Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) Reviews

I use Check Point NGFW for controlling traffic and controlling access to the production server. It is a HA (high availability) environment. It is easy to use failover solutions.

We use it on our disaster recovery (DR Site) and it runs smoothly.

In the office, Check Point Infinity is the only fully consolidated cybersecurity architecture that protects your business and IT infrastructure.

Integrating the most advanced threat prevention and consolidated management, the security gateway appliance is designed to prevent any cyber attack, reduce complexity, and lower costs.

Check Point gateways provide superior security beyond any Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW).

Best designed for network protection, these gateways are the best at preventing the fifth generation of cyber attacks.

Overall, for us, it improves the private cloud security and helps to prevent the spread of threats while consolidating visibility and management across our physical and virtual networks.

The most valuable feature is the next-generation firewall (NGFW) protection.

Check Point has long been a leader in the firewall market. It offers Quantum Security Gateways for a wide range of use cases and CloudGuard FWaaS and cloud security products too. NSS Labs scored Check Point just behind Palo Alto in security effectiveness and ahead of Palo Alto in TCO. Check Point’s management features are among the best in the business, but SD-WAN capabilities are lagging.

A firewall rule is the same on all systems, and I am very happy with the correlation and the display of the rules.

From the logs, you can trace back to the rule with a click, which makes it easy to investigate cases. It is also easy to search the log.

They have few predefined reports and it would be nice to increase them since the logs are excellent.

They should be quicker to release fixes for known vulnerabilities, including those related to Microsoft products.

If you make a mistake when creating rules, it is time-consuming to fix them. However, there is no problem with traffic processing. 

Sometimes you are forced to interact on several different levels. On the one hand, you put the rules in, and on the other, you put in the route. 

I have been using Check Point NGFW for between five and six years.

They have a good support team that is fast to respond. However, there are open cases that should be resolved in a more timely fashion.

We used another solution prior to this one, but the updates were too slow and it was harder to monitor the log.

The initial setup is very hard.

The vendor implemented this product for us.

This product is a good investment and I expect a full return in approximately three years.

The price of the appliance should be decreased.

 I evaluated several other solutions and compared them before choosing Check Point.

This is a product that I recommend.

We use Check Point NGFW for perimeter protection of our network from the internet. We also use it for threat protection at the network level and the endpoint level.

We provide implementation, installation, and support services. We know about all types of firewalls, and we work with all types of installations. We usually use appliances, but in test environments, we use virtual appliances.

It is easy to use, and its management is the best. Check Point has a great unified management solution for firewalls and security products. 

Their technical support can be better. In addition, when we need to use it in a government environment, we face a lot of legal issues related to different types of certifications. It would be better to improve it for these issues.

Check Point doesn't have a SOAR system. They work with Siemplify, but it is an integration with another vendor. It would be great if Check Point has an integrated SOAR system.

We have been dealing with Check Point firewalls in our company for more than 20 years.

It is quite stable, but it can vary based on the version.

It is scalable. We can use the Maestro solution from Check Point for scalability. We can add new appliances as the company grows. If we need more performance and throughput, we can add additional appliances and have more performance. Check Point Maestro is the best solution for scalability.

Their technical support can be better.

Its initial setup is easy for me. The deployment duration varies. A simple deployment takes two or three days. A complex deployment that involves a cluster configuration or appliance replacement can take up to five days.

Its price is reasonable. If we compare its TCO for three years, it is more reasonable than some of the other vendors such as Fortinet, Palo Alto, etc.

I would recommend this solution. It is a great solution for endpoint protection and threat prevention. I have been working with Check Point products for a very long time. Check Point is one of our best vendors, and they make great products. 

I would advise others to learn about firewalls and other Check Point solutions. They have a lot of different solutions. If you choose their firewall, it would be useful to know more about other solutions. It would be one of the ways to improve the protection of your network with Check Point.

I would rate Check Point NGFW a ten out of ten. 

We use this solution for perimeter security and data center security.

On the firewall side, the security efficacy is good. The interface for application filtering and application-based policies is also good. They have good roadmap on the cloud as well.

This solution requires management software that is sold separately; it's actually a different appliance altogether. For smaller customers or smaller environments, this becomes an added entity in the environment. Not to mention, they'll also have to invest a lot in the necessary management stations. If that came built-in, it would really benefit smaller businesses. 

The performance when you enable decryption could be improved. That's a CPU-intensive task. Many customers struggle if they try to implement decryption — it can really hamper the performance. It's probably something to do with the appliance or the hardware design. This needs to be examined further.

I have been using Check Point NGFW for roughly five years. 

This solution is quite stable. Performance-wise, I have seen customers using this solution for years without issue. 

There are different models available. Sizing can be done accordingly. They have a good range of versions available for small to large data centers. So, scalability is definitely there. 

As I am not an end-user, I haven't really had any contact with support. Still, none of my customers have had any complaints regarding support.

The initial setup was fairly easy. Still, compared to other vendors, the learning curve is a bit complex. 

Compared with Palo Alto and Cisco, the price of this solution is quite fair. Compared to Fortinet and other vendors, it's probably a little bit on the higher side. Really, it all depends on what you get at the end of the day.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight. 

I would definitely recommend this solution. It's a good platform for perimeter security. In an enterprise, you need good security. There's endpoint security, network security, and cloud security. Check Point's strongest point is network security; they still need to catch up on endpoint and cloud security. If you're interested in integrating all of these tools, then there are better products available. However, as far as network security is concerned, Check Point is really good.

We primarily use this product for cloud computing security. It is an integration platform for IPS and I also use it for performance monitoring.

I also coach classes on the use of this firewall, which is installed on my personal laptop.

This product is more secure than other firewalls, such as FortiGate.

The information stored in the logs is very descriptive and includes a lot of details.

The dynamic port features are better when compared to other firewalls.

This firewall is difficult to manage and use when you first begin using it. However, once you are used to it, the interface is comfortable and easy to use.

The Smart Control feature is hard to install.

In the future, I would like to see more features in the unified security management platform.

This is a reliable firewall.

Scalability is not an issue with Check Point.

Technical support from Check Point is good.

I have experience with other firewalls including FortiGate. Check Point is more secure, although it is more difficult to deploy and configure.

Until you have some experience, the installation and configuration are difficult.

The licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis and I am happy with the pricing.

Check Point is responsible for inventing several firewall security features.

In summary, this is a good product and I recommend it because it the most secure firewall on the market.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use this solution for the VPN, from site-to-site and remote.

We also use it for advanced IPS, IDS, malware protection, and the sandbox. The sandboxing functionality is one of the best features.

All of the features are very valuable, but the most valuable features are the sandboxing and the advanced IPS/IDS.

The web filtering and CLI commands need to be improved. 

The CLI command is very difficult to deploy. 

If you are an engineer and considering configuring through the command line, you can't. The command line is very difficult to use, which is one of the biggest drawbacks of this solution.

The initial setup could be simplified.

Technical support is another big drawback and needs to be improved.

In the next release, there should be improvements made to the sandboxing functionality.

It's a very reliable solution. There are no issues with the stability of it.

Currently, Check Point NGFW is the most scalable firewall on the market.

We have more than 500 users in our organization.

We will continue to use this solution and we plan to increase the sandboxing feature, which is the best feature of Check Point.

The technical support is not good, which is the biggest drawback to Check Point. They will never compare to Cisco. Cisco's technical support is the best.

I have also used Cisco, which is more expensive but the support is better.

The initial setup was very complex.

It can take 20 to 30 days to deploy to the network.

It is less expensive than Palo Alto.

Licensing is on a yearly basis and I am happy with the pricing.

I also considered the Palo Alto Next-Generation Firewall. I evaluated this solution and compared the price.

We chose Check Point because the price for Palo Alto is very high.

If you are looking for deep security and have a good budget for security and firewalling then I would recommend Check Point, as it will meet the requirements.

Every product has its drawbacks and advantages, but I am very happy with this solution. In my opinion, this is the best firewall in the market at the current time.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We use this product for providing perimeter security, as well as advanced threat protection capabilities to critical infrastructure. The solution is expected to deliver high-performance throughput for voluminous traffic continuously. 

We are using these gateways for multiple functionalities such as:

• Perimeter Gateways
• Anti - APT (Advanced Persistent Threat)
• Anti Malware / Anti Virus
• SSL Inspection
• Network Intrusion Prevention System
• Private Threat Cloud

All of our solutions are expected to run in high availability and have good resiliency. 

Check Point NGFW is the first perimeter security solution used in our environment and it is able to deliver the expected results. Specifically, it supports high-performance throughput for voluminous traffic.

The vendor has proven capability of identifying known threats, which can be seen while managing the firewall. The OEM has identified a roadmap in line with the emerging threat landscape and evolves the product to counter these threats. 

The central management console has helped with segregation, where planned interventions with management consoles do not have any impact on production or critical business traffic.

Next-Generation Threat Prevention capabilities provide security in a high-traffic load, ensuring detection and prevention of known threats by AME, AV, and Sandblast technologies. 

We are also using the system to create VPN gateways for our multiple partners and we haven't faced any issues with them.

 Check Point gateways are a stable product that can run without any issues until a major upgrade or vulnerability mitigation is required.

The support has been reasonable and they were able to minimize the impact during critical incidents.

There is a scope of improvement in detecting zero-day threats using the SandBlast technology, by introducing emulation of Linux-based operating systems. We have also observed issues while using the products with SSL decryption.

There is room for improvement in application-based filtering, as with other firewalls available in the market today. Check Point has improved its application filtering capabilities in the recent past and their latest version, R80, is more capable but still, creating an application-based filter policy is a little cumbersome. 

We have been using the Check Point NGFW for the past four years.

This solution is very much stable and does not require frequent changes in architecture. The patch frequency is limited, which reduces the downtime requirements.

This NGFW is very much scalable; however, I am not sure about other components such as PTC, etc.

Technical support is a mixed experience. Most of the time, issues are handled well in a timely manner but some issues have lingered for a very long time, causing multiple iterations.

We did not use another similar solution prior to this one.

As we use a lot of components from Check Point, the setup was a little complex in terms of deployment and traffic handling.

We had assistance from the vendor's professional services team to ensure smooth deployment. It was a green field project so the deployment was easy. The team deployed on implementation had expertise with the solution.

The ROI for security is the confidence that the solution is able to deliver the expected outcome. This includes stability, Threat Prevention capabilities, Granular policies, etc.

Licensing is pretty straightforward and is based on the blades available, such as NGFW, NGTP, and NGTX. Generally speaking, the pricing is in line with other players in the industry.

We evaluated products by Fortinet and Palo Alto.

In summary, this is a good solution that is stable, and I recommend it.

Our primary use case is as a perimeter firewall for main and DR sites for a financial institution. It secures Internet access for users through IPS/AV/Threat Emulation/Application control and URL filtering with HTTPS inspection and geolocation restrictions. 

It secures our email and MDM solutions. 

We also use it to create site-to-site VPNs with vendors. Remote access is achieved through the use of a secure workspace and SSL network extender. Securing and inspecting HTTP traffic to our web servers is another important task. 

It secures several DMZs and segregates them from the rest of the network.

We use all of the security features available. 

It has helped us with controlling internet access, securing our external websites, and providing remote access that you can trust (secure workspace). The latter provides with a virtual Windows 7 desktop that only allowed apps can be initiated from. In our case, we launch RDP sessions from secure workspace. 

The latest version of the software is a big win overall, with major improvements in how the rulebase is scanned (it's not the top down classical rulebase checking, but a column based checking) and overall efficiency.

Remote access with a secure workspace provides a clear separation between the client and corporate network. 

Threat Emulation (sandboxing) is great for zero-day malware and it is easy to configure. 

Logging and administration are best-of-breed. You can quickly trace back on all sorts of logs in no time. 

IPS and AV rules are granular and specific for the rules that you need. 

The geolocation feature is good for dropping irrelevant traffic. 

Configuration through SMS is quick and easy. It eliminates administration errors while checking consistency before applying a policy.

I would like to have an improved secure workspace solution for remote access. I hear that the Apache Guacamole solution has been integrated into R81. 

The site-to-site VPN options are numerous, but they can get confusing. Interoperability with other vendors is not the strongest when it comes to setting up VPNs. It's totally different from any other VPN vendors I have come across. 

Improvements are needed in policy backups and reverting to the previous policy. This used to be better in R77.30. 

Policy installation tends to take a long time when the rule base increases in size, which can become frustrating. 

I have been using Check Point NGFW for 10 years.

We have never had any unexpected crashes or issues.

It should scale well as they now support more than 40 CPUs on a single system. 

Our experience has been great, although we don't have direct support. This means that sometimes, it takes a while to get to the bottom of issues.

Check Point is really the best NGFW I have come across and I have worked with many vendors including Cisco, Juniper, and FortiGate. It's a platform that a huge amount of research has gone into over the years. It has a great support community and clear guides to solve all sorts of problems and issues.

I didn't switch to Check Point, as it was always there. We haven't switched away from it over the past 10 years. 

We always need some help on installs or major upgrades. 

We have used several vendors and some are better than others. 

It is difficult to calculate ROI when it comes to security products. 

The hardware cost is not huge, but you need to push for good pricing on software licensing and blades.

Check Point was implemented in the company before I arrived. 

It's demanding for the administrator, as it takes years to get an in-depth knowledge of the platform. Otherwise, it is easy to use from day one.

I'm a consultant at a Check Point partner. I have deployed a lot of Check Point firewalls and support Check Point firewalls for our customers. Our customer environments are different. I have deployed standalone, cluster, and two-layered firewalls.

Check Point firewall products include a lot of modules including Application Control, IPS, Email security, Mobile access, Content Awareness, URL Filtering, Antivirus, Antibot, and DLP. 

Check Point meets our customers' requirements at the perimeter with an all-in-one solution. For example:

• The IPS blade prevents attacks with updated signatures.
• URL filtering policy control customers' users' internet activity.
• Antivirus and antibot blade controls malicious activity and files.
• Mobile access blades allow customers to access their sites from anywhere securely.

There are a lot of features that I have found valuable for our customers.

For example, active/active and active/standby high availability features are very useful. If you want to share traffic loads to both cluster members, you can use the active/active feature, whereas if you don't want to share traffic loads then you can prefer active standby. Your connections sync on both cluster members for either highly available choice, so your connections never lost.

One of the most valuable features is performance improvement, wherewith ClusterXL and CoreXL, you can improve performance.

Check Point should include additional management choices; for example, Check Point does not offer full management support via browser.

You should use Check Point Smart Console for management, although it is an EXE and is supported only on the MS Windows platform. If you are using Linux or Mac, you cannot manage Check Point. Instead, you need to use a virtual PC with the Windows OS installed, running inside Linux or Mac. Check Point states that this is a decision made for security reasons, but that certain management features can be done through the browser, although not fully.

I have been using the Check Point firewall for more than 20 years.

This solution is very stable for all of our customers.

One of our customers has more than 200 branch offices, which are protected by Check Point SMB appliances. All of these appliances are managed by Check Point SmartProvisioning. This customer has one Check Point cluster that secures server segments and another Check Point cluster to secure the client segment.

The latest product, Maestro is very good and scales well.

Check Point support is very good and we are very satisfied.

My company is working with different firewall products but I am a Check Point expert and only support their products.

The initial setup is straightforward.

All implementation is handled by our team.

There are different ROIs for each customer but our customers' ROIs are high, as expected.

The pricing is high compared to competitors.

Our customers evaluate other products but a lot of them prefer Check Point.

We have a pretty small office and therefore, a small network environment, and the SMB appliances from Check Point were a perfect fit and exactly what we were looking for in order to improve our overall security posture in the office.

It was critical for us to be able to secure our network, including intrusion detection and prevention along with threat emulation and extraction for zero-day threat help, and Check Point fit perfectly.

After implementing the solution, we were able to get through a third-party penetration test of our network without issue.

Check Point NGFW has improved our organization by making our corporate network much more secure. Once our SMB appliance was installed, configured, and up and running, we could rest a little easier knowing that unauthorized access to our network just became much more difficult.

By turning on the various software blades, intrusion detection and prevention were in place, we had threat emulation and extraction in place, etc. It was a one-stop-shop for us and gave users on our network a certain peace of mind knowing that there was something in place to help keep them safe from malicious actors.

There are many aspects of Check Point NGFW that are valuable and important to our organization, but I'd say the top three are intrusion detection and prevention, threat emulation, and threat extraction. These three features have set a good baseline of security on top of the normal application URL filtering and other services of the firewall.

The way in which a computer is immediately isolated if it starts behaving badly and I get a notification of an infected computer is also extremely nice and a great feature.

When first looking into the Check Point offerings, it was fairly confusing trying to determine the differences between the different offerings. Specifically, SMBs versus other models, and which one would work best within my environment for my use case. I think we ended up in a good spot after speaking with a reseller in the area, but it would have been nice to be able to get there independently.

The WatchTower app that can be used to access the SMB appliance remotely is a nice touch, but it doesn't allow for many actions to be taken and therefore is relegated to mostly notifications. At that point, it requires me to gain local access to go further. It would be nice to add more features to the WatchTower app to be able to perform certain administrative functions without the need for local access. 

We have been using Check Point NGFW for two years.

This product is stable and we have had no issues.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

Easy setup and configuration by a non-network/security person.

Check Point brings good value for the money and is competitive in the market.

We evaluated Fortinet FortiGate but Check Point seemed like a better fit for us in terms of features and value.

Our primary use case is to secure the perimeter and users in our network.

We use IPS/IDS, deep packet inspection, and VPN.

Our network performance and safety have improved. The reporting also gives us more information about our network, including cost and risk reduction.

This solution helps to keep our network safe and secure, protecting our investment.

The most valuable feature is the powerful, deep packet inspection engine.

The management console and diagnostic tools are powerful and we are happy with them.

The reporting is detailed and helpful.

There should be better integration with our current NAC solution to increase the granularity of policies that we implement.

We have been using the Check Point NGFW for two years.

Overall, this is a very complete tool.