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."Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."
"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."
"It can expand easily."
"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls. We can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"If there is a critical issue observed, the Check Point support team can create a custom package that we can deploy on the gateway to mitigate critical issues/bug fixes."
"It provides access to the Internet for corporate resources in a secure manner."
"Being able to search in clear text is simple for the customer and for troubleshooting an environment."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"The Identity-Based Inspection Control gives us the ability to leverage the organization’s Microsoft AD, LDAP, RADIUS, and Cisco pxGrid."
"Even though Check Point NGFW provides a set of security features that enforce protection on the network, the most valuable aspect is also the most used feature: the plain and simple firewall component. This is the core of the product and works to a great extent without the need for all other available bells and whistles."
"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 packet inspections have been a strong point. Our identity collectors have also been helpful. In many ways, Check Point has been a step up from our SonicWalls that we had in-house before that. There's a lot of additional flexibility that we didn't have before."
"The solution has many security features. We have an intrusion provision system and filtering and block filtering."
"They've done a lot of work with their SD-WAN, which we do use, to have our old internet service with our new internet service. If anything goes down on a particular interface, I can have different rules applied. Most of my users don't even know when our primary internet goes down anymore... I don't have to be here to do anything to switch it to our backup internet or to switch it back."
"It protects me against malicious websites, as well as malicious downloads, as a perimeter anti-virus. I've also seen it blocking a lot of pings and different probes."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the FireWall features. The management side of WatchGuard is quite easy because it supports two ways to manage it - by the web and the other one they call WatchGuard systems manager. I used to be familiar with WSM only, but they improved their GUI in the web browser and now it is much easier to do it within the web browser."
"The main reason we went with it was the security protocols. They were more robust on this device."
"Efficient to setup, run, and maintain. Saving man hours and cost in the process."
"I could still keep the data rates really high, up near the two gigahertz data speeds, without compromise on the security perimeters being acted simultaneously."
"HostWatch makes it so I can see, in real-time, activity in the event that there is something weird happening on the network. This simplifies my job."
"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"Fortinet FortiGate should improve the VPN tokens."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"The feedback that I have received is that the performance could be better, and the user experience is not as good compared to a previous solution we used. It could be more user-friendly. Of course, it still works fine for our operations."
"The upgrade is something we would like to be improved in the future as the frequency of hotfixes is too much, and by the time we finish the one round, we already have the new version released and are required to upgrade."
"Support for customers really needs to improve."
"It would be beneficial if Check Point included more licenses bundled with the base model, reducing the need for additional subscription charges for essential functionalities."
"The complexity involved in the solution's initial setup phase and deployment process is an area of concern where improvement is required."
"The current model is predominantly hardware appliance-based, which can incur substantial costs"
"Lately, Check Point seems to be pushing new products too early."
"Stability issues. I built out this firewall in a cluster, and I had stability issues day one. Needs to be rebooted frequently. Tunnels need to be bounced frequently. Their hardware compatibility guide, when I built out the servers to host them on, was not accurate."
"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."
"Reporting is something you've got to set up separately. It's one of those things that you've got to put some time into. One of the options is to set up a local report server, which is what I did. It's not great. It's okay... Some of the stuff is a little complicated to get up and running. Once you do, it becomes very user-friendly and easy to work with, but I find there are some implementation headaches with some of their stuff."
"Make WatchGuard Firebox capable of integrating with third-party vendors like FireMon, Splunk, Tenable, etc."
"They are working on cloud-based options. However, they do not have the options fully functional in their solution at this time."
"Sometimes, the writing rules are a little confusing in how am I doing them."
"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."
"If they could make the traffic monitoring easier that would be great. I don't use it that frequently, but I would like to see some improvements in the ease of use of that component, so it makes more sense. I know it's a technical component so there's going to be some difficulty trying to make that easier."
"The solution needs to improve its accessibility."
"Due to their lack of investment in marketing, channel development, and certifications, WatchGuard faces challenges in gaining visibility and market share, especially in regions like Pakistan."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 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.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
