Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) Reviews

I am quite satisfied with it, as it secures our virtual environment in both CloudGuard and on-premises. The business case was that we have several customers transitioning from on-premises to cloud solutions, and we wanted to have the same visibility and security in CloudGuard as we had on-premises.

We wouldn't have the same visibility or granularity if we didn't have Check Point. 

We have very good visibility or granularity regarding security. 

Since we are using the same management both on-premises and in the cloud, we did not need to create other security measures or learn new technology. This allows me to achieve the same results with our existing resources.

It's quite interesting to see all the new features being added to the solution. I plan to do more integration with the CloudGuard-specific elements within the new policy framework. Although I do not remember the specific name, there is a feature that involves a revision of the policies. That will be our next addition.

We have visibility both on the cloud and on-prem, and we are very satisfied with that. 

It's helped us with our security posture. We have the visibility. We have the possibility to deploy new stuff. We also used the data center dynamic objects. So when we tag solutions, they get the policies they should have from the setup.

It's easy to use and deploy. 

I'm quite satisfied with the solution. I don't have any notes for improvements. 

I have used the solution for five or six years, maybe.

I haven't had any issues regarding our cloud environment. It is completely stable with no downtime. 

It's not a scale set. It's a single node. We'd need to look at the scale set to see if there was a way to get better performance. 

I have been a Check Point customer for quite some time. We do not use other solutions. 

The initial setup did not take too long. I am unsure of the exact duration, however, I was up and running in about an hour. It was very straightforward and almost plug-and-play.

Everything could be cheaper, of course. 

There are cloud-native options. During setup, we had quite a few people telling us we should just use cloud-native solutions. However, we wanted the same security measures on-cloud and on-prem. It would have been cheaper to stay with cloud-native; however, to have visibility in the same place is important. 

People might just use a cloud-native solution since they are already there and cost less. However, my priority was to maintain visibility and consistent security measures in the cloud as on-premises rather than focusing on cost. The unified management from one platform and centralized visibility are invaluable to me.

I am quite satisfied with the solution, and I do not have significant suggestions for its improvement at this point. The product team appreciates feedback, and fortunately, I have comprehensive playbooks for deploying new solutions. The process is straightforward, especially with the dynamic data center objects. When solutions are tagged, they automatically receive the appropriate policies. 

Overall, it is an excellent solution, and I would rate it a ten out of ten.

Our primary use case for CloudGuard Network Security is to secure the cloud environment where we host our backend systems. The platform helps to guard the network security of our infrastructure by securing the traffic and preventing cyber threats. 

It also ensures compliance with industry regulations. Moreover, it integrates easily with AWS and Google Cloud, allowing us to apply a unified security policy throughout our cloud infrastructure.

Check Point CloudGuard has been very helpful in maintaining a high level of security across our cloud environments as our apps integrate with multiple cloud services. 

It ensures secure communication between services and user devices, protecting sensitive data like user information and financial transactions. This has resulted in increased client satisfaction and retention, particularly in sectors requiring stringent data protection like finance and healthcare.

One of the most valuable features is the automated threat prevention, which helps us detect and block potential cyberattacks in real-time, minimizing data breaches. 

The ability to integrate with multiple cloud platforms provides a centralized view of our applications, enhancing security management. The solution also offers real-time visibility and protection against network threats.

The user interface could be more intuitive, and the initial setup and configuration can be complex, requiring a technical team. 

Additional improved documentation and support would make it easier for beginners and small-scale startups. Furthermore, the pricing model is quite expensive, which could be a barrier for smaller companies.

I have been using the solution for approximately one year.

The platform is quite stable. We have not faced any difficulties with its stability.

The solution is very scalable. I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten.

My experience with customer support has been positive. They are responsive and knowledgeable, available twenty-four by seven. However, they could improve by providing documentation for offline issues to better assist users who may not reach out to them directly.

Neutral

Before using Check Point CloudGuard, we managed security through a team of experts. Due to budget cuts during a recession, we switched to using this solution to maintain our security standards.

The initial setup was quite complex, requiring a technical team to understand the processes and implement the solution. More intuitive configuration tools and better documentation would be helpful.

We deployed the solution with a team of fifty-seven people, including cybersecurity engineers and cloud experts, along with support from customer service.

Implementing CloudGuard has resulted in an excellent return on investment over one hundred percent ROI. It has saved costs in our security team, saved potential security breach costs, and enhanced client satisfaction.

The pricing and licensing are expensive, costing between seven thousand to eight thousand dollars. While it offers good features like threat prediction management, reducing the cost will make it more accessible to a broader audience.

We have not used other network security solutions before Check Point CloudGuard.

It is important to prioritize security if managing data in multi-cloud environments. Having a technical team familiar with cloud security is recommended. Working closely with Check Point's support team can help in navigating complex terminologies and enhancing security across cloud platforms.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Scaling the solution is very easy.

The best features are: 

• database inspection
• threat prevention
• enhanced security.

The solution provides me with unified security management across all environments. It has a single interface that can help us get integrated with the normalized management server. It also gives us security and integrity.

It does what it’s supposed to do. I would say that it created a reduction of 25% in organizational risk.

We haven’t seen any kind of problems so far.

We generally used everything on-premise, but now it's all in the cloud through CloudGuard. The transition was a bit challenging. Maybe they could improve their services by including more tutorials and labs on migration.

I have been using the solution for one year. We have just recently implemented the solution, and so fa,r everything is good.

We haven't experienced a lack of stability.

The solution is scalable, and it can handle the traffic whatever the requirement might be. It is capable of meeting the necessary demands effectively.

The technical support and customer service are very good, they’re very nice.

Positive

The deployment was not easy. We did not use any help from outside. The deployment was made in-house and if we ever had a question, we contacted the Check Point team.

From a technical perspective, the return on investment is in its helpfulness and how it’s shaping our future.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. We had some issues we encountered at the beginning. It is a work in progress.

We are using CloudGuard Network Security for comprehensive security. We have hardware appliances from Check Point, and we also have their firewall installed.

CloudGuard Network Security provides unified security management across hybrid-clouds as well as on-prem. It has improved our security posture. 

CloudGuard Network Security helped reduce our organizational risk. It has not yet helped us save time and costs because we are understaffed. However, it has helped to see what is happening and what we should mitigate or allow to happen.

It gives us all-encompassing security and overview. Previously, we did not have any kind of overview of what was happening with the network.

The interface is unifying all the data in one place. I can see the network side and the policy attached to using USB devices. Everything is stored and related.

A Check Point problem was that there were different solutions, and each had its own interface, section, and logs. Things are going great with the new feature that consolidates all the data from those systems in one place. Right now, I am not sure what improvements are needed. We are having occasional issues related to gateways, but we are still analyzing it.

I have been using CloudGuard Network Security for the past six months since I joined the company.

Until now, it has been stable, but we have had occasional issues with two gateways that used to break or are broken. We are not sure yet. We are still analyzing it. We might be sending it to the warranty team.

We implemented it keeping in mind all the requirements in terms of licenses, hardware, and other things. Everything is pretty much as we needed. We have no plans to upscale it. However, I am waiting for the OS version R82 to see how we can add more data on the fly.

So far, customer service has been almost great. We have had some issues, such as needing to escalate every time because one gateway was not working at some point. We had an endless loop of emails trying to fix this, and the suggestion was to reinstall the gateway and do it from scratch, which was not an option at that point because it would leave that specific location without access, and business hours did not permit it. Other than that, things went smoothly most of the time.

Positive

Previously, we only had security with a basic VPN and firewall in place.

I would rate CloudGuard Network Security a nine out of ten.

I use it to protect our public cloud workloads today. It safeguards them directly from the internet and also from the corporate network. We have interconnected our Azure environments with our on-premises network, including our data centre. CloudGuard Network Security helps protect workloads within Azure from both the corporate network and the internet.

CloudGuard Network Security has significantly improved our operations. Its automatic scaling capability, based on the network load, eliminates the need for capacity planning. 

We don't need capacity planning anymore or do proactive actions in order to always have that capacity planning, it does it automatically. Our network engineers now focus on administering the entire cluster rather than managing individual members and their loads.

Our confidence in our cloud network security is pretty high, largely because of central console management. It ensures that we have uniform threat prevention policies applied globally, which significantly boosts our confidence in the system.

The most valuable feature for us is the scale set, which allows us to scale horizontally, vertically and dynamically depending on the traffic load.

It provides us with unified security management across both CloudGuard and on-premises environments. We use CloudGuard Network Security for Azure and have a single management console that allows full visibility into logs and consolidated logs across all environments. This ensures we maintain consistent IPS, IDS, and threat prevention policies across all regions and data centres.

There is room for improvement in the integration with PaaS services from the public cloud. It would be very helpful. A more cloud-native approach is needed because even it is PaaS services require public cloud resources, even if the traffic load is low. These resources are still required for high availability and resiliency.

So, a full PaaS solution with improvements on that end, basically.

I have been using it for five years now. 

We have many different firewalls worldwide in our environment. Check Point support provides direct, 24/7 support, even when some components may be outdated. Since almost 95% of our hardware is supported, they're still able to provide support for the remaining 5%, which is greatly appreciated.

Positive

We opted for CloudGuard primarily due to two factors, which ultimately became three. 

• First was the Azure consumption cost, which was lower compared to competitors. 
• Secondly, its plug-and-play capability is straight out of the box, as deployment is directly made from the Azure Cloud Marketplace. In contrast, with competitors, you have to manually import and deploy the image they provide, which isn’t off the shelf. 
• The third factor was the scaling solution offered by CloudGuard, which we found to be the fastest.

I was involved. It was straightforward, out of the box, plug and play. 

We didn’t use a reseller or integrator; it’s really simple to deploy, and we had the capability to set it up on our own.

I haven't calculated it because we deployed CloudGuard Network Security as part of our cloud journey. The ROI wasn't calculated solely on that part; it was more about the overall process of closing the data centre and moving to the cloud.

The licesning has some good features. For example, the scaling feature is free of charge, allowing multiple scale-ups and scale-downs over a two-week period, which is pretty good. 

However, since we are still on an IaaS infrastructure, we end up paying for firewalls that are operational without actually handling traffic loads. This is why a PaaS approach would yield more benefits for us.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. The reason it's not a ten relates to the need for a more cloud-native solution that fits today's requirements. The deployment was five years ago, and we're still waiting for Check Point to evolve to truly have cloud-native capabilities.

I'd advise looking into the scale set feature and the out-of-the-box capability, which were really the silver bullets for us. It was a strong requirement, and if anyone is seeking that kind of solution, I would greatly recommend it.

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.

My company uses the solution as an Edge firewall and East-West firewall. 

The tool's most valuable feature is its management console. 

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security needs to improve the management of the actual firewalls. Improvement is also needed for the consolidated UI of different security aspects. 

I have been using the product for a year and a half. My company has been using it for eight years. 

We recently had some issues with stability, so it's hit or miss. It seems to have more minor bugs than other platforms, but overall stability is the same.

The speed of the support's response varies. Sometimes, you can get a good engineer who can give you the right answers. 

Neutral

I have used Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto, and SonicWall. The worst ones on the list are Cisco, Fortinet, and SonicWall. Palo Alto is better in some areas. Check PointCloudGuard Network Security is top in terms of actual security. But in terms of managing the whole platform, I would put it below Palo Alto.

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security's deployment is easy and takes two hours to complete. 

I did the solution's deployment myself. However, I connected with the consultants whenever needed. 

We've been secure and haven't had any security breaches.

The tool's pricing is been higher than other solutions, but it seems like it's turning downwards.

I rate the overall product a seven out of ten. 

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.