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.
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"The most useful functionality of Fortinet FortiGate is the user interface, multiple engines, and their cloud with the latest integrations. Additionally, the Security Fabric tool is very good."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"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 web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution."
"The threat emulation blade and user identity awareness feature has helped us a lot in terms of perimeter security and have given us granular visibility of user access."
"AV, IPS, AntiSpam, Sandbox. That's gentlemen set for any basic security, and it was implemented very well. In our reports, the most exciting results belong to AV and IPS. It can be explained by using ThreatCloud - a global knowledge base, which accumulates signatures for all existing and new coming malware, and all the Check Point solutions are always up to date with potential threats."
"The packet inspections have been a strong point."
"By far, it's the best security solution one can adopt for their organization."
"Admins and executives are more at ease with the compliance engine within the software as it measures how many of the security requirements we're compliant with, making their work much more accessible from that standpoint."
"Check Point offers virtualized systems, making it easy to scale."
"The solution is scalable."
"The online documentation is complete and easy to read and understand."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"One of the advantages of pfSense is that it is very easy to work with. It is a very good open-source solution, and it works really well. pfSense provides a complete package. For some features, it could be the first solution in the world. It is a very good alternative in the market for a firewall solution. You don't need to go to Cisco or other brands with expensive firewalls. pfSense also allows us to offer some support services."
"A valuable feature is that the solution is open source."
"The concurrent users are perfect for us."
"I am happy with the EPLS, the radius, and I am happy with the captive portal."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"What I found most valuable is the cost of the platform, the flexibility of the platform, and the fact that the ongoing fees are not there as they are with the competitor. Some people may think you're taking a risk with using Opensource. I think it just provides the end user, specifically for us small, medium business providers of services, the flexibility we need at the right cost to provide them a higher end, almost enterprise type service."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial."
"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."
"I have had some issues in the past with the desktop client being slow to come up for logging in, and then slow to respond to screen changes, however, overall, it really hasn't been too bad."
"It could be more stable and scalable. Check Point price and support could be better."
"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."
"I would like to see better Data Leakage protection options and easier-to-understand deployment models for this."
"The web UI for VSX could be better."
"One area that they should prioritize is enhancing security gateways for protection against cyberattacks."
"There is room for enhancement in the support system in India."
"There needs to be advanced troubleshooting."
"The access control aspect of the product could be improved."
"It's just not listed as FIPS compliant for where we're at now in government, which is an issue."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
"The integration should be improved."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 277 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 Meraki MX. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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