We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The main difference between these two products is that Check Point users feel that the tool’s VPN is hard to integrate. In addition, Check Point does not have an open-source version like pfSense does.
"It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"The response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"Provides good firewall security and has great VPN features."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"One of the most advantageous features of Check Point firewall is its multi-interface capability."
"We have found the solution to be scalable."
"The detection rate for any cyberattacks/suspicious activity is very high (more than 90%)."
"There is a lot of legacy traffic from other vendors that has been migrated to Check Point which has resulted in a lot of stability in our environment."
"The management platform and the dashboard, the graphical user interface, is one of the best, if not the best, in the business. It's the most intuitive and it's really user-friendly in day-to-day operations."
"The interface and the IPS intrusion prevention are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Check Point has a lot of features. The ones I love are the antivirus, intrusion prevention, and data loss prevention. Apart from that, there is central management through which we can integrate all the firewalls and support them. It makes it easy to manage all the firewalls."
"The product offers a robust and intuitive experience, catering to the essential needs of users."
"It is very easy to use. The interface is quite understandable. There is a good community, and I can take over at any time I want. If there is anything wrong with it, I could just reinstall the whole thing and start all over again, and I'll be up again in less than a few minutes"
"I am happy with the EPLS, the radius, and I am happy with the captive portal."
"The GUI is easy to understand."
"The solution is very robust."
"The initial setup was simple and fast."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"The support system could be improved."
"Technical support for this solution can be improved."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"The security of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"The performance could be a bit better. Right now, I find it to be lacking. Having good performance is very important for our work."
"There is room for enhancement in the support system in India."
"Debugging could be improved when compared to the competition."
"Check Point is a bit difficult to use and manage so it would be nice to see some improvement in those areas."
"The whole solution has room for improvement."
"Error logs can be more specific."
"Geo-blocking would be very useful. There are too many attempts to infiltrate by non-country users. I can block access by IP address or IP network, however, a country-level blocking would be more useful and much quicker to implement."
"I would like the graphic user interface to be easier to use. For example, the NAT policy should be easier to use. Check Point's NAT policy is somewhat confused compared to other competitors."
"Check Point products have many places that need to be improved, but they are constantly upgrading."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"One concern I have with Netgate pfSense is related to packet filtering. Specifically, issues can arise with certain functionalities like GP, and, at times, there may be bugs."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"Netgate pfSense needs to improve the configuration for a VPN."
"The solution could always work at being more secure. It's a good idea to continue to work on security features and capabilities in order to ensure they can keep clients safe."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Azure Firewall and OPNsense, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Stormshield Network Security. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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