Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) Reviews

Check Point is mainly used for internal communication. Our clients have multiple platforms, and customers use it for internal communications and protection, from the DMZ to the LAN to the DMZ, and also for MPLS connectivity with multiple branches. 

As I've seen, the customers also use it as a gateway for publishing their website. This is only for the perimeter, however.

It is very easy to identify the logs. It is also very well managed because of the threat cloud architecture. 

Another thing is that whenever we make changes on the firewall, we first need to publish them and then install the policies. This allows us to double-check the policies before they are implemented, which is helpful.

We faced many challenges. For example, an issue with the managed view that Check Point has. When clicking on a rule, we are supposed to have a full view of that rule and its log portion. This should show what's passing through the rule, what's coming to the rule, and all of that on a single pane of glass. Currently, the log isn't showing when we click on a particular rule. This might be an issue with an upgrade or something. Because of this, we can't implement anything on the live system; we only have a maintenance window every weekend, and it's hard to troubleshoot within an hour.

Another problem is that when we created around two lakhs of Check Point objects on the firewall, it became very slow.

I have been using it for two months. 

It is not slow. But, we implemented two lakhs of objects on the firewall, and that caused the slowness. It can happen with all firewalls, not only Check Point.

Currently, I work with enterprise customers.

It was good. No issues with that.

I can recommend Check Point, Fortinet, and even SonicWall. 

I come from a system integrator background, we first understand the customer's requirements before suggesting a firewall. Sometimes we aggressively push SonicWall because the user's requirements are more aligned with SonicWall. That's how we propose solutions.

It is very easy to install, not that complicated.

The complexity and time depend on the customer's requirements.

No maintenance: In the past two months, we haven't faced anything that required replacements on the firewall.

Pricing is good. The price is very reasonable for enterprise customers.

It offers average pricing. Previously, I worked as a system integrator, and we faced some cross-product environments where Check Point was quite costly compared to the product we were working with.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

We use the Check Point Next Generation Firewall for whitelisting and blacklisting of addresses. It's part of our identity management solution and is utilized for inbound and outbound traffic services. 

Additionally, it is integrated with our DMZ, managing traffic from an IP addressing scheme. We also use it for monitoring different types of classified and nonclassified applications.

Check Point has improved our organization's ability to manage both classified and nonclassified applications securely, ensuring they pass through multiple layers of security within our firewall infrastructure.

One of the most valuable features is the ability to whitelist and blacklist sources to control access to our ecosystem, ensuring secured SaaS application access. It provides robust security across classified and nonclassified applications and integrates well with our existing infrastructure.

The graphical user interface (GUI) could benefit from some updates, although it is generally satisfactory in its current form.

The solution is stable, and I have the utmost confidence in its software stability.

The application is very scalable, allowing us to manage security across different network layers and support various applications and activities.

Customer support quality depends on the person you interact with. However, the support team we engaged was knowledgeable and well-versed with the application, allowing us to resolve any potential issues effectively.

Positive

We switched to Check Point due to cost and maintenance benefits. The previous solutions required significant resources to handle network and communication alignment during upgrades.

The initial setup is straightforward, with no significant issues arising from the box configuration.

Our implementation team comprised about thirty individuals, including supervisors for each stage, to manage testing, validation, staging, and production.

We conducted a detailed analysis and determined a high return on investment. Maintenance and stability were key factors contributing to a favorable ROI.

We found the pricing reasonable, ensuring the product was not overpriced. However, I am not familiar with the exact cost details.

I would absolutely recommend this solution to others for its robust security and scalability.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

We use Check Point NGFW to provide more protection for our network from internal and external sources. I also work on creating checks, rules, troubleshooting, and generating daily reports.

Check Point NGFW makes it easier to handle and use the firewall efficiently. It helps protect our network from internal and external threats.

The firewall's default behavior of blocking all traffic, including a cleanup rule that blocks everything from external to internal sources, is highly valuable for protecting our network.

In the rule creation process, we need to decide on the source address, destination address, and services. There are improvements needed in this area.

I have used Check Point NGFW for one and a half years.

To maintain stability, I monitor high utilization and CPU usage, enabling and disabling connections as necessary.

Check Point NGFW is not scalable enough. However, it enhances performance with high availability, shifting to a secondary firewall if one fails.

When I can't resolve an issue technically, I consult with a senior engineer. I rate the technical support seven out of ten.

Neutral

I did not work with any other firewalls before Check Point. I am familiar with CCNA routing and switching.

The initial setup involves connecting cables, opening the IP address using a browser, and configuring the firewall. It takes about one hour.

Only one person is required for the deployment.

Check Point NGFW is very important because it is easier to handle and use.

I don't have information regarding the pricing, as it is considered an internal matter of the organization.

I did not evaluate any other options. I chose Check Point firewall based on my knowledge of CCNA routing and switching.

Check Point NGFW is easy to use, create rules, and take backups. It simplifies backing up and managing processes with click-and-go options.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

We needed stateful inspection, logging, integration with Active Directory, and the ability to monitor devices using standard SNMP for use cases. Now, with the tool's Skyline product and OpenTelemetry, we can monitor it through Prometheus and Grafana. It has all the features we needed when we certified the solution.

Integration with Active Directory, IPS, standard VPN, and the firewall itself are the most valuable features for us. We haven't yet certified or aren't using Application Control, anti-bot, or anti-virus features.

Significant improvements have been made in the product. I started working with the R65 code and then upgraded to R74.40. When they transitioned from R77.30 to R80.x, they made major back-end modifications, switching from a flat file system to Solaris and Postgres. This was a big step that neither customers nor their support staff were fully prepared for.

Now, they're adding more features due to the increased flexibility of the new back-end. The main improvement I'd suggest is better preparation when introducing new features. Before releasing, they must train their support staff to troubleshoot these new features. The transition from R77.30 to R80.x was problematic due to a lack of preparation by Check Point, customers, and support.

Sizing is crucial, but we've never had issues with the products we've sized for each environment. The Maestro solution provides a lot of flexibility. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest scalability, I'd rate it a ten.

I use Palo Alto firewalls. Check Point NGFW was the first to invent the stateful inspection firewall. They focus more on security and try to keep their motto of "keep security simple". They don't get bogged down in marketing or complicated terminology when using their products.

Even enabling a firewall blade on Palo Alto requires learning about different sync ports, how sync ports differ between chassis, and navigating through multiple GUI tabs for configuration. It's not as straightforward.

On the other hand, Check Point NGFW has kept things very simple for deployment. You set it up once, and then you can repeat the same process repeatedly.

On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the easiest, I'd rate the initial setup as ten. The process is straightforward: you rack and stack, configure the management code, create a standard policy, establish SIC, and push the policy. This process has remained consistent over the years.

For deployment, it took us longer than the typical two weeks because we had to design solutions for different scenarios. Check Point offers various options, such as clustering solutions, Maestro solutions, and standalone solutions. We had different use cases—some required standard clusters with ClusterXL, while others needed scalability solutions like Maestro. We also had to factor in sizing considerations.

The certification process took about the same amount of time as other products. We've been using the Maestro solution for a while now, so when new platforms are released, there isn't much change required beyond certifying the new hardware and ensuring backward compatibility with our certified solution.

Initially, it took a little more than two weeks to certify. However, the actual deployment still follows the same standard process and is actually easier now than it was in the past.

We call the team responsible for deploying certified solutions to the service delivery team. It's made up of two groups: build services and service delivery. The build services team works with our networking team to ensure our network and peering devices are set up right to host the firewall.

The service delivery team focuses more on the firewall itself. We need about three or four extra people from build services for firewall deployment. They act as go-betweens with the network team, ensuring our firewall solution works well with the peering devices when we put it in place. The build services team is important because they ensure everything fits together properly when we set up our firewall.

For maintenance, the solution is pretty stable. We have a global team, but a separate team handles regular firewall changes and daily operations. For support, we have about ten people total - three groups of three people each. This team manages around 1200 firewalls, including Check Point and Palo Alto devices.

Check Point NGFW is much cheaper than other platforms, including Palo Alto. Its scalability, especially with the Maestro solution, is a big advantage. If you're looking for good security at a reasonable price with a good return on investment, I believe Check Point NGFW is the way to go.

I've been dealing with Check Point NGFW for my entire career. I started with their Stateful Inspection feature. The term "Next Generation Firewall" is just marketing. Check Point's UTM product was designed from the ground up with next-generation features. They have a feature called Blaze. Besides stateful inspection firewalls and VPNs, they offer IPS, application control, URL filtering, antivirus, and antibot. You can also integrate it with third-party tools like Active Directory for authentication. This combination of features is what's called a next-generation firewall.

Other vendors use terms like app ID or user ID. They focus less on ports and more on ensuring services match their intended use. For example, if port 22 is enabled, it should be for SSH service, not something else. We use both Check Point NGFW and other products. I think if you commit to one vendor's approach, it can be hard to switch late.

My customer is one of the big banks in Bangladesh, and they use the solution to protect themselves from malware.

The solution's most valuable feature is CDR (content disarm and reconstruction). The Infiniti Portal feature helps manage the firewall and get a proper report, which is required for management. Capacity and Maestro are good features that can produce better firewall speed.

I want better (DPI) Deep Packet Inspection in Check Point NGFW. The solution should include some behavioral features to detect the malware smartly.

Check Point NGFW is a very stable solution.

I rate the solution’s stability nine and a half out of ten.

Around 20 small and medium businesses are using the solution. The solution's scalability is really good. It has a feature called Maestro, which can increase bandwidth by three terabytes.

I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten.

The solution provides good technical support.

Positive

On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution's initial setup an eight out of ten.

Check Point NGFW is not a cheap solution. Customers often need to pay a premium for its services.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten.

Check Point NGFW is a good firewall. You can mount it into your firewall in every country and have the report. You can find out how good it is. Customers can change this firewall or determine the efficiency of other firewalls, including Check Point. After 15 days, they can see the report, which is a good feature.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

It's just enterprise firewalls, firewall clusters for redundancy to secure the company network from the internet, and as well as a data center firewall, for example, if you want to split up subnets to control traffic between them.

The management is very handy and intuitive, and it has a lot of features. I think it's one of the products in this market which has the most possibilities.

I saw some other firewall vendors or firewall solutions from other vendors. And maybe I like it because I'm very familiar with Check Point and the management of the Check Point gateways. So, probably, I'm just not aware of how other solutions work and how to use them. 

We also see or have a lot of customers with Palo Alto. That's also a solution we see a lot, but we have been a Check Point partner for more than seven or eight years since the beginning of our company. We have done a lot of research on firewall solutions. 

In our opinion, it's one of the best because the management is very handy. So it's easy to implement every possible configuration, and you have a good oversight of your rule set. 

If I compare it with Cisco Meraki, for example, if the rules grow, then it's very hard to get oversight or to have oversight over the whole rule set. So then it becomes hard to manage.

With Check Point, it's easy because even when you have 200 or more rules, it's still very user-friendly, and you can still quickly manage your whole rule set.

What I like about Meraki is the whole cloud-managed feature, where it can configure gateways in the cloud and preconfigure it as well. So I don't need to have access to the device or create a configuration in the cloud. 

And as soon as the firewall comes online connected to the internet, then it downloads its configuration from the cloud. I think Check Point does also have such a solution, but I'm not aware that it's as easy as Cisco Meraki. Sometimes it would be nice if they would have the same possibilities.

I have been using it for about five years now. 

I have not yet faced any challenges with performance or stability. Sometimes when we implement core firewalls, there are applications that have longer session timeouts than the Check Point firewalls in the default settings. 

Windows has a default session timeout for about two hours, I think, and Check Point's is one hour. So, it's not a performance issue, but the application will not run as well as before the security gateway analyzes and blocks traffic. So, it depends.

Scalability  is a very good point of Check Point's solution. They can scale very well and very large.

The technical support is also very well and specific. It's very useful to have technical support from Check Point.

Positive

I have experience with Nutanix Flow. It's also possible to enable training in Nutanix Flow where you can redirect the traffic to Check Point gateways. I think that's a very useful feature if you need layer seven traffic analysis and blocks. But I don't have any customers, or we don't have any customers, who use chaining. We also don't have any customers who use a micro-segmentation solution from Check Point. So, I'm not aware if they have a comparable solution like Flow.

For the initial setup, you need a good knowledge of the operating system, Gaia OS. It needs some knowledge to get started, but if you've done it once, then it's easygoing.

Normally, we check the customer's requirements. Then we start to deploy the gateway and start with a basic rule set so the customer is able to refine it for their needs. If we are in charge of creating a complete rule set, we will bring all the requirements into a concept and then create a rule set in a more suitable way.

Some customers have very basic requirements. If it's just to deploy the gateways, then it's very easy and quick. You just need maybe a few days and a maintenance window outside of business hours. But there are also customers who have a lot more requirements, like scanning or analyzing the traffic for subnets inside of the network. 

For example, a core firewall can be very time-consuming. You need to do a lot more research and concepts or write concepts on how to achieve that. That can take a few months.

For maintenance, you need to know what you do. It can be difficult if you don't know what you want to achieve. If you are not aware of network security, then probably it's not that easy, and you may run into configuration errors or mistakes. It's easy to manage, but you have to know what you do.

Check Point is not the cheapest vendor in the market, but it has everything you need compared to other solutions. So that's probably the main reason for the cost or the prices. I think it's probably on the same level as Palo Alto.

I would recommend Check Point to other users who are looking into implementing it.

I would advise others to compare or write down their requirements and have a look to see if Check Point is able to fulfill all the requirements.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

The primary use case of many organizations is to protect their environments from outside cyber threats across multiple layers of infrastructure. For example:

1. At a perimeter level, it protects the network at the parameter; many organizations use this firewall.

2. It provides scalability and seamless traffic flow in a network. 

3. It has all-in-one next-generation features, so many organizations save money using this firewall.

Check Point NGFW helps in many ways, including:

1. Using the application filter feature, I can block all the unwanted applications which are not used in the organization. Due to this, less bandwidth is used in the network. This leads to a cost cut in the ISP bill. 

2. With the help of URL filtering, I can block very easily. If this is not blocked, users may surf malicious websites or download malicious files.                             

3. Evaluation licensing helps us to conduct POCs and explain all features to customers. 

I love the application filter, as the user cannot access any applications that are not relevant to them. This reduces the likelihood that someone may access an application that contains a malicious link or file that the user may download, which in turn reduces ransomware attacks and DDoS attacks.

They just need to improve the technical support and professional services in India. We have received many complaints about them from clients and also face the same issue ourselves. 

For the past one and half years I have been using Check Point Firewall for security.

We have a good impression of stability. 

The performance is very good; there is no issue with performance.

I've only deployed Check Point Firewalls and have used other older Check Point devices that reached EoL.

The initial set up is simple. Users just need to run the wizard to set up, and they are done.

I deployed the solution for many customers in the banking sector.

Costing and licensing are high as compared to other OEMs.

I mostly work on Check Point; others which I have evaluated include Cisco and Fortigate.

The primary objective was to replace the Cisco ASA firewalls with Check Point NGFWs. In addition to their firewall functions, these NGFWs also provide features like Web Application Firewall and Network Data Security. We used this approach to consolidate security measures into a single, comprehensive solution, much like having a master key at the main entrance rather than separate keys for each window and door. This streamlines security management and ensures a more efficient and robust overall security strategy.

There are several crucial advantages to using Check Point NGFW including its ease of use, as it provides a unified interface for managing multiple security functions. It offers impressive scalability to meet the demands of a large organization and can handle substantial traffic. Its simplified management, enhanced remote support capabilities, and the ability to facilitate secure VPN connectivity for numerous offices and employees are highly beneficial.

The current model is predominantly hardware appliance-based, which can incur substantial costs. These appliances must be purchased separately, contributing to a significant investment.

Our most recent engagement with Check Point NGFW was a year ago when we implemented it for one of your financial sector clients.

The stability of the firewall has been exceptional, with very minimal disruptions. There was only one instance of downtime, and it wasn't attributed to any fault in the firewall itself or the hardware, but due to a configuration issue. I would rate it eight out of ten.

The scalability of Check Point firewalls is a notable strength. These firewalls can handle a substantial number of connections. For instance, they can manage up to one million connections on the NDSW server. Regarding its VPN capacity, it can support around 5,000 to 8,000 users per box, which is quite impressive. This scalability makes Check Point firewalls well-suited for organizations with high connection and user requirements. I would rate it eight out of ten.

Their support team has demonstrated an approximately 24-hour turnaround time, which is considered quite good. We have rarely needed to engage with Check Point support because most issues are resolved internally. Typically, we turn to OEM support only when we encounter challenges that are beyond our capabilities.

I also have experience with Fortinet and Cisco, both of which have made significant developments recently. They have introduced software-based firewall and system solutions, which have garnered attention from customers. This shift in the competitive landscape has led to changes in customer preferences, with more organizations considering Fortinet as a viable option for their security needs.

This process can be a bit complex at times, mainly because it depends on the specific client architecture and how they want to set it up.

The deployment process can be rated at about six in terms of complexity. Several factors influence this complexity, but getting the infrastructure ready is often the most challenging aspect. To successfully deploy, you need to account for downtime, ensure proper backups are in place, and ideally test it in a sandbox environment before going live. After deployment, thorough checks and adjustments are necessary. It typically requires at least two days of parallel operation, where both the new and old equipment run simultaneously. In an environment with no existing infrastructure to replace, the process is generally smoother. Deployment typically involves a team of 2 or 3 people working full-time for 4 to 5 days, equivalent to nine hours a day. Maintenance is handled by a networking team, which includes a Network Operations Center. The team consists of approximately eleven people managing various network components, including L1, L2, and L3 devices.

When considering a POC for a security solution, it's essential to assess the various use cases and functionalities it offers, such as NDSW which is particularly useful for protecting sensitive data. Check Point NGFW is not solely a firewall; it's a comprehensive security solution with various capabilities. It can address a wide range of security requirements, making it a valuable and versatile asset for organizations looking to enhance their security posture. I would rate it eight out of ten.