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

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Check Point Cloud Firewall ...
Ranking in Firewalls
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
244
Ranking in other categories
Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (1st), Vulnerability Management (5th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), Cloud and Data Center Security (3rd), Container Security (6th), 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)
IPFire
Ranking in Firewalls
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is 2.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IPFire is 0.9%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)2.7%
IPFire0.9%
Other96.4%
Firewalls
 

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.
AE
Chief Technology Officer at Agileware Limited
Firewall deployment has secured mission-critical public apps and simplifies Linux-based management
The best features IPFire offers include its very intuitive nature because, even though it has a Linux back-end, in terms of configuration, it has a very rich GUI interface. The GUI and configuration features of IPFire have made my work easier and more efficient because their positioning and the sequence with which I follow is easy. In terms of all the processes, what you need to do at first and the next thing that you need to do is clear. The GUI is well arranged in sequential order, so you can follow that from whatever you want to do until you get the target objective. IPFire includes features with a very robust and rich community that is very much valid in terms of content. IPFire has positively impacted my organization by giving us some mileage. At least, a lot of organizations now know that we have a solution that can deliver the same value.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's most valuable feature is scalability. We can increase the number of CPUs, memory, and firewall throughput easily. Using CloudGuard Network Security for managing cloud firewall rules is considered easier than using the normal security groups provided by Azure or AWS."
"Assets Management as it provide complete visibility of our workload inkling EC2 instance or Serverless"
"Now, we can filter which websites users can access and block categories that are a risk. For example, we can block social media and gambling sites. This has helped to decrease the risk of access to malicious content on the internet."
"This solution helped us improve by improving the overall security posture of our cloud environment, maintaining asset inventory for cloud, continuously reporting and alerting for a reactive approach, and providing a best practice policy helping in strengthening security of workloads."
"We like the ability to investigate, analyze, and generate reports."
"It offers remarkable flexibility in how we configure and utilize the resources."
"This product provides a really nice visualization of the infrastructure, including network topology, firewalls, etc."
"It does a great job protecting the clouds."
"IPFire has prevented any kind of hacking and enables us to comply with customer requirements."
"I would rate the stability as ten out of ten for IPFire."
"Regarding IPFire's AI capabilities, I think they are quite focused; in all the deployments I have done, I have not had any incidents or breaches."
 

Cons

"The product can still grow."
"It is a very expensive program and there are additional costs despite the standard licensing fees."
"Despite using it for a long time, there are always new features. For example, just last week, I discovered a new feature that had been in the software for years yet it was not visible due to its placement behind multiple menus. Teaching sessions would be beneficial, yet it is our responsibility to learn, so we cannot entirely rely on Check Point."
"The product needs to offer multi-tenancy."
"It's meeting our needs at this time. If I could make it better, it would be by making it more standalone. That would be beneficial to us. I say that because our current platform for virtualization is VMware. The issue isn't any fault of Check Point, it's more how the virtualization platform partners allow for that partnership and integration. There has to be close ties and partnerships between the vendors to ensure interoperability and sup-portability. There is only so far that Check Point, or any security vendor technology can go without the partnership and enablement of the virtualization platform vendor as it relies on "Service Insertion" to maintain optimal performance."
"Making basic rules is easy, but it's complex if you want to do something a little more nuanced. I've been unable to make some rules that I wanted. I couldn't evaluate some values or parameters of the components I look for. I haven't always been able to assess them."
"Making it even easier is a good way to improve it more. When it's easier to use, there are fewer mistakes."
"The initial setup was a bit complex."
"I would rate IPFire 8 out of 10 because I do not think there is any solution anywhere in the world that is 100 percent efficient."
"Accessing the internet was a bit complicated."
"The graphical interface could be much better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When customers compare it with Sophos or any other products, the price is on the higher side."
"It is an expensive product, but when you realize that you need it, it does not feel so expensive. We have had a good experience with them as partners. They have helped us with designing and having good architecture and the best equipment at the best prices. We find it a good deal."
"The product is too expensive."
"The solution’s pricing is a little bit high."
"As a partner and solution provider for the last fifteen years, I have distanced myself from specific numbers. However, customer trust in the product is evident due to its comprehensive protective capabilities."
"I like the flexibility because I am pretty sure you can use the same license on Azure or AWS. I forgot the name of the license, but there is a specific type you can use that lets you interchange them, and that is pretty good. I like that."
"Its price is very fair."
"They're a little high in price. The price could be lower."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
16%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
19%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business132
Midsize Enterprise53
Large Enterprise144
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with IPFire?
IPFire can be improved, but so far, there are no functionalities that have not been able to meet my needs. I wish IPFire could do more, but so far, I am happy with the solution. If there are other ...
What is your primary use case for IPFire?
My main use case for IPFire is usually for security, functioning as a firewall for organizations that run public-facing applications. I will give you a typical example: there is an agency of the fe...
What advice do you have for others considering IPFire?
I would rate IPFire 8 out of 10 because I do not think there is any solution anywhere in the world that is 100 percent efficient. In elementary physics, we are told that no machine can be 100 perce...
 

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
1. Siemens 2. IBM 3. Cisco 4. Dell 5. HP 6. Intel 7. Oracle 8. Google 9. Microsoft 10. Amazon 11. Apple 12. Facebook 13. Twitter 14. Netflix 15. Adobe 16. SAP 17. VMware 18. Juniper Networks 19. Ericsson 20. Nokia 21. AT&T 22. Verizon 23. T-Mobile 24. Vodafone 25. Orange 26. Deutsche Telekom 27. British Telecom 28. Comcast 29. Time Warner 30. Sony 31. Samsung 32. LG
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs. IPFire and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.