We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and WatchGuard Firebox based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It is easy to manage, and it doesn't need much knowledge from the team. It is a stable device, and there are many features that are included out of the box."
"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."
"We use a lot of function on the IPS and it works well for us."
"The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, as it is with other Fortinet products."
"With FortiClient, you can easily connect when you are home, check out what you want to do, and connect to your network when you are not at work. You can switch on servers and you can check what is wrong."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."
"The software upgrade procedure is very easy; it just needs few clicks & we are done."
"The firewall rule writing and object creation are the best and simplest I've seen on a firewall."
"Check Point is more expensive but easier to manage, and their presales and after-sale support are way better than Fortinet's."
"There are many useful features including the Office VPN, which provides us with a seamless connection for users who are working remotely."
"On the firewall side, the security efficacy is good."
"It is easy to use, and its management is the best. Check Point has a great unified management solution for firewalls and security products."
"The central management makes it easier, and is a time-saver, when implementing changes."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It has everything we need in terms of functionality."
"The throughput is great. It's perfect. We have no issues whatsoever. The management features are very powerful..."
"From my experience with their customer service team, I would say that they seem quite knowledgeable and fairly quick to respond."
"The solution simplifies my business. Normally, for administration, we are using NetApp System Manager on Window since it's easy to create new policies. In a short amount of time, you can create new policies based on new requirements. For example, in the last few months, many requirements changed due to the coronavirus, adding the use of new services, like Office 365, and eLearning tools, like Zoom."
"It provides us with Layer 2 and Layer 3 security."
"We experienced that WatchGuard is easy to setup regarding VPN compared to other firewalls of other brands."
"WatchGuard Firebox is easy to configure and has a nice user interface."
"It's pretty simple to understand when you want to do any diagnostics on your network. If you want to go in and see what packages are having trouble getting through, what's being held, stalled, etc., it's very easy to use in that way."
"The security of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"There could be more integration between the logging and analytical platforms to make it more seamless and integrated."
"It needs to improve its ISP load balancing."
"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"While the logs are very good and easy to understand, when you want to download these customized logs, they don't have as many features compared to competitive firewalls."
"With the version we're on, it's a bit time-consuming if you have multiple IP addresses to add. But in the later versions, which we're moving to, it makes it a lot easier to add IP addresses with dynamic objects, as they call it."
"Check Point Smart Dashboard does not support my Apple MacBook Air. It only supports Windows versions."
"It can be expensive, especially for small businesses."
"Sometimes when they bring on new upgrades, they affect something else."
"Their technical support can be better. In addition, when we need to use it in a government environment, we face a lot of legal issues related to different types of certifications. It would be better to improve it for these issues. Check Point doesn't have a SOAR system. They work with Siemplify, but it is an integration with another vendor. It would be great if Check Point has an integrated SOAR system."
"If you have a long ruleset, you may experience performance issues on the GUI, and installing rule changes on gateways can take a comparatively long time."
"The presentation of the reports need to be more user-friendly."
"It's very hard to get information from their website, for exactly what I need to do. Sometimes I end up having to open a lot of support tickets... It's a navigational issue which makes it hard to find what I'm looking for and it's just so broad."
"I would like to have a little more control over access points and the ability to see the bandwidth that is passing through a specific access point. We are not able to see that. We can see what traffic is passing through the Firebox itself, but we can't identify if it is coming from a particular access point or not."
"The solution's pricing could be improved."
"WatchGuard Firebox could improve the speed of updates, such as new features or improvements. However, they are frequently improving the solution in many areas, such as geo-locations, definitions, and web blocking."
"The user interface for WatchGuard Firebox has room for improvement. Right now, it's a bit complex to work with and could be easier."
"One other shortcoming is that there is no backup for it. We really haven't figured out how we might solve that problem. We may want to put a duplicate in... With WatchGuard, we just have the one box. If that were to fail, we'd probably be really hurting."
"Setup of this solution is complex, it's not plug and play."
"I haven’t dug deeply into the reporting features yet or if they are working well. However, I have generated several reports and there was too much unnecessary information, in comparison with the reporting features in the Sophos firewall. Sophos' reporting is more readable and easier to configure."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 277 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Check Point NGFW writes "Good antivirus protection and URL filtering with very good user identification capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and SonicWall NSa. See our Check Point NGFW vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors, best Unified Threat Management (UTM) vendors, and best Firewalls vendors.
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