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Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs Netgate pfSense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.3
Fortinet FortiGate offers cost-effective and efficient security with quick ROI, reducing expenses in data communication and management.
Sentiment score
7.4
Check Point CloudGuard enhances security, reduces costs by up to 80%, and simplifies cloud management, boosting corporate efficiency and confidence.
Sentiment score
7.4
Netgate pfSense offers cost-effective, high ROI firewall solutions with enhanced security and versatility, outperforming expensive alternatives like Cisco.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
We have experienced a positive return on investment by utilizing Fortinet's products.
There's definitely an ROI. Having a centralized way of managing and applying policies across the entire organization always helps.
The value lies in maintaining operational integrity with zero downtime or incidents, facilitating secure, ongoing business operations.
Implementing CloudGuard has resulted in an excellent return on investment over one hundred percent ROI.
Since everything is unified in both cloud and on-premises environments, troubleshooting is faster.
If they can save their data from attackers then it would save them at least two days of not working plus the cost of recovery, which would be much more than the cost of the system and maintenance.
Since the memory leak fixes, it's been incredibly stable and requires minimal maintenance.
In four years of using it, that payment of 189 dollars per year has already paid off.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Fortinet FortiGate's customer service is praised for problem-solving but criticized for inconsistent response times and language barriers.
Sentiment score
7.1
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has received mixed reviews on service support, highlighting variability in response times and expertise.
Sentiment score
8.2
Netgate pfSense users value forums and paid support for quick, knowledgeable service, though community reliance remains high.
He explained that it required a command line configuration, as it couldn't be done through the graphical user interface.
I would rate their support for FortiGate a nine out of ten.
They offer very accurate solutions.
We had an endless loop of emails trying to fix this, and the suggestion was to reinstall the gateway and do it from scratch, which was not an option at that point because it would leave that specific location without access.
Available twenty-four by seven.
The support team is responsive and cooperative.
When I provide detailed information about the problem, they've been able to reply quickly with a solution or go research the problem and get back to us quickly with a fix.
They are highly responsive.
I couldn't imagine having better support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Fortinet FortiGate is scalable, flexible, and adaptable, though some face hardware upgrades and licensing challenges during deployment sizes.
Sentiment score
7.6
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is praised for scalability, especially in cloud environments, despite occasional third-party platform challenges.
Sentiment score
6.9
Netgate pfSense is praised for its scalable performance, seamless expansion, and efficient management of network demands, especially with hardware upgrades.
They scale up really well from smaller models like the FortiGate 40 and 50 to bigger sites with the FortiGate 100 for more throughput - up to enterprise datacenters.
The processor, the microprocessor and the security processors are very intelligent so they can scale significantly and manage that well.
There are many options available, and we can choose the size of the box based on our requirements.
This is what customers want: the options to get the scalability they need.
The complexity managed by Check Point developers is amazing.
The load balancer is excellent as it dynamically adjusts to needs.
If I put things into a certain context and say that we have a network that has around 100 people, then you don't put up a device that can manage 100 people. Instead, you need to get a device that can manage 150 to 200 people, and then you can create room for growth.
I don't think Netgate pfSense can offer much scalability for big enterprises.
Even with a jump from a 50 megabit to a 500 megabit internet connection and approximately 65 active VPN clients, our firewall operates smoothly without any strain.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Fortinet FortiGate is praised for its stability and reliability, with occasional issues improved by updates and configurations.
Sentiment score
7.9
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is generally stable and reliable, with occasional issues related to hardware or cloud providers.
Sentiment score
5.7
Netgate pfSense offers stable performance with rare software issues, though hardware dependencies and configuration challenges can occur.
There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze.
Improper handling of these can lead to a memory surge, a well-known bug that can cause the entire system to freeze.
It is less stable than Palo Alto Networks and Check Point firewalls because there are lots of bugs in the latest firmware.
I have not observed any downtime.
For instance, when we are working on a release and do an upgrade, we start experiencing unexpected issues.
Most customers have high availability.
I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten.
I've noticed a substantial improvement in stability and ease of use for upgrades and patching over the past year or two.
When I replace consumer routers with pfSense for small businesses with two or three employees, they are often amazed to discover the router can run for a year without a reboot.
 

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiGate needs improvements in stability, usability, integration, cost-effectiveness, and documentation for enhanced user satisfaction and performance.
Check Point CloudGuard faces usability, compatibility, support, and cost challenges compared to competitors like Fortinet, impacting user satisfaction.
Enhancements for Netgate pfSense focus on interface design, VPN improvements, centralized management tools, third-party integration, and user-friendly documentation.
If I have put 10 GBPS of throughput on a firewall and I enable all of these features available, such as IPS or UTM functionalities, the throughput comes down to 1 GBPS.
By providing an integrated solution, users would have access to all features and functionalities within a single window, eliminating the need to navigate through multiple windows.
Investing in a solution that can accommodate such growth would be more cost-effective than repeatedly purchasing new hardware.
The user interface could be more intuitive, and the initial setup and configuration can be complex, requiring a technical team.
Check Point does not initially support serverless architecture, requiring additional efforts from our team to manage it.
Customers need a holistic view of all security solutions across their platforms, which is critical at this moment due to the limited availability of IT professionals.
There is some trade-off between having a certain level of security and maintaining acceptable performance.
If I need to go between different VLANs, I have VLAN 19.1 and VLAN 19.2, and I strictly use Netgate pfSense, but it doesn't route very efficiently and works quite slowly.
They should support the idea of configuration management as code from source code and provide a more robust API for managing the pfSense configuration.
 

Setup Cost

Fortinet FortiGate offers competitive pricing with varied costs; affordable long-term licenses, though renewal complexity can accumulate costs.
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers flexible pricing but is seen as expensive compared to competitors, despite robust features.
Netgate pfSense provides an affordable, open-source firewall solution with minimal costs, highlighting enterprise support as a beneficial option.
Secure SD-WAN is free of charge.
The most expensive part is the renewal of the license subscription.
FortiGate is priced lower than Palo Alto.
The pricing and licensing are expensive, costing between seven thousand to eight thousand dollars.
Pricing is high, over $25,000 USD annually.
The pricing is sometimes more expensive than some vendors.
The price of setup is approximately €500 to €800, which also includes the initial monitoring.
You can acquire a decent embedded PC for around a hundred dollars and install pfSense on it, effectively creating a robust firewall solution.
The product is free of cost.
 

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiGate offers advanced security features, user-friendly configuration, and comprehensive management tools, valued for robust protection and flexibility.
Check Point CloudGuard offers advanced threat prevention, centralized management, scalability, and strong protection with a user-friendly interface.
Netgate pfSense offers flexibility, scalability, strong security, and easy customization, all while being cost-effective and resource-efficient.
Fortigate blocks unusual traffic and therefore secures our network.
It's easy to monitor the end-to-end network through the firewall.
The firewall, IPS, and VPN functions are the most valuable features.
One of the most valuable features is the automated threat prevention, which helps us detect and block potential cyberattacks in real-time, minimizing data breaches.
So far, it's helped our companies to reduce organizational risk by 99%.
The data center objects update automatically if the IP addresses change.
The software competes effectively with far more expensive commercial alternatives and is used by hundreds of thousands of businesses, educational institutions, and government agencies all over the world.
With pfSense, network configurations adhere to standard practices, facilitating troubleshooting without the need for complex overlays or policies.
The price point is the most valuable aspect of the solution.
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
318
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
140
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)
Netgate pfSense
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Netgate pfSense is 16.0%, down from 22.3% 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.
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 the view. I can have reporting and walks 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 customer's posture overall.
Vincent Hamm - PeerSpot reviewer
I appreciate the depth of what the solution can do and the simplicity of the initial setup
We do a lot of managed services and are currently trying to get people off of L2TP VPN. Apparently, we can download a mobile config file from a configured NetGate device, and we're primarily Apple. We've experimented with it on a device that's not a production device, and we can't seem to get the phase one IPSec set correctly so that the Apple config will accept it. We've tried looking at the documentation but haven't found anything. While it's not the highest priority, it is rather frustrating. We'd like to do this, and the feature is right there, but we can't get it configured. We certainly don't want to try it on a production machine because it will break the current VPN. I would like to download the Apple mobile config so that I can tell it to configure my VPN connection to do that. We have some cross-platform things. So there's also a Windows VPN. You can download a script or a PowerShell, put it on a Windows machine, and it can connect to the VPN. It would be nice if I could say I want Mac only, Windows only, or both. I wish it could configure the IPSec phase one and phase two, or at least give me solid instructions on how to configure that. It doesn't supply out-of-the-box visibility to drive decisions. You get 75 log lines, so if you're trying to troubleshoot something, you have to look at one log and then another. It integrates with SysLog systems, but our customers are not at the level where they want to pay for some third-party SysLog system. Usually, we can get things taken care of fairly quickly. I would like to have the ability to control all my devices from one place. With Ubiquiti, you can get a controller that allows you to control all of your Wi-Fi devices, switches, and routers. From one area, you can switch to that customer and see what's happening in their environment. That's not part of pfSense. I understand why it's not because pfSense is open source and community supported. That's something that someone in the community needs to pick up and run with. It's not something the pfSense can easily implement. If they could, that'd be great.
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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
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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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 ...
Help me find the best open source router
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How do I choose between Fortinet FortiGate and pfSense?
Fortinet’s Fortigate is a firewall solution we use and are very much satisfied with its performance. We find Fortigat...
What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?
Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and cl...
 

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
No data available
 

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
Nerds On Site Inc., RKC Development Inc., Expertech, Fisher's Technology, Ncisive, Consulting, CPURX, Vaughn's Computer House Calls, Imeretech LLC, Digital Crisis, Carolina Digital Phone, Technigogo Technology Services, The Simple Solution, SwiftecITInc, Rocky Mountain Tech Team, Free Range Geeks, Alaska Computer Geeks, Lark Information Technology, Renaissance Systems Inc., Cutting Edge Computers, Caretech LLC, GoVanguard, Network Touch Ltd, P.C. Solutions.Net, Vision Voice and Data Systems LLC, Montgomery Technologies, Techforce, Concero Networks, ASONInc, CPS Electronics and Consulting, Darkwire.net LLC, IT Specialists, MBS-Net Inc., VOICE1 LLC, Advantage Networking Inc., Powerhouse Systems, Doxa Multimedia Inc., Pro Computer Service, Virtual IT Services, A&J Computers Inc., Envision IT LLC, CommunicaONE Inc., Bone Computer Inc., Amax Engineering Corporation, QPG Ltd. Co., IT 101 Inc., Perfect Cloud Solutions, Applied Technology Group Inc., The Digital Sun Group LLC, Firespring
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Netgate pfSense and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.