We use Check Point CloudGuard Network Security to replace an Azure Firewall, securing the network flow in our organization.

The URL filtering provides a lot of added value compared to the Azure Firewall. It is easier to use and offers much more visibility on the network activities. It helps us manage our security operations by reusing on-prem solutions with the cloud, therefore improving ease of use.

The reporting needs enhancement. Currently, we are not always aware of the gateways' status, like CPU and RAM usage. It would be beneficial to have a report that manages everything and gives an overall view of what is going on.

I have been using it for six to ten months.

I have experienced a few issues where connectivity is lost temporarily, however, it does not affect traffic processing. It is more about not having management information for a few seconds.

The scalability is really good and relies totally on CloudGuard, whether it is on Azure or AWS. At least on Azure, it works fine.

The customer service is good. They helped me with the few issues I had, meeting my expectations. Their support for traditional security projects is good, and I found the same support quality for cloud projects.

Neutral

I have used solutions for on-prem security management, yet not for the cloud.

The initial deployment was easy, taking about a week.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. It would be ideal to have improved reporting features for a comprehensive overview.

Neutral

We have been using Scale Set with Check Point. We use it to scale up and down in Azure depending on the workload. It is scalable, and it is easy to scale up and down depending on the usage. If we have a lot of traffic, it automatically adds a new firewall, and if the traffic slows down, it just removes the firewall. I do not need to worry about the load because it would not be an issue when scaling.

The management server provides unified management. We save a lot of time by not having to log in to different platforms. It is good to have everything in the same place. It saves maybe half an hour a day.

We get good insights into security, and we are more secure because we have more insights than we would get from other products.

We are having issues with updatable objects in the Scale Set solution. It needs to be fixed by Check Point.

The setup instructions are not correct. They should be corrected. We sent the product feedback last week. Several things were misspelled and incorrect in the documentation, and it got updated.

We have been using Scale Set with Check Point for about four years.

We do not have any issues with the product. Usually, the issues are with the Azure platform, such as an Azure host going down. It is not a Check Point issue.

I have been working with Azure Firewall for five years. It is a lot smoother to work with Check Point. When it comes to rule sets and IPS, Azure Firewall does not have too many functions. It does not look nice, and it is not easy to make rules. It is a lot of a headache to work with Azure Firewall. It also costs a lot more.

We cannot get any fancy reports from Azure Firewall the way we can from Check Point. We do not have any insights with Azure Firewall. We get a lot better insights with Check Point.

It is easy if you know what to do. If you follow Check Point instructions, it is hard because the instructions are not correct.

I do not have too much to compare to, but if I compare it with Azure Firewall, Scale Set is quite good. It has quite a good price.

I can only speak for Scale Set. I would rate it an eight out of ten because it is a good solution. I like it.

My primary use case is to protect the cloud applications that we store specifically in Azure. 

It has helped our organization with security. We have other Check Point firewalls, so we can accumulate everything in one place and manage everything in one place.

It provides unified security management. It makes things easier and faster. We can manage it all in one place in one policy package. We do not have to worry about anything else.

It has helped us reduce our organizational risk.

The most valuable features for me are related to management. I can use the data center objects directly in the policy without worrying about specific static IP addresses. The data center objects update automatically if the IP addresses change. 

There is room for improvement in how it handles deployment itself, but I am not sure. It could be due to Azure's limitations, not Check Point's. Deploying a new firewall is quite bulky and not straightforward, especially in managing the resource group and networks. These issues seem to come more from the Azure part. It is hard to tell.

I have used the solution for about a year now.

The stability is good. I find it really good.

We do not use it regularly, but I tested it and it is quite good.

My experience with customer service was good. On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it a nine out of ten, leaving a gap for improvement.

Positive

I previously used Azure Native Firewall. Other solutions were just tested. We did not use them. We left Azure Native Firewall due to the firewall's slow performance, especially for operations like applying rules. The general functionality of that firewall was incomparable to CloudGuard. 

We have a hybrid environment. We have Azure Cloud.

The initial setup was fine for me. All the complications likely come from Azure. Generally, from Check Point's perspective, it is pretty simple to set up the firewall and attach it to the management. It is easy.

In terms of the implementation strategy, we follow a default or standard deployment plan for all firewalls. It is pretty much the same for on-prem and cloud firewalls, with some differences depending on the cloud, but generally, it is the same list of things to do.

We are integrating ourselves. We did it all in-house.

From the engineering side, it reduces the amount of time I spend on doing changes on the firewalls, like adding rules, which eventually saves money for the company.

Generally, it has been fine for me. I can find my way around the price list, and it is pretty simple.

We did a comparison before we went with CloudGuard, though not for this customer. We generally researched different solutions like Palo Alto, FortiGate, Cisco, and Azure Firewall. We mostly work with Azure, so we did not look into AWS or other solutions.

We went for Check Point because of its ease of management, security features, and cost. Check Point management is way easier. It saves so much time. That is why I prefer to stick to Check Point solutions. Check Point was also one of the cheapest ones. 

The management part simplifies many things. Regarding security features, there are good competitors, and I can replace Check Point with them easily, but it is the management aspect that makes it different for me.

In terms of security threats, I have not done a lot of heavy testing on threats, but my experience is pretty much on par with Palo Alto solutions. FortiGate is a bit less, and I did not even try Cisco security. In my experience, the easy management of Check Point makes all the difference.

I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

The use depends on the case. I have many customers. Right now, I have one customer, and it's a collection of these functions. The basic ones involve making numerous rules in normal network security. I can protect my emails and files. If someone from my company tries to upload something from the Internet, and I don't know if it’s sensitive, this can help protect my data.

It allows us to make a lot of rules around network security. It helps us protect emails and files. We have the power to protect our data.

There's a whole range of functions that make up prevention against malware and everything. It’s not just one aspect that garners my attention - the whole application is being used to defend. Even as the complexity increases, it is maintained at the same level. And with increasing complexity, I become more efficient, so I have to spend at least the same amount of time.

CloudGuard Network Security provides our customers with unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-premise.

In terms of security operations, it helps people spend less time. Integrations make work more efficient.

So far, it's helped our companies to reduce organizational risk by 99%.

We're very confident in the secure cloud deployments and migrations. We feel more safe. It's reliable and it helps avoid mistakes. 

Everything is in one place, and it seems it's easier to use than before. Making it even easier is a good way to improve it more. When it's easier to use, there are fewer mistakes.

I have used the Check Point product for around six years now. 

Stability is okay. I am not aware of any potential stability issues. Check Point is one of the best vendors in this regard.

Performance scalability is good. For my customers, they can add what they want. This is what customers want: the options to get the scalability they need. We simply need to manage the traffic accordingly.

Every experience is different. Every ticket is different, and sometimes it's a little bit painful to pinpoint problems. Sometimes I have a quick solution. Sometimes I am angry, and sometimes I am okay with it.

Neutral

I have worked with Fortinet, however, not with integration into the cloud; it was on-premises solutions. So, I am not sure if I can compare the two, since it's different when it's on the cloud. 

My understanding is the initial setup should be easy. 

The licensing is a bit expensive. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Primary use case is to use it for protecting the network.

I am working with the platform, but unlike a typical customer using it for protection, we are mostly using it for deployment and debugging.

The overall network security is good. It's big-picture, all in one bundle. It's valuable to have everything in one place instead of spreading across different products.  

Unified security management positively affects a company's security operations. They have one unified view of the security. I can connect multiple gateways to the management and have it in one place. I can have reporting and views in a single pane of glass on the consolidated platform. 

It's easy to use. The management is the best on the market. It's very easy to work with, read, understand, and navigate.

It helps increase our customer's security posture. We can see in some cases CloudGuard improves our customers' posture overall. 

It should be more unified across all platforms. There are different kinds of releases for private cloud, public cloud (HA), NSX, and VSX. It is a little bit different on every platform where I install it, and each platform has many limitations like SMB or Maestro. So I need to know that and decide on which platform I should install it on.

I am using the solution for about eight years on a daily basis.

It's mostly stable. There were some stability issues. But most customers have high availability.

Check Point is a leader in firewall scalability. Check Point Maestro is good and Elastic XL looks promising but the code between maintrain and scalable platform should be unified to have a match 1:1 in the terms of commands and limitations. 

Sometimes the customer service is good. Sometimes it is very bad and I have nightmares from it. The worst thing Check Point did was to move the support to India. There are some good people, however, most of the time, the engineers are not very good, just at a basic level. This needs an improvement.

When I am working on a problem and need help, creating a ticket for a particular issue takes about two weeks to get somewhere. I have to describe the issue multiple times, show what the real issue is but lately I have some very difficult issues and I have good engineers assigned to it, so lately my feedback is positive.

Neutral

Cisco ASA and Juniper. My main focus is 95% with Check Point. So I am using only Check Point. I am familiar with other products, however, I am not using them.

It is very easy to deploy. I have the installation with ISO. With ISO, I can install a firewall, the management, or both of them. I can just choose, and it is very easy. The ISO is unified in the new version, R82. I can install a firewall, management, log server, smart event or a combination. This is very efficient.

We dont buy we sell/distribute.

We as a distributor work closely with the licensing. The pricing has some downsides. It could be better and there could be better scalability of the licensing itself. There are just some licenses which are not on the table. Licensing should be more agile and additive.

It was not needed.

This solution would be more beneficial for my AWS side, for our applications. The platform is utilizing AWS, so it requires further protection through some enhancements, which involve allocating more resources into AWS. Check Point serves as our system. I consider it a business case to protect that application work on the cloud.

Check Point is one of the key aspects of our security. It's protecting the e-commerce side and some functions on the public side of the website. It plays a large role in protection.

The types of prevention functions, such as the IPS and other advanced features, provide significant value. 

Check Point is a product that doesn't require a lot of patching throughout the year compared to some competitors. This stability is beneficial for my customer-facing application workload, as it minimizes changes to the infrastructure. 

Maintaining a stable infrastructure that doesn't demand frequent attention is important to me. For our security engineering team in the bank, Check Point is definitely a key aspect. It safeguards our e-commerce side, functions hosted on the public website, our DMZ zones, and the e-commerce hyper-converged infrastructure. 

Overall, it plays a vital role in protecting both our customer-facing and internal company infrastructure.

CloudGuard Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-premise. We can have a hybrid solution which can be managed easily alongside what we already have on-premises. Rather than than have team layers of management, for example, one cloud separate and one cloud on something else, doesn't make sense. 

The centralization affects our security operations. We are already using a lot of Check Point. What they are already doing has been good for us. However, CloudGuard will add another layer of protection for the things we have in AWS. Any reluctance the organization may have for goign into the cloud, or multiple clouds, will be overcome by solutions like Check point, which is giving us a layer of comfort for our critical workloads.

We're confident in secure cloud deployment and migration. We're already an existing customer and we have a level of comfort with the solution. We know it will give us that extra layer of security and play their role and do what they are supposed to do.  

One aspect that I noticed is that we already have a substantial Check Point setup, so management is a consideration. I'd like to have an ease of management. That's important. I am anticipating the introduction of features like AI or advanced supporting functions on the on-premises side. This would be beneficial by providing insights into capacity and enabling me to project future needs, such as enhancements or additional layers for the Check Point infrastructure. Ease of management and reporting would be crucial for capacity planning and budgeting. If I see capacity increasing, I want to be able to plan appropriately.

I have been using Check Point for many years. However, we began doing some changes in firewalls and handling replacements since last year.

I believe it will perform quite well if it remains similar to what we are already using.

There have not been any scalability issues yet.

I have never had to struggle with customer service. My suppliers are really good partners. They always support us, backed by Check Point. Even if I encounter issues, Check Point's account managers maintain a close relationship with us. Whether through suppliers or direct contact, they are always helpful.

I have used previous solutions, however, I won't mention specific names. Since 80% of us are using Check Point, it doesn't make sense to replace the remaining 20% with something else.

The setup cost is reasonable, and many engineers are familiar with Check Point, making it easy to find someone to do the job. Suppliers and Check Point account managers maintain good relationships with the customers and suppliers.

I use a supplier, one of Check Point's partners, to support us. We utilize two Check Point partners, Indiguity 360 and D2B, to assist us in our Check Point journey and management.

The setup cost is okay. The cost overall is somewhat high compared to other vendors, whether firewalls or cloud-native solutions. Check Point may be on the pricier side, however, in the long run, it proves its value.

We have not done a POC with any other product.

I'm not on the technical side; I'm more on the management side of the product. We do have some rollouts still pending with Check Point. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten since I've never had a negative experience. 

We protect the cloud by uploading environments to the cloud and making the developments over the cloud.

We used to have an on-prem setup, and the implementation of the new one came naturally since it looks like the previous setup. I know the places for making configurations. 

I am only using the basic protection for the cloud, like a regular firewall, and I find it very useful. 

I feel safe deploying Check Point, and the security lets me sleep well at night. It made a major impact since we have to secure the cloud, so all of our projects had to be protected. We never thought about going to the cloud without security.

CloudGuard Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-premise. If anything looks wrong, I can get the logs from the same place for all the networks. The visibility is great.

It's helped us reduce organizational risk. 

CloudGuard Network Security has had a major impact on our confidence in Security cloud deployments and migrations. We have to secure the cloud. All of our projects have to be protected. That's the the impact. We never thought about going to the cloud without security. 

It should be more agile, as it seems to me that they took their on-prem devices and uploaded them to the cloud. Every time we need a new interface or something like that, we need to make major changes. This is a problem. 

When we try to install a new lab, it appears we need to reinstall the firewall because the interfaces were missing. This took a lot of time, and we had to use the professional service again. I believe this is the point that Check Point should improve.

I have used the solution for almost two years.

The solution is very stable. I can honestly say that I trust it.

On-prem, we are using Maestro, and the scalability is great.

I enjoyed support very much. We are getting premier support. It is amazing. My experience with them was excellent.

Positive

We tried the biggest competitors in Europe. We found that although they are more ready for the cloud, we am more comfortable using CloudGuard. It's easier to use since we come from the Check Point on-prem devices. I understand the menus and configuration. It comes naturally. In comparison, in terms of identifying threats, this solution is more or less the same as others. HOwever, this has more flexibility, We could use the same product and extend it right to the cloud. The deployment was very natural. 

We use Azure and GCP clouds. We used an integrator since we were new to the cloud. We used an integrator. The deployment took one day.

I used Check Point professional integrator. The experience was excellent. The person was very professional. 

The ROI is safety. I feel secure when I deploy Check Point. 

Basically, the pricing is the same compared to competitors. They are all in the same range.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. We've had some problems adding new interfaces in new environments, we do run into issues. For example, when we tried to install a new lab, it appeared that we needed to reinstall the firewall as the interfaces were missing. We had to reinstall, and it took a lot of time, and we had to use the professional integrator again.

I use our Oracle OCI environment to segregate our ERP system, which is JD Edwards, running in Oracle Cloud.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security makes it easy to create firewall routes and so on instead of the tools out of Oracle OCI. It's inside our unified policy.

At the moment, I am only using Network, NAT, and VPN. These are the core components of the system. We aren't using other features. It's activated and yet not customized yet.

It is more straightforward for me to create firewall routes instead of using the traditional board tools in Oracle OCI, which are complex for creating firewall rules. Instead, I use the firewall of Check Point, and it is very easy for me. It is integrated into my unified policy, so I can use it completely as I am used to, making it easy for me to handle.

We can use it across hybrid could as well as on-premises.

It's very easy to create new firewall rules on-premises or in the cloud in the same way, and we can share them thanks to the unified policy.

CloudGuard Network Security helped reduce our organizational risk. It's increased the security compared to the built-in security of Oracle OCI. It has many more capabilities, like IPS and threat prevention, which are available at Check Point. It is based on our security standards. It's reduced risk by maybe 40%.

CloudGuard Network security has increased our confidence in secure cloud deployments and migrations by 50%.

VPN troubleshooting can certainly be improved. It is horrible at this point, honestly. It is horrible compared to other vendors on the market. They have tools where I can directly extract some information on the VPN. In Check Point, it becomes complicated. I need to open a very old-fashioned legacy tool, and operate it by myself, transfer it to my computer, and open the legacy program. This legacy program will not provide detailed insights; it will only indicate if something is working or not, making it challenging to communicate. 

I have been using this product for about half a year.

The solution is very stable.

The scalability is great. It's easy.

Mostly, support is good. It depends. If I have a ticket handled by a first-level supporter who may not have deep knowledge, it could be hard to discuss issues. However, mostly, it is good. Compared to other vendors, it's awesome.

Positive

We're a Check Point customer, and we only use Check Point. 

We are using Oracle OCI for our cloud. The first implementation was a bit hard. We followed the instructions. We had to get the help of support.

We did the setup by ourselves.

I am a long-time customer. I am a technical person, not a commercial person. The technical value is high. The unified policy is comprehensive and helps me to create firewall policies that are shared across all our facilities and plants. This is very helpful for us.

High prices are a concern. It is the highest in the market. However, I like the ease of licensing. It's not that difficult. The licensing is easy to understand.

We had not evaluated other solutions before this product was introduced.

I would rate the product eight out of ten. If it wasn't for the issues with the VPN, I would rate it higher. 

Most people ask me to integrate with Point CloudGuard and SecureNet Network. One big client wanted to move his on-prem data center to CloudGuard Azure, and I provided the CloudGuard Network Security Solution for him. His data center was also rendering to our clients, so it was messy. However, it gave them more confidence in Security CloudGuard deployments and integrations. It was quite easy with Terraform, resulting in a very easy deployment.

The most valuable feature is the automation and the APIs, making our life much easier for integration. Check Point has excellent, very useful tools to help us with the poster and to see if we're passing the grade.

It gives us more confidence in secure cloud deployments. The network security was very easy to migrate. We did it with Terraform. I just filled in the blanks and Terraform did everything else.

Check Point CloudGuard NetWork Security provides unified security across hybrid clouds as well as on-prem. It's more or less the same across deployments.

Check Point helps companies with their security posture. It has useful tools to help with this aspect to improve security. 

I'm not sure if I have the experience to discuss improvements.

The deployments can be difficult if a person doesn't know what they are doing. 

Better documentation would be welcome. 

I have been using the solution for a bit over a year. It has been one year and four months or something like that.

So far, I haven't had any stability issues.

I haven't had any experience with scaling problems. I didn't need to scale up for my client or use automated scaling.

Support were very helpful. They usually respond quite fast, and they are very knowledgeable about what they do. When we have a problem, we can solve it immediately, and sometimes a one-on-one meeting can be very insightful.

Positive

I didn't use other vendors since I specifically handle Check Point in my company.

The initial setup is straightforward. First, I speak with the client to understand everything he needs, his current deployment, and how it's done. In the meantime, we can see if there are improvements or small tweaks needed. Then, I deploy in a test environment to ensure everything works without conflicts. Finally, we do a test with Check Point - not a full deployment on the production side. If everything works in the test, we start migrating slowly to the production side. Implementation usually takes one to two weeks. 

The deployment could be done with one person if the person knows what they're doing. It iss very easy. Someone who is not familiar with CloudGuard and cloud solutions might find themselves a bit lost with too much information and not knowing where to look.

I don't have insights on the list price.

I would give an eight out of ten for the overall product rating. 

I'm a Check Point distributor, mainly.