Check Point Remote Access VPN Reviews

We use Check Point Remote Access VPN to connect to the back-office applications.

Check Point Remote Access VPN could be more user-friendly.

I have been using Check Point Remote Access VPN for approximately two years.

Check Point Remote Access VPN is a stable solution.

We have approximately 2,000 users using this solution. We have plans to increase the usage of the solution.

My internal team does some technical support for our employees. I have not contacted the support from Check Point Remote Access VPN.

I have used Microsoft Defender Endpoint previously. I found it to be much more user-friendly than Check Point Remote Access VPN.

The installation of Check Point Remote Access VPN is straightforward. The time it takes for the client installation is two minutes. It is a standard installation.

I did the implementation myself. We have our IT department that is supporting and doing the maintenance of the solution.

There is a license required for this solution.

I rate Check Point Remote Access VPN a seven out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is to connect to our internal network for accessing servers and clusters using Check Point VPN. End-users are, for example, students accessing computer labs and licensed software that can check academic licenses only within the campus network; further, our ERP folks could make good use of the VPN solution by remotely working on the Institute Management System infrastructure and can work efficiently without any hindrance. We also use its capsule app on smartphones to connect further.

Using Check Point Remote Access VPN has increased the overall productivity for users staying outside the campus and working remotely during this Covid-19 period. Faculty, students, staff, and research fellows as well as a lot of other eligible users have been benefited by securing the VPN license in order to run login remotely and access the project workstations, clusters, run simulations and submit their research work for the final thesis defense. It also allows for publishing in high-impact factor journals.

Once we install and connect the VPN service, it keeps on running until we disconnect. Moreover, the best outcome is when the end-users are able to check out software licenses through the tunnel and keep on working remotely from their home without any interruption. 

The VPN service works seamlessly in Windows and Mac. Only in the case of Linux or Ubuntu have we had to struggle a bit by understanding the SNX Batch file to get installed and run it. Moreover, in Windows and Apple systems the app is running on the system tray whereas in Linux we have to keep the Terminal Window Open.

The Linux version may have an app (similar to Windows) instead of a shell script. We have seen that in Windows and Apple systems the app is running on the system tray whereas in Linux we have to keep the Linux Terminal Window open otherwise the connection drops. Sometimes, we have noticed that the owing to installation of various antivirus and running of inbuilt firewalls (applicable to all operating systems); the connection for VPN sporadically drops and tries to reconnect. When this happens, we have to manually either disable the firewall/antivirus or reconnect the VPN again.

We've used the solution since 2015 or 2016.

We were using Cyberoam.

Users must pursue Proof of Concept as the functional requirements can vary.

We also looked into Palo Alto and Fortinet.

The Mobile Access VPN is used to provide users with remote access to company resources.

Users can access the system at any time from corporate laptops as well as home PCs.

It is also possible to connect from Android and IOS mobile devices.

We also use the functionality of the secure Capsule Workspace container to securely provide access to corporate Web resources and mailing services from mobile devices.

It is also possible to provide restricted access to partners via SSL VPN using the Check Point Mobile Web Portal fine-tuning.

This solution allows users to connect from any location. The system is very flexible. We can easily control access and view statistics on the usage of this functionality.

We are also happy with the overall stability of the operation, the easy configuration on the gateway side, and the ease of deploying clients to endstations.

The user device verification functionality allows us to prevent connections if a device does not comply with corporate security policies until the device has met all requirements.

When working with different groups of users, we can easily set up both standard authentication by username and password and use two-factor authentication such as SMS + username and password or certificate + username and password. This definitely increases security and allows you to control access.

It is also possible to use third-party tools to customize HTML5 access. For example, the connection is made without the need to install any client on the user side.

Access is browser-based only and requires no additional client installation.

We would like to implement HTML5 (clientless access) in the product without installing any additional software.

It would also be desirable to be able to segregate the different authentication methods by domain user group.

Unfortunately at the moment, the division is only between domain and non-domain users.

What we also miss is control over the workstations for non-domain PCs that the client is installed on.

It would be nice if we could block such connections based on, for example, the machine name or connection ID.

We have been using this solution since 2007 and started with the R65 version.

It allows staff to work from home, especially now during COVID-19. You can access it from any location, and it does not require technical knowledge. 

If any problem occurs, we are unable to work. An access to VPN enabled organization needs to improve by way of getting work done from any location in order to improve submission of work on time.

The solution is easy to install, centrally managed, and stable, with good technical support and a straightforward setup. It integrates extremely well with the Check Point Firewall.

A saving password option might save time for continuous disconnection to the server due to internet fluctuation problems. 

They need to increase their timeout. Right now, it will fail after ten seconds, however, it shouldn't fail until after 20 seconds. 

If you don't get on your phone right away and check on your authentications, it will kick you out. 

In an environment with multiple cluster checkpoints, the global properties common to all clusters in some cases give problems. 

The interface needs improvement. When you need to create something, you have to go through a lot of steps. It needs to be simplified.

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

The solution's stability is reasonable.

The scalability of the product is reasonable.

We've had a satisfactory experience with technical support.

We did not previously use a different solution.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We used a vendor to set up the solution. 

We've seen a 100% ROI.

The product is offered at a reasonable cost.

We did look at other solutions before choosing this product. 

We use Check Point Remote Access VPN to provide access to employees and to the company resources, especially now that most people are working from home. That's the main use. We also use it for specific companies that give us remote support to some applications. They access our company servers and resources. We're using Remote Access VPN with a specific profile for them that only gives access to some.

We have two environments. Our firewalls and our perimeter firewalls are Check Point. The firewall connects to the internet and those firewalls are the ones that the people connect to for the Remote VPN. We have the Blade enabled and they access the company resources as if they were working at the office.

Remote Access VPN allows users to work from home very easily. They are very happy with the way they log in with RSA. That's why we use the Foo. It's very stable. We didn't have any issues.

Compared to Pulse Secure, Check Point saves us a couple of hours a week. It's easier to reverse when we have issues. At the moment, most of our company still uses Pulse Secure. But a year ago, we also started deploying some people on Check Point so that we have another option. If we don't want to renew with Pulse Secure the client says we can migrate everyone to Check Point as we already have some people working on the Check Point VPN. 20% of the company uses the Check Point VPN and the rest uses Pulse Secure, which is our main VPN, which is around 100 people.

The biggest advantage of Check Point Remote Access VPN is that we already use the Check Point firewall. We only needed to enable the feature and do the configuration in order to enable the VPN feature. We didn't need to buy or manage new hardware. This was a big advantage. 

The integration with two-factor authentication for Remote Access users is another valuable feature. In our case we use RSA.

Those two are the most valuable aspects that we have on the solution. It also gives us the possibility to securely connect to the company resources, without Check Point security measures.

Another good thing we like is that we already have all the logs from the firewall on the SmartPortal as the remote VPN also integrates into the firewall. We can see all the logs on the same tool because we also have a fully secure solution for Remote Access VPN. For full security, we need to manage the different hardware from the firewalls and the logs that are not in the same place. This is another valuable aspect of this solution. 

Having access to those logs affects our security operations because if a user calls the support but does not have access to the VPN, we can see on the same tool on the SmartPortal. If he's being blocked on the firewall policy, you can see it with the VPN profile.

If the user is using Foo, we need to go to the Check Point firewall to see the Check Point firewall log on the perimeter firewall, to see if the user is crossing the firewall to get the Foo. Then we need to go to the supplier to see that the logs are there. So we need to go to two places.

We are very happy with the Windows client. You log in with the VPN for the full client, you do the log in there. But for Linux machines, they don't have a full client to install. It is important because we have some users that use Linux and they don't have a specific application from Check Point to use. That is something that could be improved. 

I have been using Check Point Remote Access VPN for around one year. 

We don't have any stability issues.

It is very scalable in a way that we can share the configuration for Remote VPN amongst our perimeter firewall so we can implement the Remote VPN with the same profiles and the same configuration easily on all of them. It's very scalable.

We are still studying the possibility of migrating everyone to Check Point VPN, but a decision has to be made because we still have a lot of people using Pulse Secure.

We haven't used technical support specifically for Remote Access VPN. We use it for other products, but not for this one. In general, their support is good, especially if you work with the Israel team. Because of the time zones, we try to call when they are available. The support is usually in. The other ones are also good but in most cases, the Israel team is better.

Our team finds that Pulse Security is a bit difficult to configure. It's not very straightforward. We are used to it now. Management is easier on Check Point. Our managers wanted us to have to study some alternatives to Pulse Secure so that if the price was too high, or if we wanted to move to another solution, we would already have an idea about other solutions. We chose Check Point as we already had the firewall. It has worked well until now. We already have some people using the Check Point VPN and we are ready to move everyone. 

Pulse Secure was more difficult because of all the things that you need to for the setup. You need to do four or five things to set up a profile and some of them don't make any sense. It's difficult for a person that's never used Pulse to understand the philosophy of the configuration and to create different profiles. It's not very straightforward.

The initial setup was straightforward, especially because we already have the firewall implemented. So we only needed to enable the features and do some configurations, which were not hard to do. They were really fit. 

It took two days. We did our own thing. The implementation strategy was to first have only two or three users from the IT team to test it. Then we allowed it to extend to some teams.

Two team members did the deployment. 

We require three full-time network security engineers for maintenance. We manage all the solutions on the security side of our company. Specifically Remote Access VPN requires three hours of maintenance a week.

The return on investment is that we have a stable VPN solution to provide our employees, which is very important. Especially now with the virus, we have more than 50% of people working from home and using the VPN solutions. Our return on investment is the ability to allow people to work remotely in a secure way and a stable VPN.

As far as I'm aware, Check Point is on the same line of pricing with Pulse at the moment. It's not any different. It is in line with the competition. There are no additional costs that I'm aware of. 

It's not hard to deploy the solution. Remote Access VPN is easier to deploy than some other solutions like Pulse Secure.

If you already have a Check Point firewall, this remote solution is a win-win because you don't need to buy, manage, or do a hardware refresh when you enter the end of life. You will have centralized logs on the same tools. If you have a Check Point firewall, this solution is the best for you.

I would rate Check Point Remote Access VPN a nine out of ten. 

It works very well. I would say it's almost the perfect solution. As far as I'm aware, it's one of the oldest solutions from Check Point. So it's very, very stable. They have a lot of years of working with it.

In our current dynamic, we are using this solution to provide access to data and some business applications over the internet.

Our users find the interface very comfortable to use.

There is always room for innovation and the addition of new features.

We have been using this VPN for more than ten years.

With respect to stability, Check Point has been running smoothly and we haven't had any issues.

We have about 500 people using this solution in our company during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that, we had an average of 100 daily users.

We are satisfied with the support.

We are always searching to see if there is anything new in the market.

Currently, Check Point is meeting all of our requirements. That said, there is always a chance of innovation and something new.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

A lot of our clients are complimentary companies, like the electrical company. They need Check Point Remote Access VPN, or even another similar solution. I tell them that I already have the VPN solution in our company.

In terms of improving the service, I think they could add more features, like the security to block off the doors, or create another hatch, something like this. They could make the features safer, add malware to make my mail and the Kryon system safer and to protect data at an earlier stage.

I have been using Check Point for about one year.

I have not heard any complaints from the clients regarding its stability. I think it's stable for them.

Not all of our clients who use Check Point VPN are in Thailand. Some government agencies, like the Electric City Company, are in Thailand. They use it formally. Their IT and telecom departments, those who require a secure network, are using it.

I have not contacted customer support yet because I take care of any issues from here. That's why I don't have their programming disk because I take care of it myself, including the configuration and the DSL in Check Point.

We still use other products.

The initial setup is not complex. Plus, we've got the Kryon system. So these systems make it easier for the user. We have known this product for a while, that's why it's not a problem to configure the system.

I don't have any advice yet.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd give Check Point Remote Access VPN a seven.

The differentiator for this solution is the management interface that we find very good and provides a single view for all endpoints. The solution offers SmartLog that allows quick searches. The compliance modules are also very interesting.

I cannot see the full effect of the antibot solution because it relies on having access to the DNS queries, which might not go through the Check Point firewall when you're using it for perimeter networks. In this case Check Point will not identify the actual source of the DNS queries associated with antibot activity. This may be related to the customer architecture, however, and not due to product limitation. I don't know if it can be improved on the Check Point side or not.

The solution should allow for the automatic identification of destinations. 

We have a URL qualification on the on-premises deployment model; this should also be the case on the cloud. The automatic classification should be done by the cloud team instead of having to specify or subscribe to a RSS for the information, we should be able to have an object that represents such cloud services. It's possible that Check Point already allows for this, but if they don't they should.

We've been using the solution for about 20 years.

The solution is very stable.

The stability depends on the setup. If the solution resides on a specific appliance, it is not scalable. It has a fixed capacity. However, if you move it onto different environments, cloud environments, it will become scalable. Right now, we have about 4,000 users in the current network and about 500 remote access users.

Technical support is reasonable. It depends on the level of support you are willing to pay for, however. You can choose to have a company working for you with intermediate support with Check Point, or you can choose to have direct advanced support.

The initial setup has a moderate amount of complexity. It's acceptable. However, the graphical display of the user chart of network usage, and the ability to zero in on the current graphics could be improved.

We currently only use the on-premises deployment model, although we may extend into the cloud in the future. We're aware of the cloud's capabilities, but we're not using it because we don't have a large infrastructure expression there.

In terms of advice, I'd suggest that others implementing the solution make sure training happens on their teams. Most products can have lots of features, but if you do not have proper knowledge, you will not be able to make use of those features.

I'm very satisfied with this solution; I'd rate it eight out of ten.