We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and Cisco Secure Firewall based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Check Point users are happier with its VPN and with its pricing. However, Cisco Secure users are happier with its service and support.
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"The customization potential is quite impressive."
"The security posture assessment with two-factor authentication has saved more time and commercial costs by avoiding deploying having to deploy another solution."
"The initial setup was very straightforward. You can customize it and change it as you need."
"The product offers a robust and intuitive experience, catering to the essential needs of users."
"They have very good support. In critical scenarios, they provide us very quick solutions, are very well-trained, and have a good knowledge about the product. That is what we expect from them."
"Check Point is more expensive but easier to manage, and their presales and after-sale support are way better than Fortinet's."
"All policies can be deployed and managed in a very simple way."
"One of the most valuable features is the data center object integration with Azure. We are using Azure a lot and there is very nice synchronization between the objects in Azure, and it's very easy to implement rules using this feature."
"The AntiSpam/Mail blade was also one of the main reasons we went with this product since we hosted our email server locally. This was an extra layer of protection on top of the existing solution."
"Cisco ASA works out-of-the-box. With the setup wizard, it was easy to get it deployed quickly, even by novice IT users."
"I have experience with URL filtering, and it is very good for URL filtering. You can filter URLs based on the categories, and it does a good job. It can also do deep packet inspection."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Firewall is its ease of configuration and that it's scalable for firewalls and VPNs."
"Its in-depth monitoring and analysis help us to make better decisions and policies."
"I think Cisco ASA Firewall is the most stable firewall solution."
"The features I've found most valuable are the packet captures and packet traces because they help me debug connections. I like the logs because they help me see what's going on."
"Collaboration with other Cisco products such as ISE and others is the most valuable feature."
"IPSec Tunnel and AnyConnect (of course), the context awareness was a good feature, but clumsy at the beginning. I think it's better now."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"The scalability could be better."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"The search tool needs improvement. It's very difficult to search for policies right now."
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"The solution lacks multi-language support."
"The interface can be more user-friendly in terms of design and the location of critical and commonly used icons."
"I would like there to be a way to run packet captures more easily in the GUI environment. Right now, if we want to read packet captures, we have to do so from the command line."
"In terms of new features, maybe it would help if we could start to manage all the stuff in the cloud and not in the on-prem servers. The management side could also be faster when you install policies. But other than that, I'm satisfied."
"While not being cheap, their pricing models are competitive. In the pricing structure, however, they need improvement."
"The technical support is really poor. We have to wait for approximately 48 hours sometimes for a simple solution."
"Check Point doesn't warn us when rules are about to expire. It was also inconvenient that we had to change hardware when we upgraded. It would be nice if they made the new version compatible with current hardware or if it only required a minor upgrade."
"You need to merge all the old consoles into one new one and make the interface more convenient for the novice administrator."
"Check Point's study materials should be provided by the company directly and be of very good quality. This is not provided right now and something that the company can improve."
"The scalability is a bit limiting, to be honest. In terms of when you look to changing landscape in terms of threats, I think to me, my personal it's a bit limiting."
"More intuitive support for SIP services are needed. This took a long time to configure properly for the user."
"The only con that I have really seen with it is the reporting structure. FirePOWER is good. It has been a great help because, before that, it was not good at all."
"If they want to add better features to the current Cisco ASA, they can start by increasing the encryption. That is the only thing they need to improve."
"When comparing the graphical interface of this solution to other vendors it is more difficult to configure. There is a higher learning curve for administrators in this solution."
"FirePOWER does a good job when it comes to providing us with visibility into threats, but I would like to see a more proactive stance to it."
"The cost is very high. Most organizations cannot afford it."
"It would be better if we could manage all of our firewalls as a set rather than individually. I would like to see a single pane of glass type of option. We also use another vendor's firewalls and they have a centralized management infrastructure that we have implemented. This infrastructure is a bit easier to manage."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 279 reviews while Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2. 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 Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Azure Firewall and OPNsense, whereas Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Juniper SRX Series Firewall. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Cisco Secure Firewall report.
See our list of 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.