harm can be caused."
"Even after restarting, it tries to quickly reestablish connection which is very helpful."
"It keeps us all accountable and ensures secure internet connections while we all work remotely."
"Harmony SASE helps us to manage compliance by regulating the amount of access to each department and user. We control the relevant apps and websites, which can be accessed from company-owned devices. Harmony SASE uses its own threat intelligence data from the cloud for threat prevention, and detect and manage threats with their own threat intelligence data and SASE firewall features."
"The integration that this solution has with the different routers or perimeter equipment is exceptional."
"While the higher cost and complexity may pose challenges for smaller companies without extensive IT resources, the value provided by Check Point's advanced capabilities and excellent 24/7 support justifies the investment. Overall, it is highly recommended that insurance firms prioritize data security and regulatory compliance, especially medium to large companies with the resources to manage and fully utilize its features."
"The application control and granular access feature are very easy to use, intuitive, and effective."
"Perimeter 81 has increased my security and privacy while maintaining solid internet performance."
"The Harmony Connect solution helped by unifying in a single portal all the necessary accesses for the company's internal employees, such as RDP, SSH, bank access databases, and even internal portals, bringing security and organization to the entire environment and facilitating employee access with a single, centralized login to the entire environment."
 

Cons

"Maybe they could make some features more accessible, such as a way to translate directions between two networks that share the same subnets."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"The user interface could be improved to make it less confusing and easier to set up."
"As an administrator, I can say that among all of the Check Point products I have been working with so far, the Virtual Systems solution is one of the most difficult."
"There is room for improvement regarding the technical support provided."
"The solution is not that flexible when deploying on-prem."
"I want the upgrades of their CloudGuard solution to major versions to be easier. We have had a few small hiccups. They have different types of cloud clusters called Geo Clusters, and those just cannot be upgraded past a certain point, which is a hurdle that we are currently experiencing."
"The product needs to improve support. They don't consider my case the number one priority even though I want a quick resolution."
"There may be some latency."
"There is room for improvement in the integration with PaaS services from the public cloud. It would be very helpful."
"While today we can manage some scopes, there are still some segments in the OSI layer we cannot manage."
"As it is a new market solution, I still face some instabilities in access at certain times of the day when I have more than 150 users using it simultaneously."
"The main problem with Harmony Connect is that, because it's in a new category of offerings by Check Point, there's very little marketing of the product so far, and this means that many potential users don't even know this kind of solution is available. There are also few testimonials or case studies talking about people who have used the product and fell in love with it, for example."
"In the future, maybe P81 can improve the network traffic balancing and redundancy."
"The support is not very good."
"Zero Trust Network Access can be a security breach if not used correctly."
"Currently, I am not able to define a different country or location, which can result in negative experiences as the tool is being recognized by websites and this can make it difficult to access them or force me to disable the program temporarily."
"Regarding the support, the schedules can be improved since they are generally in another geographical area, and it is difficult to solve the problems with the time differences between them and us."
"One of our challenges is ensuring the security of our cloud-based operations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was probably about $2,500 per firewall. It was all included. It included support, services, threat management software, and 24/7 FortiCare on it. Cisco products are more expensive."
"The pricing is perfect."
"It has a competitive price."
"The price is really low. It's cheap in comparison to the cost of Cisco or CheckPoint, for example."
"Easy to understand licensing requirements."
"We find the most valuable aspect of this solution is the price. It is affordable, and cheaper than other firewalls."
"The price depends on the size of the company. From the beginning, you just want to know the internet bandwidths, speed, and the number of users to be able to offer the right product and model. They have a lot of products in FortiGate according to the size of the company, like 200D and 300D."
"The pricing is justified. It's a little pricey, but what you pay for is what you get."
"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."
"Although I don't have specifics for pricing, based on my overall experience, I can conclude that Check Point provides the best pricing when comparing to other vendors."
"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."
"We are using our BYOL. We are using our existing Check Point discounts to work with licensing. Overall, it is very competitive. Its pricing is reasonable to me."
"They're a little high in price. The price could be lower."
"The cost is on the higher side, as it is based on workload, hence we need to decide which VPC or workload needs to be part of CloudGuard."
"CloudGuard Network Security is not too cheap."
"It is expensive."
"The product is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The pricing of Check Point is relatively high when compared to other competitors like Palo Alto and Fortinet. While Palo Alto may be on the higher side in terms of cost, Check Point's pricing is similar to that of Fortinet. In some cases, Check Point offers better value for the features it provides. We initially considered other options but ultimately decided to purchase hardware that came with three years of iOS. This approach eliminated the need for any additional costs associated with Check Point. I would rate it 10 out of 10."
"Perimeter 81 charges separately for gateways and VPN connectivity, but compared to Azure, it seemed more reasonable."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"Annual licenses cost $30 to $40 each."
"The solution is priced appropriately considering its uses. For an essential license, a user pays only 30 USD per month. For an enterprise version, the prices can be negotiated with the company."
"I consider the product to be a medium-priced solution. There are no additional costs attached to the tool."
"The product's pricing model accommodates diverse needs and deployment sizes."
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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
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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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 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 ...
What do you like most about Perimeter 81?
Even after restarting, it tries to quickly reestablish connection which is very helpful.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Perimeter 81?
It's essential to consider the organization's specific requirements and budget. Here are some general recommendations...
What needs improvement with Perimeter 81?
In terms of improvement, Perimeter 81 could enhance its reporting and analytics capabilities to provide more detailed...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security
Check Point Quantum SASE
 

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
Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance
Aqua Security, Cognito, Multipoint, Kustomer, Postman, Meredith
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.