Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) Reviews

We have deployed this product for the protection of our MPLS connection between 20 geographic distinct sites, two data centers, and an internet connection.

We are also using the product to establish IPsec tunnels with 5 external entities totally transparent to our users.

We're a new company that started to invest in cybersecurity and protection products and chose Check Point for their cloud solutions that protect a vast majority of our devices. 

We are happy with the deployment of the product and the ease of use.

Since the deployment and go-live of the solution, we noted a rise in productivity of some people, we think it has to do with the deployment of the application control and web filtering capabilities of the product.

We're also happy with the deployment process and the help that the Check Point partner provided in the initial configuration of the product. 

Our users also noted more speed on the internet connection, as I said probably because of the block rules implemented with the features mentioned above.

I have to say that it was Application Control and web filtering are excellent. We knew we had users watching videos and using not approved apps yet didn't have a way to centrally block them. With NGFW we do and we can set up profiles/groups of users with different permissions which allow for example IT to have media streaming access and "regular" users don't.

Also having a VPN concentrator on the same device is a plus since made our user management with Active Directory connection a lot easier and faster.

We're a new company so regarding additional features we can name only a few, for example, a better API for extracting data so that we can integrate with our monitoring solution, at the moment we use Nagios/Icinga.

It would be nice if there is a mobile-friendly console for our techs so that they can help users when not at their desks since they do frequent external work.

Better connection between the legacy console and the new one since we have a company that still uses an on-prem device and we have to use two consoles.

We've been using this product for one year.

We didn't use a previous solution. 

I'd advise others to read the license differences and features.

We've evaluated Fortinet and Forscout products.

Our customer has been the best in stock trading; they observed that in peak hours or business hours buying and selling the stocks was time-consuming.

When they reached out to the firewall team, we checked the disk space, memory, and HDD we didn't notice much difference.

However, we monitored the interface utilization, and 1 GB was choking up and being consumed. The cpstat status on the interface level monitor and bundling the multiple interfaces fixed the issue.

We have been fixing the performance and also found that the solution offers:
1. A user-friendly dashboard with all the information available in front view and we view according to our requirements in graphical, statistically, etc.
2. Check Point firewall can combine all locations in one Check Point management console so that we can monitor everything with alert configuration.
3. We have multiple options for SIC resetting.
4. We can monitor the complete organization (for RAM, Memory, Disk, and CPU) and alert handle monitoring. We can now easily handle failovers.

The Check Point firewall features for Next Generation Firewalls are excellent. Through scripts, we can easily push firewall rules, extract, and import as per availability. Scripting is the best way to support the firewall functionality and it's been supported by all major versions. We can monitor all types of logs (traffic logs, management logs, and active logs). 

The firewall is EDR-supported; we can block or allow the URLs as per phishing or detection. 

Firewall flow and logs analysis is awesome.  

Bug Fixes and enhancement requests should be remediated earlier, as we have multiple dependencies and auditors are forced to have the latest possible environments.

Check Point's major version should have an extended time than the default time mentioned in the end-of-life policy document with additional prices.

As for deployment, we follow best practices for long-term support services. Tools must be introduced and supportive in analyzing the data, flow, and threats. We have to introduce the scripting part to work seamlessly.

I've been using the solution for more than ten years.

The stability offers high performance.

The scalability offers high performance.

The support is the best in the marketplace.

Positive

We did not use a different solution. It's the best in the marketplace and stronger than any other firewall. We can trust it 100%.

The initial setup was complex.

We handled the setup in-house.

Definitely, every sector [banks, finance, corporate, etc] should have a Check Point Firewall for strengthening/securing the environment.

We did not evaluate other options.

I usually apply Check Point to protect my customer's environment as a main solution boundary gateway, DMZ gateway, LAN gateway, or VPN site-to-site with other Check Point appliances and other vendors. I do a Harmony Endpoint full integration. I use other tools such as threat prevention blades (like IPS and IDS), anti-virus, anti-bot, anti-malware, and the Sandblast solution.

I haven't had any data leaks or vulnerability situations. The NGFW has been working as it should! It's performing well and offers great security for me and my customers by protecting the environment. Administrators can easily follow and monitor security events, or the health status of the environment or appliance using Smarteview, SmartEvent, and the monitoring blade. We can look at CPU usage, disk space, and traffic and can see user history in real-time. 

The threat extraction is the most valuable aspect. It protects the final user and prevents them from falling into the trap of infected files. When a file needs to be downloaded by a machine user, this solution analyzes the file at the same time to send to the user a clean version of this file. If not infected, the real version is available. The threat emulation can scan the computer applications searching for malicious activities and block them according to policy.

It could be easier to manage the licenses on blades and contracts. If you have a large environment it will take too much time for your team to verify if all the licenses and contracts are correct and work well. Although it is possible to manage licenses using SmartUpate and SmartConsole, if there are issues, you can only fix them using an expert shell. Simplifying the process would help simplify the daily tasks of administrators.  

I've been using the solution for two years.

Technical support works well.

Positive

NGFW is not a cheap solution, however, it does guarantee security. If the goal is to protect assets, using NGFW by Check Point helps immensely.

I use this in my company environment. I did not evaluate other options. 

We have multiple customers that use this product.  Integrated logging is the best around.  

It's clear and does the job it's supposed to do.  

We typically install this as the network edges and encourage our customers to have one at each location. Some prefer to backhall the smaller sites to the main branch where it handles all the inspection and rules.  

We also set up multifactor SSL VPN solutions at the main location which allows visibility into remote worker traffic. Overall, it's used mostly by small to medium businesses.

We have been able to sell this product for a long time as it's highly rated and has a deep feature set. We have probably sold millions of dollars worth of Check Point products over the years.  

When the customer comes to us wanting the most protection we typically suggest Check Point first. Our engineers enjoy being able to quickly deploy a solution and have the familiarity with the product to be able to troubleshoot it quickly once it's deployed. For the most part, we train our customers to be able to manage it themselves.

Mostly the logging features of the Check Point NGFW are the most valuable.  Being able to search in clear text is simple for the customer and for troubleshooting an environment. 

I also like that you can get trial licenses for just about every product solution.  This allows us to suggest a feature, implement it, and then show the customer that it has value. We tend to retain the customer on that product for the long term once it has been deployed and they are able to see what it's doing to protect them.

The only thing holding it back is the price. It's too expensive for mid-market companies. There are other platforms that have emerged that have a similar feature set, however, are more difficult to deploy. This is really only a problem for the engineers as the customer doesn't care how many hours the engineer has to put in to make it work in their environment. If the Check Point product came in at a lower price point it would make it easier for the customer to see the value in cost, thus making it easier for us to sell.

I've used the solution for seven years.

It has been the most stable for a long time.  That track record is something that you can show the customer. 

The product is highly scalable especially if you integrate the orchestration solution. 

Support is hit or miss lately. They have lost too many good reps to other companies. 

Positive

We have used other solutions, however, we continue to use Check Point NGFW.

The initial setup is simple once you have the appropriate infrastructure setup.  Once Check Point gets away from the central management solution and allows for on-box management it will make small businesses happier. 

I am part of the vendor team. We do a good job implementing it, although sometimes it takes too much time to deploy a product. 

We tell the customer that the ROI is the protection they are receiving and the stability of the product.  

We tell customers truthfully it's the best product, however, it has the highest cost and you'll pay for each license.  

We are always evaluating other solutions for our customers. Palo Alto and Fortigate are the top two others at the moment.

They just need to get the pricing down or do a better job of bundling the licensing.

We use the solution to configure sandboxing features for enterprises. We also use it for policy-level configurations and VPNs.

Sandboxing is the most valuable feature. A majority of the configurations are very accurate. We can find what an organization's user is downloading from the internet.

The support team should be faster.

I have been using the solution since 2016.

All products have some bugs. However, we had a minimum bug experience with Check Point. I rate the tool’s stability an eight out of ten.

The product is scalable. Everyone in our company uses the product. We are 100 users. We have an on-premise firewall. We use it every day.

I have contacted the support team. I have had good conversations with the engineers. Sometimes, it takes a little bit of time to solve some issues. If it's a complex issue, we need to start from scratch and escalate to a bigger tier of support.

Positive

The initial setup is very easy.

The product is not that expensive for what it is offering, but it could be cheaper. Nowadays, all the vendors are increasing their prices. Suggesting the product to the customers will be easier if it is a little cheaper. The tool offers good attributes.

Palo Alto is also a good vendor. We chose to go with Check Point as well for our enterprise solution as distributors, and we suggest it to our customers.

I was an engineer for AT&T. I helped customers with configurations. The vendor is taking care of the user side of security with Check Point Harmony. It is a very good product. Check Point Harmony must provide administrators the ability to manage external programs remotely. Some customers want such features, and other vendors provide them. I would recommend the solution to others. The vendor has been investing a lot of money and effort to prevent zero-day attacks. Overall, I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for full-scale integration and end-to-end management at the organization. The Check Point NGFW implementation took place quite smoothly.

Check Point NGFW is the best in terms of comprehensive protection against network threats and security against malware and phishing attacks. It smoothly restricts these via anti-phishing algorithms.

Check Point NGFW source package covers all the bases - application control, NAT, DLP, routing, content awareness, VPN, desktop security, and much more.

It is scalable, provides end-to-end resolution and customized productive services like providing a complete solution for perimeter protection that
blocks the traffic based on an IP address or on applications
and content. This makes Check Point NGFW highly promising and makes it a complete solution.

Check Point NGFW is the best in terms of comprehensive protection against network threats, malware, and phishing and smoothly restricts these via anti-phishing algorithms.

The source package covers all the bases - application control, NAT, DLP, routing, content awareness, VPN, desktop security, et cetera.

It provides end-to-end resolution. It is a customized productive service and a complete solution for perimeter protection that blocks traffic based on IPs, applications, and content.

The most valuable services it provides are end-to-end resolution and perimeter protection; It blocks traffic based on IP address, applications, and content.

Check Point NGFW is best in terms of comprehensive protection against network threats, malware, and phishing. It has great anti-phishing algorithms.

They could improve by lowering prices. The source package is a bit more expensive than its competitors. 

We've had some downtime issues.

It could be more generalized and user-friendly in terms of its support portal for raising tickets. Ads management should all just be on a single click.

Overall Check Point NGFW is highly scalable and provides end-to-end resolution and a wide range of customized productive services with a huge community and team behind it.

I've used the solution for about 1.5 years or so.

I hadn't gone through any such solution earlier. I just tried in-built system solutions.

Check Point NGFW integration is quite smooth in terms of licensing. They are a bit more expensive, yet they are overall a strong product and a must-have for professionals.

No, I did not go through software review websites for recommendations and software services outlooks.

Check Point NGFW is highly scalable. It has a wide range of customized productive services with a huge community and team behind its technology.

Check Point NGFW proved to be highly scalable, secure, and stable, among other alternatives of multiple firewalls present in the market.

At an organizational level, the integration and implementation of Check Point NGFW took place on a priority basis due to data and system security concerns against malware and phishing attacks.

Check Point NGFW bifurcates, channels, and segregates the internal network and builds a secure VLAN, and separates it for every department.

Check Point NGFW is highly scalable and provides end-to-end resolution and customized productive service making Check Point NGFW more promising and user-friendly than its alternatives and services like navigation, control, and filtering ensure that all users stay connected to business applications and restrict traffic.

At the organizational level, the integration and implementation of Check Point NGFW took place on a priority basis based on our data and system security concerns about malware and phishing attacks.

Check Point NGFW bifurcates, channels, and segregates internal networks. It builds a secure VLAN and separates it for every department.

It's scalable and provides end-to-end resolution. It offers services like navigation, control, and filtering and ensures that all users stay connected to business applications while restricting traffic.

Check Point NGFW is great for data and system security management against malware and phishing attacks.

Check Point NGFW Firewall requires frequent updates to build more user-friendly dashboards. They need to begin the implementation of more active VPN support.

A few services of Check Point NGFW require immediate improvements, like the customer support portal and the ads management on the platform. These services need to be improved to help ensure mass adoption of Check Point NGFW.

Check Point NGFW Protects from all types of internal and external attacks, and it is easy to use. 

The integration of Check Point NGFW in my organization has taken about 1.5 years or so, and it's still going smoothly.

I haven't gone through any other platforms or solutions. However, these platforms have become a key part of our organization & work management.

Check Point NGFW is a highly scalable and secure solution that is user-friendly. It is up to the mark in terms of data and system security management. Potential users should just go for it. 

I haven't personally evaluated other solutions via reviews from some software review websites.

Go for Check Point NGFW. It's the best among market alternatives and is a must-have solution for professionals.

The Check Point firewalls are used to protect both the edge and datacenter firewall environment.

The firewalls have been deployed in a high availability design and are virtualized using Check Point VSX VSLS. This means we have multiple virtual firewalls protecting different parts of the data center (e.g., DB, Edge, WAN, pre-production.)

We have activated multiple software blades, including firewall, VPN, URL filtering, Application Control, compliance, reporting, and threat emulation, to name a few.

A similar design has been deployed at the DR with a similar set of firewalls.

The following has been improved:

1) The edge security posture has greatly improved. We are now able to detect and prevent threats coming from the public internet. The firewall is able to block know threats using the inbuild Intrusion Prevention blades.

2) We can connect with other organizations using site-to-site VPNs to enable inter-organization communication.

3) Check Point comes with a strong management solution that allows us to monitor and track threats that are detected and prevented. It also helps us be in compliance with industry standards.

The following features have been valuable:

1) IPS - The edge security posture has dramatically improved as we can now detect and prevent threats from the public internet. The firewall can block know threats using the inbuild Intrusion Prevention blades.

2) VPN - We can connect with other organizations using site-to-site VPNs for inter-organization communication.

3) Management Blades - Check Point comes with a strong management solution that allows us to monitor and track detected and prevented threats. It also helps us be in compliance with industry standards.

The following can be improved:

1) The management solution is currently using a desktop client for administration purposes. This should be improved by ensuring configuration on the firewalls can be done 100% using a web-based approach. This is currently a work in progress in R81.X, yet should be fast-tracked.

2) The Check Point TAC support has, in recent years, deteriorated. Getting support is usually a pain as the TAC engineers don't seem to understand our issues fast enough and are not readily available. This is in contrast to the amount of money paid for the support.

I've used the solution for five years.

A lot of improvement is required in how checkpoint TAC engineers handle their assigned cases. Tickets can be opened for very long without clear solutions.

Neutral

We previously used Cisco ASA 5585 Firewall.

The setup was fairly easy as the team is well trained.

We worked with Check Point professional services.

This is a premium enterprise product, hence the price is very high.

We looked at FortiGate Firewalls.

Check Point should review their pricing models especially for the African market.