Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) Reviews

We use Check Point to protect our two data centers under an active scheme. It allows us to protect our customer information while preventing cybersecurity events that put our customers at risk. We use threat prevention and extraction, VPN, firewall blade, VSX, and the entire Check Point management suite. Our setup includes two firewalls in a high availability and VSX environment, respectively. We also take advantage of Check Point's load balancer, which works very well. The failover is performed automatically, without any flashing or noticeable impact on the user. 

Check Point NGFW enabled us to switch from a decentralized solution with seven firewalls to a solution that's easier to manage with high-availability firewalls and capabilities that were previously lacking in NGFX. It helped us connect our users working remotely during the quarantine while maintaining our security policies and avoiding zero-day attacks. 

The solution makes administration more straightforward because we can replicate the policies in both data centers with a single click, helping us to deploy quickly in both gateways without problems.

Check Point's most useful feature is threat prevention and extraction. It was tough to manage seven firewalls and a perimeter solution for IPS, anti-malware, anti-bot, and sandboxing. 

Integrating everything in Check Point allows us to see all the attacks that are blocked with our perimeter countermeasures every day. Check Point's high detection rate improves our overall security posture, and we can achieve a low rate of false positives through a few adjustments to the configuration.

It could be easier to access the installation of the Hostfix for VSX solutions. The CLI commands help us understand how virtual firewalls behave in terms of processor, memory, and other aspects. More graphic visualizations of CPUSE commands would be a welcome improvement, and Check Point could expand scripts to run within the solution for multiple tasks.

I've been using Check Point NGFW for seven years

Check Point works well in a high-availability setup, and the failover is fast. We had very few instances of unavailability. It happened once when we had hard disk issues, but the RMA process was quite simple, and the replacement part came quickly.

We added new Check Point firewalls twice this year, and it was relatively simple. You can quickly migrate the configurations, and your new firewall is ready to go after a few adjustments to the settings.

Check Point's support has been excellent, and they respond immediately via phone, chat, and email. In particular, I think the chat support was great. 

Positive

Previously, we were using seven open-source firewalls, and we decided to go for a solution with good ratings from NGFW users. We wanted something well-positioned in the market that had good support.

Migrating from an open-source, decentralized setup with seven firewalls to centralized management was complex, but it was less complicated than we expected thanks to Check Point’s management features. The ability to perform a parallel startup helped a lot during deployment.

A vendor team helped us, and the migration was smooth. The Check Point engineers who worked for our partner were well trained to handle the implementation.

Check Point NGFW can be expensive compared to other competitors, but the price matches the functionality and efficiency of the solution.

We considered Fortinet, Palo Alto, and SonicWall before settling on Check Point

We are using Firewall Intrusion Prevention and URL Filtering, and we just purchased the Endpoint Protection package for our workstations.

It is deployed on-premises. We have two Check Point systems in place. We have one that's between our business network and the outside world, and we also have one that's between our business network and our internal SCADA system.

We haven't updated to version 81, so we're still at version 80.

It has provided us with great protection from threats. I've been here 30 years, and we've had two incidents, and none of them were within the time we've used Check Point.

The console or the single interface on the blades is most valuable.

The only thing that we've seen is instances where console and administrative interfaces get locked up or freeze, and we have to get the machine rebooted.

I have been using this solution for probably 10 years.

I would rate it a nine out of 10 in terms of stability.

Its scalability is very good. Our entire force is about 190 people, and most of them use it at some point just because they are going out to the internet and have that protection for the workstations. 

It is being used extensively. Everyone is using it, and we do have plans to increase the functionality on the device.

They provide really good support. I would rate them a five out of five. 

I can't remember the product, but what we had initially was an entry-level device. It was a single-purpose firewall. We went up to an enterprise solution that had additional features.

It was pretty simple to transfer the old firewall configuration to the new one. So, it was pretty straightforward and easy. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of effortlessness.

It took over a month. We ran two systems. We built a new system for a couple of weeks before switching over completely.

We used a consultant. Our experience with them was very good.

For deployment and maintenance, we have five people on our staff. We have to do some maintenance on it. It's pretty much scheduled to rotate between us so that we keep our skills fresh.

We've not done an initial study on any kind of ROI. We rarely do. In positives, we try to perform a yearly risk assessment of our systems, and we find very few vulnerabilities. So, it is doing what it's supposed to. It is keeping us safe.

Its cost is a little higher than other products.

We evaluated other options, but I don't remember their names. We basically went to the consultant we deal with for security-related things and said, "What's out there? What do you recommend?" He gave us three and recommended that the Check Point was probably the lead one.

I would advise comparing it to the other products.

I would rate it a nine out of 10. It has served us very well and given us very few headaches.

Checkpoint Firewall provides advanced security for the organization and its connection to the members/participants. The Check Point FW controls access and traffic to and from the internal and external networks. The Check Point Firewall rule base defines the access control and network performance to help our organization achieve the below security goals:

• Only allows authorized connections and prevents vulnerabilities in a network
• Gives authorized users access to the correct internal networks
• Optimizes network performance and efficiently inspects connections

Check Point Firewall provides advanced security for the organization. The FW controls access and traffic to/from the internal and external networks. The Firewall rule base defines the access control and network performance to help our organization achieve the below security advantages:

• Only allows authorized connections and prevents vulnerabilities in a network
• Gives authorized users access to the correct internal networks
• Optimizes network performance and efficiently inspects connections
• Protection of all assets from internal and external threats

The following features are most valuable: 

• Threat prevention
• Malware prevention
• IPS
• IDS
  

Check Point should improve services related to the cloud-based solution. Due to these challenging times, most organizations seek to move to cloud-based implementation to minimize the cost and for easy deployment, access, and remote support. 

The Next-Generation Firewall should also be focused on zero-day threats as attacks have improved the past few years. They need to ensure that all connections and nodes are being protected. 

Sandblast technology is also a good tool as it offers enterprise solutions on malware detection and prevention.

I've used the solution for five years.

The solution is stable and can support all OS deployments. It's easy to manage.

We recommend the product as it is excellent and very scalable.

There have been no issues regarding the support from Check Point and the local vendor.

Positive

We previously used Fortinet.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

We did the deployment in-house and with a vendor team. The level of expertise was a 10/10.

The solution is easy to deploy. The pricing is lower than other solutions. We've had no issue with licensing.

We looked into Watchguard, Palo Alto, and Sophos.

We need more information on the ability to collaborate enterprise support.

We are using this product as a firewall which does have the capacity to block the IPS signature as well. 

It is highly accurate for the IPS engine and has the best-in-class log monitoring and report generating facility in the firewall. 

It is easy to manage, as it has a centralized management console. We are using the firewall as a VPN service as well. It is very easy to troubleshoot the issue with the VPN. We are using IPSEC features where we can enable tunnels with the client and we can safely communicate with vendors due to encryption.

Checkpoint NGFW improved the security posture of our network infrastructure to the point where we can use antivirus, IPS, and antibot features to tighten up the security. We can also use URL filtering where we can block malicious URLs in communications. We can easily stop and detect Day-Zero attacks. 

The throughput of the firewall is very big for data transitions. The antivirus also includes DPI (deep packet inspection), which examines the data within the packet itself rather than only looking at packet headers. This enables users to identify, categorize, or block packets with malicious data more effectively. 

The IPS feature is the most valuable feature. We can block zero-day attacks within stipulated time intervals. The up-gradation activities are much simpler when we are dealing with Check Point firewalls. 

If there is a critical issue observed, the Check Point support team can create a custom package that we can deploy on the gateway to mitigate critical issues/bug fixes. 

The support reachability is very promising, as we can directly connect with them via call or chat from the support portal.

Sometimes the KB article does not include all the steps. There is a chance for improvement in the content of global KB articles. It's nearly impossible to add an exception for threat prevention services - such as antivirus and anti-bot. You will be stuck with Indicators of compromise marked as detecting only, caching issues, and random effects. There is no clear way to report incorrect classification to support. 

Sometimes we need to find a resolution by ourselves as the solution's knowledge base is not enough.

I have been using this solution for five years.

The stability is good.

We can easily scale the gateways with a few simple clicks. 

Technical support is great.

Positive

We did use a different solution. Check Point provides better visibility where security is concerned. 

The setup was very straightforward

We can implement it by ourselves.

The ROI is double annually.

It is pretty cheap as far as the setup cost, pricing, and/or licensing are concerned.

We looked at Palo Alto firewalls.

Our business houses just over 100 staff, along with over 200 devices ranging from mobile to tablets, computers, laptops, and Servers. 

We use a Check Point 5100 cluster running R80.40 to protect our business from external threats. 

Our network is also extended to the likes of Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, and other 3rd parties utilizing secure VPN tunnels terminating on our Check Point 5100 cluster. 

Our business also offers the ability of hybrid working - which is only possible with our Check Point solution.

Prior to using Check Point, we had a Draytek small business firewall, the Draytek would often hard lock, which resulted in the loss of internet connectivity for the business. The only way around this was to reboot the Draytek device which in turn would lose logging data as to what was causing the issue. 

Moving onto Check Point completely solved this problem. The hardware is much more capable and the logging and alerting functionality means, should anything happen (like it did with the Draytek), we would have visibility on the logs which would give us a direction for troubleshooting and mitigation. 

Check Point offers a secure VPN client. We distribute to our agents via group policy. Our agents can then connect to our network when working from home - which was a game-changer due to the recent pandemic situation. 

Check Point also offers a mobile app capsule connect which, as a system administrator, has proven very useful when a high-priority issue occurs. I am able to connect to my internal network via a phone or tablet - which has proven useful in some scenarios. 

As a system administrator my favourite part of Check Point is the smart view tracker. This alone is a must-have tool for tracking all traffic traversing the Check Point appliance. It makes troubleshooting much easier. This software alone sets Check Point out in front of the competition.

Check Point is very feature-rich. There aren't any features missing or that I am awaiting in a future release. 

The only downside to Check Point, is, due to the vast expanse of configurable options, it does become easily overwhelming - especially if your coming from a small business solution like Draytek. 

Check Point comes with a very steep learning curve. However, they do offer a solid knowledge base. Some issues I have encountered in my five years have only been resolvable via manually editing configuration files and using the CLI. Users need to keep this in mind as not everything can be configured via the web interface or their smart dashboard software. 

I've used the solution for five years.

The solution was not always stable when running the older R77.30 version. Paired with a mid-spec box, we did find some issues with performance on more than one occasion, specifically the network would slow to a halt until a system reboot, there was nothing within the error logging and our external SOC couldnt find anything either. We'd often when updating the firewall policy it would fail to deploy usually taking around three or four policy pushes each taking about 20 minutes. We are now running much faster hardware with the later R80.30 release and those issues have completely disappeared.

Scaling is dependant on the size of your network. Check Point does offer a wide range of lower to high spec appliances depending on your scale set.

I've only had two instances using their support as we have a third party on contract for third-line issues that I cannot resolve. They were prompt yet not shy about pointing out potential issues with third parties and it not being their appliance. 

Positive

We used Draytek. It didn't offer the security features that Check Point does and we were a victim to a successful attack from external sources which Check Point would have caught. We also found the hardware of Draytek was too underpowered to handle the size of our network. 

A third party installed the appliances initially. It is a complex process, as Check Point is vast in features and very configurable. You find yourself using the web interface, their own management software smart dashboard, and a mixture of CLI and config files to get your end result. 

We implemented it through a vendor team. Their level of expertise ranged as we moved through three separate technicians during our installation which was problematic. I wouldn't use this particular vendor again. That said, this was nothing against Check Point. 

You cannot put a price on security. Check Point is a field leader. However, it comes at a high price. 

If you have no experience with Check Point and you are on a deadline, it's essential you find a company certified to help with the deployment and configuration. The feature set is rich however, it's not always user-friendly. 

Pricing, including licensing, is very expensive compared to alternate products such as Sophos, Barracuda, or FortiGate

We evaluated Fortigate, Sophos XG, and Barracuda. However, ultimately the decision boiled down to our parent company already using Check Point. 

We primarily use the solution on all branch sites and now in DCs as well. We have more than 500 sites using Check Point NGFW in our organization. 

Earlier, we were using Cisco ASA and now it looks much better in many aspects, including upgrading/managing. I had only experience with Cisco ASA before, but after implementing this in my branch location it became quite easy to manage the firewalls remotely.

A few of our engineers use APIs to upgrade or push global changes for all regional locations which was tough to do. Now, with Check Point on board, it has eased our job as network engineers. 

Central management saves so much time. We were spending so much time with ASAs. I only had experience with Cisco ASA before, however, after implementing this in branch location it became quite easy to manage the firewalls remotely. 

As mentioned, a few of our engineers use APIs to upgrade or push global changes for all regional locations which were tough to manage. Now, it has eased our job as network engineers. It was a good decision by our organization.

The logging and central policy management are the most valuable aspects for us as we were not having success earlier with the ASA in terms of upgrading/managing. We are still exploring more features like IPS and IDS. We hope that these aspects will be a great experience for us as well. 

The smart consoles could be improved. Many times we have seen that smart console lags or has issues during the change. It also closes sometimes. Otherwise, the overall experience was great until now. 

As we are still exploring more features, we need more time to provide more reviews in the future. I would like to explore more with Check Point and would like to provide improvement review as we go into using the MDMS. It will be in our organization here by year-end. 

I've been using the solution for three years.

It looks very stable as compared to others.

The scalability looks great.

A few times I reached out to support help and in no time I was able to get experts who helped me through any issue I was having. 

Positive

We used Cisco ASA, however, we wanted a product that was more stable with central management. 

It was not easy to set up initially, however, we got some support from external vendors. 

We had help through a vendor and the experience was great. 

The stability makes it all worthwhile. 

It looks great the cost-wise for our organization. I've also suggested this product to other ex-colleagues for their companies. 

We did check out FortiGate and Palo Alto as well. 

We have had a great experience so far. 

We use the solution as a frontend firewall in our headquarters and in our branches. We use packet inspection, the antispam feature, and the VPN. We have configured threat prevention and content awareness to improve security on incoming email and on web surfing from interlan networks wits SSL inspection. Mobile access through the VPN mobile client is also used from all outside workers and is fully integrated with our AD. We also use the solution to route traffic on internal networks and manage security through client and server networks.

We have improved our performance and bandwidth through the networks. Security is also improved. We have better control over the logs and better integration with our SIEM. 

We can also manage all our firewall from a central management console so each policy is under control and can be developed better. Inline policies help to understand on the correct use of the policies and a more readable list. We can also manage policies in two or more people at once without problems or risk of making the wrong policy.

VPN and mobile VPN are extremely valuable to us. The policies are simple to deploy to the new branches. 

All policies can be deployed and managed in a very simple way. 

AD single sign-on with VPN mobile is very helpful and simple to manage and deploy. 

Log management is also a good place to make troubleshooting and through console manage events. 

Management of the object is also a valuable feature. At every point in the console you can manage object properties and look to each policy where it is used and simply change or find where the object is involved.

Some features, like the VPN, antispam, data loss prevention, etc., are managed in an external console. In the future, I'd like all features in the same console, in one place, where we can see and configure all features. I'd like a web console so that all firewalls can be managed from a web browser and we don't need to be installed on dedicated consoles and applications. 

I use the web console to mange the Gaia software in the firewall and it would be nice to have also policy management inside the web browser. 

I've used the solution for four months.

It is very stable. We have reboot only to install updates.

We chose the solution for scalability and now we are running with all branches with a Check Point firewall. The solution is meeting our expectations.

We do not need customer support.

Positive

We did use a different solution. We switched to improve security.

It was complex to set up due to the fact that we changed our mind on how the firewall works. Central management is hard to improve.

We implemented it through a vendor. There was not a high level of expertise, however, I took a course with Check Point and that was very clear and now I'm very expert on the Check Point world.

We have seen an ROI in that we need less time on managed policies and we have better control.

The cost is high but the benefits are too.

We also looked at Palo Alto, WatchGuard, and Fortinet.

The solution is a good solution and at the top of the market.

We are using the Check Point firewall for our perimeter security.

The security solution works as well on-premise and in the Azure Cloud. We are using central management to configure the security policy of both gateways.

We are also using a Site2Site VPN for connecting our locations. This VPN is also realized with the same firewall systems.

In order to simplify the process of generation reviews of actual security incidents, we have implemented SmartReport for generating automated and special customized security reports for our documentation department.

Since the security policy of all firewall gateways can be defined centrally on the Check Point firewall management server, it is a lot easier to generate a secure and safe policy for all locations.

Since we can define policy operators for dedicated traffic selections, some of the lower IT staff can easily allow or block services or servers or create their own policy without interfering or compromising the rest of the security policy.

This makes the administration and coordination of the policy a lot easier for us

Since the log files of all services are collected on the management server there is an easy and good view of all actual connections, attacks, or security risks.

In addition, when using the SmartEvent software blade, you get the possibility to have an easy to configure event correlation system, which will automatically fire mail alerts or can even block IP addresses if there are network or security anomalies detected on the firewall system.

This is also possible if the services are allowed - for example, if there are flooding attacks on server systems.

For example, this has prevented our Citrix Netscaler from being taken down during attacks.

Although there is a lot of automation and pattern that can be classified automatically, the IPS systems are sometimes a little bit complicated, and doing the fine-tuning in over 20,000 patterns is hard to do. This has been improved in the last versions, however, it can still be made a little bit better. 

For example, the automatic classification of which pattern should be activated is very simple yet lacks some special configuration options (for example if you want to have more than one classification pattern for the activation).

The HTTPS inspection is very tricky, too. Since there are a lot of applications that are using certificate pinning, most of the SSL traffic (especially to the big cloud provider) must pass without inspection.

Since attackers also use these clouds, there is a problem in getting your security definitions to work.

Of course, this is not a Check Point-specific problem and rather a problem in the HTTPS inspection itself.

There is the need to know which sites are accessed by our staff and to get the visited URLs, to get the internal security policy working. The SSL classification feature of Check Point is a good intention, yet not as good as needed.

I've used the solution for more than ten years.

We do not have any problems with stability.

There is a hardware solution for every type of throughput. It is very good that in the datasheets you get the throughput of the different types of network traffic.

It is better not to choose solutions bigger than needed, or to have some resources left over.

Most of the support calls are answered very quickly. However, if you have a problem and you have to get development involved, the response gets slower.

Most of the time, you will find all necessary information in the Support Center or on the collaboration sites.

Neutral

We were using Cisco firewalls before. We had the need to implement Universal Threat Protection and the configuration of the Firepower system of Cisco was more complicated than the integrated policy configuration of Check Point.

The setup is straightforward. The documentation is very good.

We have implemented it completely in-house.

ROI is really hard to pinpoint. However, if we were using another security solution, our personal efforts to maintain it would double.

It is very hard to compare different firewall solutions and get a comparable price. Check Point tends to be very expansive, however, if you have a deeper look at other vendors, the costs are almost the same.

Due to the good integration and central management, Check Point is easier to maintain than other solutions.

In addition, there are good small office boxes from CheckPoint with a very good price - the features of these boxes are enough for small enterprises or branch offices.

We have evaluated Cisco Firepower and the FortiGate firewall solutions in the past.