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Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs Cisco ACI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 13, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.9
Check Point Cloud Firewall enhances security, reduces manual tasks, and saves costs with scalable, flexible, automated features.
Sentiment score
5.9
Cisco ACI improved productivity with reduced downtime and costs, offering security and ROI benefits, despite implementation challenges.
The value lies in maintaining operational integrity with zero downtime or incidents, facilitating secure, ongoing business operations.
Cybersecurity consultant at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
The compliance has improved as our overall compliance score against CIS benchmark has improved from around 72 to 92% within the first three months of adoption.
Assistant Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
This helped my team cut manual review time by roughly twenty to twenty-five percent, allowing me to reallocate effort to proactive cloud security improvements.
Networking and System Consultant at Orbcom,Lda.
Efficient utilization leads to cost savings and efficiency gains.
Sr Consultant at Tata Consultancy
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Check Point Cloud Firewall support is praised for responsiveness, but inconsistencies exist, especially in first-level and complex issues.
Sentiment score
7.2
Cisco ACI's support is praised for responsiveness and technical expertise, despite occasional delays and regional service inconsistencies.
They usually respond quite fast, and they are very knowledgeable about what they do.
Network security engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
We had an endless loop of emails trying to fix this, and the suggestion was to reinstall the gateway and do it from scratch, which was not an option at that point because it would leave that specific location without access.
System administrator at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
I think TAC of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is very competent; they really know what they are doing.
Ingeniero en redes y Telecomunicaciones at K-IT
The technical support from Cisco is satisfactory.
Sr Consultant at Tata Consultancy
When issues occur, the TAC is not able to provide much support, leading to difficulties in finding RCAs.
Network Technical Manager at KPMG
Cisco has a Customer Experience team and other professional services coming in, so their support seems to be good.
Consulting & Solution Integration at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Check Point Cloud Firewall excels in scalability and performance despite some management complexities, efficiently handling increased traffic and workloads.
Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco ACI is praised for scalability, seamless integration, handling large environments, and offering flexibility with multi-site features.
Visibility scales without performance issues as my environment expands.
Networking and System Consultant at Orbcom,Lda.
It is capable of managing the increased load and performs well as our needs expand.
IT Security Analyst at Eos Energy Enterprises, Inc.
I can deploy it everywhere I need it.
Security & Network Services at a tech company with 201-500 employees
The solution offers high performance and scalability with connectivity options up to 100 GS.
Chief Technology Officer at Mehbub General Trading PLC
The scalability of Cisco ACI supports our organization's growth effectively.
Sr Consultant at Tata Consultancy
Expanding your network or your data center with Cisco ACI is not an issue; scalability is a good feature.
Network Technical Manager at KPMG
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Check Point Cloud Firewall is stable and dependable, with users valuing its performance despite occasional latency issues.
Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco ACI is praised for its stability, consistent reliability, strong tech support, and high ratings after initial issues were resolved.
The firewall itself, Gaia itself, tells you: "Look, there is this error, this problem; verify if your device is affected; if so, here is the solution."
Ingeniero en redes y Telecomunicaciones at K-IT
If there are errors, it is sometimes challenging to elaborate or troubleshoot since it is not transparent enough to understand what to search for.
Cloud Security Architect at controlware
I have not observed any downtime.
Sales manager/ project manager at Atea
For stability, Cisco ACI rates a nine or 9.5 because I've seen three customers using Cisco ACI and once deployed, the solution is very stable.
Network Technical Manager at KPMG
Cisco ACI is stable in my experience.
Senior Network Automation Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved integration, user interface, pricing, support, documentation, and automation to manage Check Point Cloud Firewall's complexity.
Cisco ACI needs interface improvements, enhanced training, better integration, improved scalability, user-friendly tools, and stronger technical support.
Scalability could be improved as well; needing to purchase a new license each time I want to add a new interface is not ideal.
Security architect at Twinformatics
Better documentation would be welcome.
Network security engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The user interface could be more intuitive, and the initial setup and configuration can be complex, requiring a technical team.
Android Developer at Droidforge
What we need is something called RAG, or retrieval-augmented generation. If Cisco can implement that to utilize customer-specific data instead of general knowledge, while ensuring data privacy under GDPR laws, I think that will result in very good, reliable output.
Senior Network Automation Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Their lack of on-ground offices can result in business losses.
Chief Technology Officer at Mehbub General Trading PLC
We do not make use of its visibility and analytics features, as we are mostly using it for the networking part only.
S VP, IT Infra at ATOM
 

Setup Cost

Check Point Cloud Firewall's competitive pricing offers flexibility and robust security, though costs can rise with extensive assets.
Cisco ACI offers robust performance but is costly, with complex licensing, suiting large enterprises seeking reliability.
The pricing and licensing are expensive, costing between seven thousand to eight thousand dollars.
Android Developer at Droidforge
Check Point is expensive, however, with the features and capabilities, I can justify the cost.
Manager, Managed Security Services at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
It is the highest in the market.
System engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
In general, Cisco ACI is on the higher side; it's not a cheap solution.
Network Technical Manager at KPMG
Cisco's pricing tends to be on the higher end compared to other vendors.
Chief Technology Officer at Mehbub General Trading PLC
Cost is one thing that could be improved, as it is heavy for an emerging market like ours.
S VP, IT Infra at ATOM
 

Valuable Features

Check Point Cloud Firewall enhances cloud security with advanced threat prevention, centralized management, and seamless integration, boosting operational efficiency.
Cisco ACI provides security, automation, and scalability, enhancing network flexibility, centralized management, and efficient data center operations.
One of the most valuable features is the automated threat prevention, which helps us detect and block potential cyberattacks in real-time, minimizing data breaches.
Android Developer at Droidforge
Centralized management is the feature I like best, resulting in reduced workload and more continuous policy.
Security & Network Services at a tech company with 201-500 employees
Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid and cloud as well as on-prem.
Manager, Managed Security Services at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Cisco ACI provides substantial capability; you can design your network accordingly and it's part of the SDN family, providing many benefits to the organization, especially when moving from traditional network infrastructure.
Network Technical Manager at KPMG
Instead of taking days or multiple days for a deployment of a server or application, they can do it immediately within minutes because all the configuration templates are already there in the control plane.
Consulting & Solution Integration at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
With the Cisco ACI fabric, you manage them as a whole, and it's an automation-driven solution, with our network development team integrating with the APIs to establish workflows for observability, fault alerts, monitoring, and more.
Senior Network Automation Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Check Point Cloud Firewall ...
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
243
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (8th), Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (1st), Vulnerability Management (5th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), Container Security (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (5th), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (4th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (5th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Compliance Management (5th)
Cisco ACI
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (2nd), Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is 7.4%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco ACI is 3.7%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)7.4%
Cisco ACI3.7%
Other88.9%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Oscar Nunez - PeerSpot reviewer
Ingeniero en redes y Telecomunicaciones at K-IT
Centralized management has reduced policy time and provides reliable multitenant protection
What I would like, what I think they should improve a little is the management of objects at large scale. When you work with multiple domains, there are thousands of network objects. Detecting duplicates and consistency across domains is a very manual process that should be more automated. Another thing: the SmartConsole interface is very powerful and very good, but the learning curve, compared to other solutions in the market from other manufacturers, could be modernized. I think it does not necessarily have to be done from a client application; it could be done via web, because via web I know that not all the options you have in SmartConsole are available. So it would be good if it could also be done from the web and all the options were available. Another thing that I would really like is more automation with Ansible or Terraform. I know it has improved in recent versions, but I think it is still not mature enough. Compared to other manufacturers that do have a bit more in terms of automation capabilities in integration flows with Ansible or Terraform, Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) could improve. Another thing that could be improved a little would be the TAC response time, because when there are very complex cases, I think there should be more speed initially, more ownership of those urgent cases, and not leave the customer waiting. This has happened to me: when I have cases open with Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) TAC, sometimes they do not respond and I have to keep insisting, and I think that part should improve. I do not know if it depends on who takes the ticket or on the severity of the ticket, but sometimes I have had to insist a lot, and that would be the only problem. Once they attend to me and become involved in the case, the responses they give are very professional and really help directly resolve the problems when there is a bug or troubleshooting to do. As I said, I would like to see a specific improvement in SmartConsole. I think if they improved it—how to say it—gave it a facelift so you could access all the options directly from a browser, that would be great, because sometimes, for one reason or another, you cannot download SmartConsole or, for some reason, the SmartConsole client does not start correctly, and you could do it directly from the browser. I think that would be a good option to improve. Another thing would be that in multidomain environments, I would like a global search function for objects and rules. That is, you could enter and search across all domains at once, because right now you have to go domain by domain, and in environments with many customers, you spend quite a bit of time; you have to exit one domain and enter another. So those would be the improvements I would like to see.
Sulaiman Olubiyi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Automation Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Network automation has simplified secure multi-site connectivity and reduced daily operational effort
I believe Cisco ACI could improve by incorporating something related to agentic AI, where it can execute tasks based on particular evaluations or loop engineering, enhancing fault identification or suggestions based on each tenant's configuration. Additionally, I think they should ensure that the documentation is comprehensive. I appreciate that Cisco provides documentation, and their support engineers are helpful in case of any issues. In terms of governance and security regarding Cisco ACI's AI capabilities, I think what we call evals or evaluations is important, whereby the engineer can evaluate the functionalities of the AI in Cisco ACI, preventing it from making deletions or modifications on its own. Therefore, there should be evaluations or guardrails incorporated into the development capabilities. Regarding accuracy and reliability of output for Cisco ACI's AI capabilities, it hasn't met my expectations. What we need is something called RAG, or retrieval-augmented generation. If Cisco can implement that to utilize customer-specific data instead of general knowledge, while ensuring data privacy under GDPR laws, I think that will result in very good, reliable output.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business132
Midsize Enterprise53
Large Enterprise142
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise89
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
Since we use a unified standard for using policies and modules in Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security), we can clearly plan which modules we need to activate on a parti...
What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
The main limitations of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) are not in Check Point itself but in the cloud platforms on which it is deployed. Because not all clouds ha...
What is your primary use case for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is the main manager that provides network security in different forms in my organization. The primary task that Check Point solves ...
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few. -Cisco ACI have physical network gear (9K Switches) where the Code runs in ACI Policy Mode & the UCS server wh...
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so when you change one interface, changes are automatically reflected on every switch...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco ACI?
Cost is one thing that could be improved, as it is heavy for an emerging market like ours.
 

Also Known As

CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance
Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs. Cisco ACI and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
910,479 professionals have used our research since 2012.