Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly 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 2.4% mindshare in the category. Fortinet is ranked #11 in MS , and holds a 2.0% 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 Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs. ShieldX Report (Updated: November 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly 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 Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)	2.4%
Fortinet FortiGate	15.1%
OPNsense	8.5%
Other	74.0%

Firewalls

Microsegmentation Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ShieldX	2.0%
Illumio	23.8%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation	20.4%
Other	53.8%

Microsegmentation Software

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav

Network Security Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees

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

Viral Shaa

IT Security Analyst at Eos Energy Enterprises, Inc.

Cloud security has unified hybrid policies and now protects critical energy workloads continuously

I would say Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is valuable due to its hybrid cloud security features. It offers granular policy management across the on-premises and cloud environments, giving administrators consistent control for configuration drift. We need to change the policy and the inbound and outbound traffic settings, indicating what traffic must be blocked or allowed, and this capability with Check Point provides significant input into our security strategy. Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) provides unified security management across both hybrid clouds and on-premises environments. Unified security management affects my security operations positively, as we maintain critical systems on the cloud that require strong security and air gap networks. This cloud-native routing and policy installation helps close gaps in protecting critical applications and environments from exposure to the public cloud. From an administrator's perspective, Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) enhances our organization with clearer and more intuitive logging, making decisions easier to understand without deep investigation. In the CloudGuard UI, I can see which threats have triggered alerts, and this information is available on the unified dashboard that provides details of the threat analysis upon alert. As a small team, we log into the console to check specific alerts for high or low network usage or machine shutdowns. If needed, I tune the configuration policy, and the visualizing tools with reporting functionality simplify tracking changes made on the firewall, including the relevant source IP or device names. We ingest logs into our SIEM for detailed oversight, which allows us to monitor any administrative changes. Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) has significantly reduced our organizational risk. We clearly understand our threat landscape and the associated risks. Onboarding the CloudGuard solution directly into our cloud environment has significantly lowered the risks throughout the network and it is easy to launch. When we assess our security posture with third-party assessments, we gain granular visibility into our network pre- and post-CloudGuard installation, showing how we have addressed significant risks and secured vulnerabilities.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."

"The product's most valuable features are SD-WAN and the integration of WiFi and switches."

"The primary feature I appreciate about Fortinet FortiGate is the ease of setup."

"The pipe filter application is an outstanding feature."

"The solution is pretty expensive, but it provides great value to our organization."

"Load Sharing VDOM Security Profiles Vulnerability Assessment"

"We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW."

"The beauty is the price performance ratio is great with FortiGate, as it provides all the features we need and the price is comparable with other firewalls, making it quite competitive with firewalls that have similar features."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"I feel safe deploying Check Point, and the security lets me sleep well at night."

"The SSL spectrum proved to be the most valuable for our incoming connections."

"We get good insights into security, and we are more secure because we have more insights than we would get from other products."

"The installation process doesn't take very long."

"Moving into the cloud without having to change a lot of our internal processes and retrain staff is one of the biggest benefits of this solution."

"Implementing CloudGuard has resulted in an excellent return on investment over one hundred percent ROI."

"Our clients choose CloudGuard as a natural progression of their solutions. They understand Microsoft and CloudGuard fits."

"Check Point is one of the best in the market."

More Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) pros

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

"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX."

"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 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."

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

"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."

"The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput."

More ShieldX pros

Cons

"It is essential to leverage its capabilities more professionally to achieve an even higher level of security."

"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. However, my issue is the performance only. When I use all the profiles, this affects the performance. From the beginning, I should have had a better sizing of the box."

"FortiWAN was supposed to help in doing intersite linking, but we've realized that most of the ISPs use BGP."

"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."

"Monitoring could be improved."

"The solution could improve by being more secure."

"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."

"I would like to see a more intuitive dashboard."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The UI is very slow, and getting the graph details on the security performance metrics is lagging."

"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could be improved by enhancing its user interface, simplifying policy management, and expanding third-party integrations."

"The business and product development team should introduce a high-end feedback collection mechanism and analyze the customer requirements constructively."

"If you compare the GUI with the Palo Alto and Forcepoint in the Cisco, they're very easy. Check Point, due to its design, is a little bit complex. They should make the GUI easy to use so that anyone can understand it easily, like Fortinet's GUI. Many companies end up using Fortinet because the GUI is very easy, and there's no need for training. They just deploy the box and do the configuration."

"The price of the solution could be reduced, it is expensive."

"The solution isn't scalable. In fact, it cannot be upgraded at all."

"Every experience is different. Every ticket is different, and sometimes it's a little bit painful to pinpoint problems."

"They are coming out with more SD-WAN express route support from a firewall perspective. That would be great."

More Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) cons

"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. I'm pressing upon them to make the product much more efficient and use less CPUs to do the same thing."

"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. 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."

"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."

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

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing for Fortinet FortiGate SWG is more suitable for enterprise or large-sized organizations because they are the ones who can afford it versus small and medium-sized organizations."

"The solution is very expensive so pricing is rated a one out of ten."

"Currently, we are paying about $1,500 a month for three sites."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is the lowest in the market."

"It is affordable. Palo Alto is much more expensive than Fortinet."

"It is very cost-effective. You get features similar to other firewalls, such as Palo Alto, but at a lower price."

"FortiGate SWG is a cost-effective solution well-suited for organisations of all sizes."

"The pricing of Fortinet FortiGate is average, not cheap or overly expensive compared to other firewall solutions in the market. It's effective and affordable for customers."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The solution's licensing is based on the number of users of the VMs. We follow a pay-as-you-go model. Its pricing is competitive."

"Licensing is available on a monthly or yearly basis."

"The tool's pricing is reasonable."

"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."

"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."

"My experience has been extremely positive. It was not a concern because I had an account team that fought for pricing for our company. They were not pushing me to professional services for certain help. I was instantly getting a CloudGuard architect to help us out."

"They're a little high in price. The price could be lower."

"It is not expensive."

More Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	368
Midsize Enterprise	135
Large Enterprise	193

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	71
Midsize Enterprise	41
Large Enterprise	79

No data available

Questions from the Community

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

We have encountered a few subscription-based licensing models for the virtual gateway and security enablement. We hav...

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What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

I find troubleshooting a bit challenging with Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security); one ...

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My usual use cases for Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) involve onboarding as an ene...

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Comparisons

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Compared 8% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Compared 4% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Compared 4% of the time

More Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) Competitors

Illumio Segmentation vs ShieldX

Compared 17% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs ShieldX

Compared 16% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs ShieldX

Compared 11% of the time

VMware NSX vs ShieldX

Compared 9% of the time

Nutanix Flow Network Security vs ShieldX

Compared 8% of the time

More ShieldX Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

May 2026

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) report

Download Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) product report

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX

May 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 Cloud Firewall delivers advanced threat prevention and administration ease with centralized management of hybrid clouds. It offers seamless cloud platform integration, maintaining consistent security policies and enhancing efficiency.

Check Point Cloud Firewall is designed for comprehensive cloud security, ensuring perimeter protection, traffic inspection, and threat prevention. It is often used for safeguarding workloads and applications in public cloud settings like AWS and Azure. The firewall effectively controls both east-west and north-south traffic and supports hybrid cloud setups. Utilizing features like VPN, IPS, and URL filtering, it secures environments across multiple platforms, helping manage compliance effectively while addressing latency, API integration, and onboarding challenges.

What are the key features?

Advanced Threat Prevention: Defends against cyber threats across hybrid clouds.
Auto-Scaling: Automatically adjusts resources to meet demand.
Unified Security Management: Centralizes management for consistent security.
REST API Automation: Enables seamless integration with existing workflows.
Robust VPN Capabilities: Ensures secure data transmission across networks.

What benefits to expect in reviews?

Ease of Administration: Simplified management processes across environments.
Operational Efficiency: Enhances productivity by reducing risk and complexity.
Consistent Security Policies: Maintains a uniform security posture between clouds.
User-Friendly Interface: Streamlines user interactions and task completion.

Check Point Cloud Firewall sees frequent use in sectors needing robust perimeter protection, such as finance and healthcare, where compliance is critical. Its capabilities suit businesses utilizing public cloud infrastructures, managing complex hybrid models, or requiring strong VPN services and traffic control.

Check Point Software Technologies

ShieldX offers advanced, scalable security for cloud and data center environments, addressing dynamic threats with precision. Its robust framework enables efficient threat detection and response, safeguarding critical infrastructure.

Specialized in delivering comprehensive security, ShieldX is designed for organizations looking to protect their cloud assets and on-premises data centers. It integrates seamlessly within existing IT frameworks, providing multi-layered defense against cyber threats. ShieldX uses machine learning and AI to detect anomalies and respond to potentially malicious activities, ensuring data integrity and availability while maintaining regulatory compliance.

What are the most important features of ShieldX?

Dynamic Security Policies: Automatically adjust security measures based on current threats.
Micro-Segmentation: Provides granular control of traffic between workloads.
Automated Threat Detection: Leverages AI to identify and mitigate threats instantly.
Comprehensive Visibility: Gain insights into network activities across all environments.

What benefits should users look for in ShieldX reviews?

Scalability: Easily adapts to growing security needs without disrupting operations.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces overhead by streamlining security management processes.
Enhanced Compliance: Supports adherence to regulatory requirements with minimal effort.
Increased Uptime: Minimizes downtime by preemptively addressing threats.

ShieldX is widely implemented in industries like finance and healthcare, where data protection is critical. Its versatile security protocols are tailored to meet specific sector needs, fostering a reliable defense against sector-specific threats. Organizations in these fields leverage ShieldX to ensure client data confidentiality and operational continuity.

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 Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs. ShieldX

November 2024

Free Report: Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs. ShieldX

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