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Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs Illumio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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

Check Point CloudGuard Netw...
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (8th), Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (4th), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (4th)
Illumio
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (15th), Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is 1.3%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Illumio is 24.9%, up from 22.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Martin Raška - PeerSpot reviewer
Unification of security features strengthens network protection
The overall network security is good. It's big-picture, all in one bundle. It's valuable to have everything in one place instead of spreading across different products. Unified security management positively affects a company's security operations. They have one unified view of the security. I can connect multiple gateways to the management and have it in one place. I can have reporting and views in a single pane of glass on the consolidated platform. It's easy to use. The management is the best on the market. It's very easy to work with, read, understand, and navigate. It helps increase our customer's security posture. We can see in some cases CloudGuard improves our customers' posture overall.
Alark Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual traffic interface aids in network micro-segmentation while a streamlined update option enhances process efficiency
The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies. We can write rules that can be embedded into the IP table, making it easy to handle. Illumio enables us to see network flows, traffic sources, and destinations. The policy generation and enforcement capabilities are valuable, allowing for selective enforcement. Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I feel safe deploying Check Point, and the security lets me sleep well at night."
"Its centralized control, ease of use, and flexibility are the most valuable for our data center security."
"Any kind of cloud environment anywhere can be protected through this effortlessly."
"We find Check Point valuable because they are 100% focused on security. It totally closes the potential vulnerability channel. We can check our mail and our attachments and we can scan everything easily. We get an immediate report about the situation of the attachments. We can discover if the target's security attack was started from phishing, etc. We also enjoy using the additional features that protect our internal customer from targeted attacks."
"Some retail customers find the scale-up and scale-down features valuable, particularly with scale sets. This is useful for handling increased loads on devices and utilizing firewalls, similar to on-premises setups with active standby configurations."
"Identity awareness, URL filtering, IDS, DLP, Content Filtering, VPN, and Application Control are all excellent."
"Our clients choose CloudGuard as a natural progression of their solutions. They understand Microsoft and CloudGuard fits."
"The capability to auto-scale in or out, depending on the resource demand is great."
"The product provides visibility into how the applications communicate and how the network protocols are being used."
"The most valuable feature of Illumio Adaptive Security Platform is monitoring. When I have no requirement from the other application, I can use the web block traffic to build."
"I would recommend Illumio to all sizes of companies."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies."
"It has helped us to understand internal network visibility and firewall policy implementation. We use the product to simplify firewall policy implementation."
"The Explorer allows you to know the traffic between source and destination."
"The flexibility of the solution is its most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Micro-Segmentation functionality for EAST-WEST traffic is not native and requires integration with a third-party OEM."
"The SD-WAN could be better."
"The product needs to improve support. They don't consider my case the number one priority even though I want a quick resolution."
"It's meeting our needs at this time. If I could make it better, it would be by making it more standalone. That would be beneficial to us. I say that because our current platform for virtualization is VMware. The issue isn't any fault of Check Point, it's more how the virtualization platform partners allow for that partnership and integration. There has to be close ties and partnerships between the vendors to ensure interoperability and sup-portability. There is only so far that Check Point, or any security vendor technology can go without the partnership and enablement of the virtualization platform vendor as it relies on "Service Insertion" to maintain optimal performance."
"CloudGuard Network Security could be improved in the area of upgrading in place."
"I haven't used CloudGuard Network Security in the past couple of years as I moved out of the network security role. However, based on my previous experience, there were improvements, especially in in-place upgrades. Regarding cost, it might be potentially cheaper considering resource utilization in Azure and VM costs, but licensing could be improved, possibly moving towards a simpler model."
"In case the device is inaccessible due to some issue such as CPU or memory, there is no separate port or hardware partition provided for troubleshooting purposes."
"I think they have pretty much mastered what can be done. There are some nuances like when you fail over from one cluster member to the other, the external IP address takes about two minutes to fail over."
"The customer service is lagging a bit. It could be better."
"The solution is very basic and doesn't do anything other than the orchestration of layer four endpoint firewall rules."
"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes."
"I would like to see better data security in the product."
"I have not had the chance to experiment deeply with it."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"The interaction we've had with the support team hasn't been ideal. Technical support should be improved."
"It requires a low-level re-architecting of the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"CloudGuard Network Security's pricing is fine."
"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."
"There is flexibility in the different licensing models that are offered."
"The pricing is highly competitive and advantageous, offering great value."
"The tool's pricing is not cheap."
"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."
"CloudGuard Network Security is not too cheap."
"There is a subscription needed to use Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and we pay every three years. Overall the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Performing Arts
5%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 in Jamaica is a major issue, with users often citing it as a reason for not using Check Point.
What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
They could improve the documentation. The interface is fine for me since I have been using it for some time.
What do you like most about Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging poli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
I do not have specific knowledge about pricing details as it is handled by upper management. I know that Illumio is the cheapest solution in the security area.
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes.
 

Also Known As

CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security
Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance
Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Illumio and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.