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 2.1% mindshare in the category. Fortinet is ranked #11 in MS , and holds a 1.7% 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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Helped 896,099 peers since 2012

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)	2.1%
Fortinet FortiGate	16.0%
OPNsense	8.9%
Other	73.0%

Firewalls

Microsegmentation Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ShieldX	1.7%
Illumio	24.7%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation	21.3%
Other	52.3%

Microsegmentation Software

Featured Reviews

reviewer2751102

Network Security Engineer at a retailer with 11-50 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

Tejas Jain

Principle Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Cloud security has unified visibility and risk mitigation but still needs stronger features

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is definitely lagging behind its peers. I am not sure what the reason is. Compared to Palo Alto, they are not there in terms of capabilities and feature set. I do not think there are any obvious misses, but there is mostly lesser adoption in the industry. Regarding the negatives, sometimes we encounter challenges, especially if a feature may not be working, but that is typical of any vendor. There is no glaring gap; it is a solid product, but based on my experience, the adoption has not been on par with what its peers are doing. From time to time, we do face challenges with some features, especially if you need to configure a policy where you may need false positive fine-tuning. Sometimes, you have these anomaly detections, which are crucial from a zero-day attack perspective, but they can create a lot of false positives. When you have to tweak, you sometimes need to bring in technical assistance or professional services to achieve what you want. The documentation may not be quite sufficient. There were instances in the past, but I am not sure if they have ramped it up quite significantly recently.

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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 product is very user-friendly, it is quite scalable, I love the interface, the power is great, and I have a limited embedded team in IT with one man on the team for 1,000 users who can manage all the infrastructure due to the fact that the console is very easy, and the people are very happy with the results pertaining to that interface."

"The pricing on offer is excellent."

"Fortinet FortiGate positively provides my clients' organizations with a high return on investment."

"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."

"Fortinet FortiGate has a very stable Linux-based operating system that is easy to use."

"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are the integration of SD-WAN capabilities with Fortinet Unified SASE."

"The performance is very good and the solution is simple to manage."

"The product is highly stable."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid and cloud as well as on-prem."

"With Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security), we are guaranteed protection from end to end, from user to cloud and cloud to user."

"CloudGuard Network Security provides unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-prem. It's very important because when I have unified security, I have better control of the situation. If there's an attack or something like that, we can react faster. It's easier for everyone in the organization to work with the Infinity platform."

"CloudGuard has improved the passage of CIS and PCI regulations, the functions for autoscaling save costs for the company, and the centralized management helps us with administration."

"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has helped us reduce our organizational risk significantly, and I believe in Check Point strongly because it has only four critical CVEs from 2020 to 2025, compared to its competition, which has had more than fifteen to sixteen critical vulnerabilities from 2020 to 2025, which proves that Check Point's secured firewall OS security is better than its competitors and it will provide the best security to its network."

"Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) has positively impacted my organization by mainly helping us secure our cloud environment at the network base."

"The most valuable feature is threat prevention."

"The multiple virtual firewalls on one box are extremely useful and the interconnection with virtual switches is simple and easy to understand."

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

"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."

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

"We were able to see what devices are talking to each other, giving us more visibility."

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

"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."

"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."

More ShieldX pros

Cons

"The support is inadequate. The support staff I have dealt with lately are very rude. Some support staff are not up-to-speed with the technology. They basically read a script."

"The web filtering categories could improve in Fortinet FortiGate IPS. There are too many websites under the category of Unknown and the other categories are not featuring all the necessary sites."

"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."

"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."

"The solution could be more secure and stable."

"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization."

"They could continuously focus their improvements on network perimeter security, as that's what they're best at."

"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"In the next release, including VRF support would be highly beneficial."

"The only thing that Check Point CloudGuard Network Security lacks is that for VPN, you need to buy a different model."

"I would like to see more focus on east-west traffic inspection and AWS."

"The cost is a little high, it doesn't suit every budget."

"There is room for improvement in how it handles deployment itself, but I am not sure. It could be due to Azure's limitations, not Check Point's."

"The SD-WAN could be better."

"The core security features of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security work really well, but a few usability areas hold it back: the policy propagation speed and parts of the interface."

"The main issue that I have noticed is that for deployment, it still requires a dedicated management server, and the gateway is completely different. That sometimes can cause issues."

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

More ShieldX cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license of Fortinet FortiGate should be reduced."

"Its price could be better."

"The pricing is very reasonable."

"FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall is cheaper than Cisco or CheckPoint."

"Each feature costs money, so it is important to study your needs."

"Fortinet's pricing is more straightforward than other solutions. If Fortinet doesn't stick out when you're searching for a solution, you are a glutton for punishment. You only need to know two things when purchasing a Fortinet solution: your total bandwidth and bandwidth at the site. You need to estimate the future bandwidth with other solutions if your customer plans to upgrade."

"The platform offers a reasonable price point compared to its competitors."

"It's a year based license."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"It is more expensive than other solutions and would be more competetive in the market if it came down in price."

"We pay approximately ‎€150,000 ($166,000 USD) per year."

"Generally, it has been fine for me. I can find my way around the price list, and it is pretty simple."

"The product is too expensive."

"The pricing is highly competitive and advantageous, offering great value."

"The pricing is pretty high, not just for your capital, for what you have to pay upfront, but for what you pay for your annual software renewals as well, compared to a lot of other vendors. Check Point is near the top, as far as how much it's going to cost you."

"The licensing model has since transitioned to a cluster-based variant."

"Handling costs is not my department. Licensing has been quite acceptable. It is a bit easier now, but when I began working with CloudGuard, it was a bit too technical."

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

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	367
Midsize Enterprise	135
Large Enterprise	193

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

No data available

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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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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 6% 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 vs ShieldX

Compared 18% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs ShieldX

Compared 15% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs ShieldX

Compared 12% 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

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

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