Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs ShieldX comparison

The compared Check Point Software Technologies and Fortinet solutions aren't in the same category. Check Point Software Technologies is ranked #8 in Firewalls , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 1.9% mindshare in the category. Fortinet is ranked #11 in MS , and holds a 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Check Point Software Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and ShieldX are two leading network security solutions. Users are generally happier with the support and pricing of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, but ShieldX offers superior features that many users feel justify its cost.

Features: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers advanced threat prevention, seamless integration with cloud environments, and an intuitive user interface. ShieldX provides scalability, robust micro-segmentation capabilities, and enhanced security for dynamic cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security users report complexity in configuration, limited analytics capabilities, and the need for enhanced reporting features. ShieldX needs better documentation, improved integration with third-party tools, and optimization for performance in large-scale deployments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is praised for its straightforward deployment model and responsive customer service. ShieldX has a user-friendly deployment but receives mixed reviews regarding customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is noted for its competitive pricing and favorable ROI, making it a cost-effective choice. ShieldX, while more expensive, delivers high ROI due to its advanced features.

To learn more, read our detailed Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. ShieldX Report (Updated: November 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. ShieldX

November 2024

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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

Mindshare comparison

Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security	1.9%
Fortinet FortiGate	17.2%
OPNsense	9.6%
Other	71.30000000000001%

Firewalls

Microsegmentation Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ShieldX	1.5%
Illumio	25.7%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation	21.9%
Other	50.900000000000006%

Microsegmentation Software

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav

Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd

Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches

Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.

Read full review

Devraj Kc

network and security engineer at Max international

Cloud security has strengthened compliance and now protects internet access for our workloads

The best features Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers are its threat emulation and threat extraction blade as well as bring your own license where you can use the on-prem Check Point CloudGuard and decommission it to use in the cloud. I believe Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has impacted our organization positively because it is one of the stable products that I have used till now, and we do not have to upgrade Check Point CloudGuard Network Security for any sort of CVE or bug in its OS and it is very stable. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has decreased the organizational risk because it provides compliance with HIPAA as well as PCI DSS by means of its compliance blade. It makes it easier for us to determine if we are compliant or not. It made me more secure because when you talk about security, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is on top of the list with 99.8 in blocking malware according to the Miercom list. I believe it has had a positive effect and we have not had any incidents.

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MichaelProcyshyn

IT Director at park holidays uk

Proactively monitors, blocks, and reports what it has blocked; and self-updates meaning there is zero maintenance

The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput. The traffic through our website depends on holiday bookings. It's very quiet in November through January, and then our traffic picks up quite rapidly and, at our peak, we will take in excess of a million pounds of business a day through our website. The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides. Uptime on the system has been 648 days and we do very little to it because it self-updates and alerts. It does everything that we need it to do, so the administration side of it is zero. One of the beauties about ShieldX is that it's such a good "fire-and-forget" product.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface is very good."

"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."

"I advise others Fortinet FortiGate has an easy configuration and it does not take much time to learn about the rules that you will need to apply for your company."

"The solution is stable."

"Onboarded three times more customers without adding firewall hardware, cut network expansion capital expenses by roughly 40 percent through VDOM consolidation, reduced vulnerability remediation costs by about 60 percent thanks to automated FortiGuard updates, shortened policy-deployment time by over 50 percent, freeing up 10 plus hours of engineering effort weekly, and achieved payback on the initial FortiGate investment within 9 months via increased tenancy revenue and lower OPEX."

"It performs very well."

"FortiGate is very easy to use, and to configure."

"The detection is great."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Check Point CloudGuard provides comprehensive security coverage."

"Workflows across the company ecosystem have can flow smoothly without experiencing any challenges."

"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has positively impacted our organization by improving our security posture; we have seen a sharp reduction in successful intrusion attacks because of its unified threat prevention, along with greater visibility and control."

"If you are looking at the value and security and you do not want to compromise, then Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is one of the best solutions you could have in your organization."

"The versatility is the solution's most valuable feature."

"The initial setup is pretty easy."

"The technical support is excellent and they always responded when we had an issue."

"The central management feature is a big plus, allowing us to manage both local and cloud gateways from one platform."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security pros

"The Adaptive Intention Engine is fantastic. It allows us to develop security policies using the language of our internal customers. It's machine-learning applied to security workflows. That allows us to much more easily construct the policies that will protect those workflows."

"ShieldX has been designed from the very beginning to work well in cloud environments. It understands autoscaling, automation, and auto-configuration. These are the things which are important in today's operating environment."

"The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides."

"ShieldX makes it a lot easier and a lot simpler to define your policies and define your rules, and that greatly reduces the opportunity for user error."

"...It takes the exact same policies that you would apply to your on-premise environment and enables you to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"Once you install it you can virtually forget about it; it's very low-maintenance and high-protection."

"Very often, when new challengers come in, what they do is they end up coming in at a lower cost with more functionality."

"It has helped us tighten our security posture. Now, staff can only access things that they should be accessing."

More ShieldX pros

Cons

"The support system could be improved."

"I would like to have logs, monitoring, and reporting for a month without extra fees."

"More SD-WAN features can be integrated into the FortiGate Next Generation Firewall"

"FortiGate's logging and reporting could be improved. I would also like to see Fortinet add a guest management portal."

"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities."

"In my opinion, Fortinet FortiGate could be improved by making the appliance smaller than what we have here, as it is pretty big."

"The user interface could be improved to make it less confusing and easier to set up."

"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The deployment was not easy."

"While today we can manage some scopes, there are still some segments in the OSI layer we cannot manage."

"At the beginning the design can be overwhelming, where to start."

"The product needs to improve support. They don't consider my case the number one priority even though I want a quick resolution."

"The solution could improve to have a DLP feature."

"At the cost level, the solution is somewhat expensive."

"This application can be more integrated with web application firewalls. Better integrations would provide more granularity, which would be helpful for focusing on the application itself and preventing attacks."

"What I would like for future updates would be faster updates to apply, and perhaps a greater presence in the local language for the regions of Latin America."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security cons

"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so. As the vendor continues to evolve and add future functionality, we want to make sure that we are still keeping up with the integrations, etc. Time will be the key factor here. The proper support for some of the latest technologies, Docker containers, etc. They need to keep up with threat landscape, so we will see how the security get layered. This is what we are going to be keeping an eye on."

"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory."

"There should be a bit more customer care, with regular review meetings on it or regular reports. It would be nice to have a quarterly or biannual review of what ShieldX has blocked."

"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so."

"I would like better reports and in-depth reporting."

"With any kind of tool like ShieldX, where you're in the cloud instead of a traditional firewall, you're using CPU resources in those environments to provide the protection. So there's a cost associated with CPU resources."

"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory. We can't seem to set it up."

"The one criticism I might have is there should be a bit more customer care, with regular review meetings on it or regular reports."

More ShieldX cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you are looking for a quality product, it will come at a higher price. Expecting them to be significantly cheaper is unrealistic. In terms of pricing, it is a bit costly. However, the functionality and support offered are worth it."

"Its price could be better."

"The Indian market is different than the European and American markets. When you compare they need to be a bit more aggressive on pricing."

"The price is okay, so far so good."

"When comparing the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG to other solutions it is expensive. The price could be better."

"Its price is normal. If I compare it with other vendors, such as Palo Alto, it's normal. Palo Alto is expensive."

"I think price-wise, the solution is totally reasonable since it has many products to serve, starting from small homes to massive scale sites."

"It cost us around $73,000 for three years."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The tool's pricing is not cheap."

"It's not very expensive. It isn't very cheap either. Its price is okay. It depends on how much money you have. It might be expensive for some companies. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The price could be better."

"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."

"It is not expensive, but it is a little bit above the middle range. There are other solutions that are a little more expensive than this, but they also have some interesting features."

"Pricing of CloudGuard is pretty fair when you have a single account. It's comparable with other cloud providers. But for our use case, it got really pricey when we had to deploy multiple CloudGuards on multiple accounts in different regions, because you can't have CloudGuard protecting multiple regions. That's the big thing."

"I quite like the way they priced it. It is very reasonable."

"The licesning has some good features. For example, the scaling feature is free of charge, allowing multiple scale-ups and scale-downs over a two-week period, which is pretty good."

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security pricing and cost advice

"ShieldX also enables us to migrate to cloud environments faster. That is an important part of it for sure because it takes the exact same policies that we would apply to our on-premise environment and enables us to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"For a three-year deal we paid £55,000 plus tax... But, and this is a big "but," this was over two years ago. ShieldX had only just hit the market. We were the first company in Europe to buy ShieldX."

"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX. It might not be the big name out there, but it does everything that you are looking for in microsegmentation at a very low price."

"Security policies are now applied as applications are going up. Because it's automated, we don't have the three to four week delay. The insertion of applications in the cloud for us dropped from an average of three to four weeks to a couple of days."

"We are very happy with the pricing and licensing. It's about getting a site-wide license. One of the challenges that we've had with our previous vendor had been the cost of licensing."

"ShieldX ensures that we can have the separation needed for our environment to avoid drastically increasing the cost on the licensing side. From this perspective, it's been very positive and helpful."

"We are actually expecting our costs to drop in the coming year, but it is just a matter of the licensing expiring. That is going to happen in the next six months or so. Then, we will start to see a decrease in overall spend."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Construction Company

Marketing Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	364
Midsize Enterprise	135
Large Enterprise	191

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	67
Midsize Enterprise	41
Large Enterprise	76

No data available

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When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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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 ...

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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.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Although I do not know much about the pricing or setup costs, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is very cost-ef...

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What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could be improved with faster policy propagation across large multi-cloud env...

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Comparisons

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 10% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 7% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 5% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Compared 5% of the time

More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Competitors

Illumio vs ShieldX

Compared 28% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs ShieldX

Compared 21% of the time

Nutanix Flow Network Security vs ShieldX

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs ShieldX

Compared 11% of the time

VMware NSX vs ShieldX

Compared 11% of the time

More ShieldX Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

April 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

April 2026

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security report

Download Check Point CloudGuard Network Security product report

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX

March 2026

Download ShieldX product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers centralized management, robust threat prevention, and seamless integration with major public clouds, ensuring consistent security for cloud and on-premises environments. It combines ease of use with flexibility across diverse IT infrastructure.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security provides comprehensive protection for IT infrastructures in AWS, Azure, and hybrid environments. It ensures firewall security, managing traffic and securing cloud infrastructures while maintaining network protection and compliance enforcement. Organizations benefit from its centralized security governance, enhanced visibility, and threat prevention for both perimeter and internal security. It offers seamless integration with leading cloud platforms, allowing for efficient deployment and scalability, aligning with modern cloud requirements.

What are the key features of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Ease of Setup and Use: Provides a user-friendly setup process and intuitive operation.
Robust Threat Prevention: Offers advanced capabilities to safeguard against potential threats.
Auto-Scaling: Adjusts resources dynamically to meet demand without manual intervention.
Centralized Management: Ensures uniform security policies across cloud and on-premises environments.
Integration with Major Public Clouds: Seamlessly works with AWS, Azure, and other leading platforms.
Intuitive ACL Menu: Simplifies access control list management with an easy-to-navigate interface.
Customizable Policy Options: Allows for personalized security settings suited to specific requirements.

What benefits should companies look for in Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Through automation and comprehensive reporting, organizations streamline operations.
Consistent Security Management: Offers uniform policies across different environments, reducing complexity.
Improved Threat Detection: Increases the ability to identify and respond to threats quickly.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing or changing infrastructure needs without compromising security.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and tech, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is vital for protecting sensitive data, managing compliance, and safeguarding daily operations. Its robust integration capabilities support diverse infrastructure setups, assisting companies in maintaining high-security standards efficiently.

Check Point Software Technologies

The ShieldX Elastic Security Platform dynamically scales to deliver comprehensive and consistent controls to protect data centers, cloud infrastructure, applications and data no matter where they are or where they go to make the cloud more secure than on-premise deployments. Our frictionless approach leverages agentless technology as well as the ShieldX Adaptive Intention Engine which autonomously translates and enforces intention into a set of comprehensive controls - microsegmentation, firewall, IPS and more - making security the easiest thing you do in the cloud.

Fortinet

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

Iowa State University

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. ShieldX

November 2024

Free Report: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. ShieldX

Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. ShieldX and other solutions. Updated: November 2024.

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