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Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs Juniper Session Smart Router 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 Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
246
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (8th), Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (1st), Vulnerability Management (5th), 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) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Compliance Management (5th)
Juniper Session Smart Router
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.1
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Routers (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category, the mindshare of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is 3.3%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Juniper Session Smart Router is 2.0%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)3.3%
Juniper Session Smart Router2.0%
Other94.7%
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
 

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.
Esther Sultaana - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Consultant Storage at Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Secure healthcare connectivity has protected patient data and supports reliable telemedicine
Everything can be improved. It could improve its security stack with malware detection, particularly in healthcare because of ransomware. Now you have IoT vulnerabilities, so something like advanced malware detection or threat analysis would help. This is something I worked with around 2016 to 2017. Perhaps they have added those features, but I know they didn't have it then. Some security profiles for specific medical devices would be helpful. Sandboxing would be good. Dedicated telemedicine routing profiles would be beneficial because we have a lot of telemedicine going on. Real-time sessions for clinicians may need pre-built templates for EHR and EMR. I think those would be good if they're not already there. I don't know what the latest router has, but I know they didn't have those features then. There can always be improvements because technology is constantly advancing. It is a very solid router, and that is one of many industries that could utilize it. Healthcare is one such industry, and if it works for healthcare, then that is a major plus for that router.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Moving into the cloud without having to change a lot of our internal processes and retrain staff is one of the biggest benefits of this solution."
"This provided us a smooth experience while moving our load from on-premises data centers to the Google Cloud environments, and increased the adoption and the speed of the migration process."
"The solution is very stable."
"We can integrate the solution very well with various cloud networks, including AWS, Azure, and Google, which is what we are on, and we are provided with the right information in order to get analytics that will help us be more proactive and minimize exposure to threats."
"Workflows across the company ecosystem have can flow smoothly without experiencing any challenges."
"I like the tool's ability to manage cloud traffic locally without routing it through our data centers."
"Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management has created the best data management environment that can easily monitor workloads from the entire company networking system."
"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."
"Juniper Session Smart Router has positively impacted my organization by achieving a 30% to 40% reduction in WAN cost, which means less reliance on MPLS, with a 40% faster failover with near-zero user impact during link issues, and 20% to 30% less time spent on troubleshooting, along with fewer outages due to dynamic path selection, which facilitates fast branch deployment."
"Juniper Session Smart Router's real-time analytics and visibility features are easily accessible."
"I can share specific numbers; we achieved a 30 to 60% WAN cost reduction by reducing MPLS usage."
"The real-time analytics and visibility features are excellent, and its special troubleshooting tool is very strong."
"The best feature is the easiest way to deploy configuration and also back up them, and also to roll back quickly if there's an incident."
"The most valuable feature of Juniper Session Smart Router is its unique SDR channel."
"They provided us with a customized product according to our requirements."
"As compared to the other major vendors in the SD-WAN market, such as VeloCloud, Cisco, and others, the tunnel-free and secure vector routing technology is its major USP, which gives plenty of room to discuss with the customer why IPSec from 1998 is a bit outdated."
 

Cons

"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security needs to focus more on the VPN side by being more flexible with configuring the VPN with route-based VPN and having a failover with it."
"Today, we are trying to look more into encrypted traffic."
"It needs to cover additional kinds of infrastructure, like containers and serverless options. It's somewhat limited in that area."
"There is definitely some improvement required. We currently use a deployment template provided by AWS each time."
"With the incorporation of a lot of AI and machine learning, they can build some sort of a matrix for low-level threats or low-level things that require attention. There can be automation of those tasks so that we don't have to take more time and effort. There should be machine learning to eliminate level-one types of tasks."
"CloudGuard functions just like any other firewall. It functions very well. The only thing that could maybe be improved would be to integrate some tools that are not integrated with the SmartConsole, like the SmartView Monitor that we need to open on a different application to access."
"The initial setup is complex and could be made simpler."
"The biggest room for improvement is that, for a long time now, they've moved everything over to R80 but they still maintain some of the stuff in the old dashboard. They need to "buy in" and move everything to the modern dashboard so that you don't have to go to one place and to another place, at times, to configure the environment. It's time they just finish what they started and put everything in the new, modern dashboard."
"Regarding improvement, we still need to see what it can do."
"Juniper Session Smart Router can improve the integration for Wi-Fi devices and add additional Sassy deployments."
"Juniper Session Smart Router can be improved by simplifying onboarding for traditional network teams and providing better documentation for complex deployments, as well as improving the GUI for operational workflows and better migration tooling."
"My overall rating for Juniper Session Smart Router as a product is that earlier it was good, but currently, the replacement of the devices is very difficult, and the staff is also a challenge."
"Juniper Session Smart Router should have a more user-friendly graphical interface because the user interface is complex, and some upgrade operations are sometimes difficult."
"The UI of the SSR conductor is the main part where improvements can be done. Today, for every configuration step, you have to do a series of clicks. What we are missing there are wizards. For example, I have two applications, and I want one application to be prioritized against the other. In such a case, a wizard for assigning policies to a service without configuring each step by hand would be very helpful. There should be an overhaul of the GUI of the conductor. The functionality they have got in the Mist portal should be baked into the conductor itself. It would be really great, but as we all know, that won't happen."
"Everything can be improved. It could improve its security stack with malware detection, particularly in healthcare because of ransomware."
"I found some weaknesses on their hardware. They are sometimes breaking very often."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay approximately ‎€150,000 ($166,000 USD) per year."
"My experience has been extremely positive. It was not a concern because I had an account team that fought for pricing for our company. They were not pushing me to professional services for certain help. I was instantly getting a CloudGuard architect to help us out."
"Licensing is available on a monthly or yearly basis."
"Everything in this field is very expensive."
"I do not know the exact price, but it is fairly priced. It is neither cheap nor costly."
"I quite like the way they priced it. It is very reasonable."
"It is difficult to contextualize the pricing because we are used to Indian pricing and licensing."
"I do not have too much to compare to, but if I compare it with Azure Firewall, Scale Set is quite good. It has quite a good price."
"It is a simple bandwidth-based license and the orchestration comes bundled with the solution by default."
"We are currently renegotiating the offer for the licenses and the license bundle model. The license for an ISP has to be different from the license for an end customer. This is something we are currently renegotiating with Juniper, but, of course, the pricing for the licensing is always an issue when you want to get more customers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
16%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business133
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise146
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Juniper Session Smart Router?
I personally did not do the pricing. I imagine it was okay because the company did purchase it. In a lot of instances, particularly as it pertains to healthcare, they don't want to spend too much. ...
What needs improvement with Juniper Session Smart Router?
I think the current Juniper focuses more on switching rather than routing, which is a weak point in the product. Currently, I and my customers have not utilized the Session Awareness feature of Jun...
What is your primary use case for Juniper Session Smart Router?
I have been running my own company and working with Juniper Session Smart Router for almost 10 to 12 years because Larsen & Toubro is my client who will use Juniper devices for switching and fi...
 

Also Known As

CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP
128T Networking Platform, 128 Technology SD-WAN, Juniper SSR Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance
Revation Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs. Juniper Session Smart Router and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
919,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.