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

The compared Check Point Software Technologies and Fortinet solutions aren't in the same category. Check Point Software Technologies is ranked #8 in Firewalls , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 2.7% mindshare in the category. Fortinet is ranked #11 in MS , and holds a 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Check Point Software Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

Check Point Cloud Firewall ...

Read 170 Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) reviews

20,054 Views
12,032 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

ShieldX

Read 4 ShieldX reviews

1,138 Views
376 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Check Point Cloud Firewall ...

ShieldX

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and ShieldX are two leading network security solutions. Users are generally happier with the support and pricing of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, but ShieldX offers superior features that many users feel justify its cost.

Features: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers advanced threat prevention, seamless integration with cloud environments, and an intuitive user interface. ShieldX provides scalability, robust micro-segmentation capabilities, and enhanced security for dynamic cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security users report complexity in configuration, limited analytics capabilities, and the need for enhanced reporting features. ShieldX needs better documentation, improved integration with third-party tools, and optimization for performance in large-scale deployments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is praised for its straightforward deployment model and responsive customer service. ShieldX has a user-friendly deployment but receives mixed reviews regarding customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is noted for its competitive pricing and favorable ROI, making it a cost-effective choice. ShieldX, while more expensive, delivers high ROI due to its advanced features.

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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 ...

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

170

Ranking in other categories

Firewalls (8th), Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), Cloud and Data Center Security (5th), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (4th)

ShieldX

Average Rating

9.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Microsegmentation Software (11th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is designed for Firewalls and holds a mindshare of 2.7%, up 0.6% compared to last year.
ShieldX, on the other hand, focuses on Microsegmentation Software, holds 2.3% mindshare, up 0.4% since last year.

Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)	2.7%
Fortinet FortiGate	14.0%
OPNsense	7.9%
Other	75.4%

Firewalls

Microsegmentation Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ShieldX	2.3%
Illumio Segmentation	23.2%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation	19.0%
Other	55.5%

Microsegmentation Software

Featured Reviews

reviewer2875401

Network Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Unified security policies have protected our hybrid network with deep, user-based controls

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 have L2 infrastructure, you cannot build a unified clustering system everywhere. As a result, the problem usually is not with Check Point, but with the cloud. The main problem with Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is that it uses a separate thick client instead of a browser. A browser-based SmartConsole exists, but it still has a number of limitations, while the thick client, the so-called SmartConsole, often works unstably, freezes, and has to be restarted. I do not recommend using Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) as a VPN hub for site-to-site VPN because it is inconvenient to monitor the state of its tunnels, especially visually. It does not have a convenient snap-in and everything can be checked only via the console, which is very inconvenient. Check Point is not the most universal solution as a device that provides routing and administration capabilities in addition to security. It is an excellent firewall, but it has a number of limitations in terms of routing and in creating VPN sessions, especially in terms of displaying their states.

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MichaelProcyshyn

IT Director at park holidays uk

Proactively monitors, blocks, and reports what it has blocked; and self-updates meaning there is zero maintenance

The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput. The traffic through our website depends on holiday bookings. It's very quiet in November through January, and then our traffic picks up quite rapidly and, at our peak, we will take in excess of a million pounds of business a day through our website. The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides. Uptime on the system has been 648 days and we do very little to it because it self-updates and alerts. It does everything that we need it to do, so the administration side of it is zero. One of the beauties about ShieldX is that it's such a good "fire-and-forget" product.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CloudGuard Network security has increased our confidence in secure cloud deployments and migrations by 50%."

"The overall security of the environment has been greatly improved by implementing the Check Point Virtual Systems solution."

"It provides a huge benefit in many ways, offering a boost in confidence for secure cloud deployment and migration."

"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has a beautiful threat emulation different from the market."

"We were able to seamlessly extend our on-premise protection to Cloud and didn't require any effort."

"My advice to others is the solution is very stable, and reliable, and they should ensure that they invest in Check Point."

"Despite the price being on the higher side, the value for investments is substantial."

"The CloudGuard Network Security's most valuable feature is implementing IPS for accessing our data center and server environment in Azure. It helps us to prevent attacks. By protecting our environment with Check Point, which we were already familiar with, it provided a solution that extended into the cloud environment."

More Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) pros

"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX."

"The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides."

"Once you install it you can virtually forget about it; it's very low-maintenance and high-protection."

"Very often, when new challengers come in, what they do is they end up coming in at a lower cost with more functionality."

"...It takes the exact same policies that you would apply to your on-premise environment and enables you to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"The Adaptive Intention Engine is fantastic. It allows us to develop security policies using the language of our internal customers. It's machine-learning applied to security workflows. That allows us to much more easily construct the policies that will protect those workflows."

"ShieldX has been designed from the very beginning to work well in cloud environments. It understands autoscaling, automation, and auto-configuration. These are the things which are important in today's operating environment."

"It has helped us tighten our security posture. Now, staff can only access things that they should be accessing."

More ShieldX pros

Cons

"If you compare the GUI with the Palo Alto and Forcepoint in the Cisco, they're very easy. Check Point, due to its design, is a little bit complex. They should make the GUI easy to use so that anyone can understand it easily, like Fortinet's GUI. Many companies end up using Fortinet because the GUI is very easy, and there's no need for training. They just deploy the box and do the configuration."

"In terms of user interface and usability, the Smart Console UI is feature-rich; however, for new admins, navigation is not always intuitive, and log search feels clunky compared to SIM tools."

"Throughput on the virtual firewall is an issue in case the organization wants to migrate a workload to the cloud, and it becomes a bottleneck."

"To be honest, we don't have many clients who have taken CloudGuard, as the feedback has not been that great."

"There is room for improvement in the integration with PaaS services from the public cloud. It would be very helpful."

"The main issue that I have noticed is that for deployment, it still requires a dedicated management server, and the gateway is completely different. That sometimes can cause issues."

"The product needs to offer multi-tenancy."

"I would focus on the implementation in the cloud, as it relies on third-party vendors like Azure and AWS. It's not seamless; the solution should be more straightforward for complicated environments."

More Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) cons

"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so."

"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory. We can't seem to set it up."

"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so. As the vendor continues to evolve and add future functionality, we want to make sure that we are still keeping up with the integrations, etc. Time will be the key factor here. The proper support for some of the latest technologies, Docker containers, etc. They need to keep up with threat landscape, so we will see how the security get layered. This is what we are going to be keeping an eye on."

"With any kind of tool like ShieldX, where you're in the cloud instead of a traditional firewall, you're using CPU resources in those environments to provide the protection. So there's a cost associated with CPU resources. I'm pressing upon them to make the product much more efficient and use less CPUs to do the same thing."

"There should be a bit more customer care, with regular review meetings on it or regular reports. It would be nice to have a quarterly or biannual review of what ShieldX has blocked."

"I would like better reports and in-depth reporting."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licesning has some good features. For example, the scaling feature is free of charge, allowing multiple scale-ups and scale-downs over a two-week period, which is pretty good."

"The price is fair for most of the customers. We don't find the price excessive. It's okay."

"It is not expensive."

"Handling costs is not my department. Licensing has been quite acceptable. It is a bit easier now, but when I began working with CloudGuard, it was a bit too technical."

"The tool's pricing is been higher than other solutions, but it seems like it's turning downwards."

"We got discounts on pricing."

"It is fairly priced, but it can be a little expensive from time to time."

"There is flexibility in the different licensing models that are offered."

More Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) pricing and cost advice

"Security policies are now applied as applications are going up. Because it's automated, we don't have the three to four week delay. The insertion of applications in the cloud for us dropped from an average of three to four weeks to a couple of days."

"We are actually expecting our costs to drop in the coming year, but it is just a matter of the licensing expiring. That is going to happen in the next six months or so. Then, we will start to see a decrease in overall spend."

"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX. It might not be the big name out there, but it does everything that you are looking for in microsegmentation at a very low price."

"ShieldX ensures that we can have the separation needed for our environment to avoid drastically increasing the cost on the licensing side. From this perspective, it's been very positive and helpful."

"For a three-year deal we paid £55,000 plus tax... But, and this is a big "but," this was over two years ago. ShieldX had only just hit the market. We were the first company in Europe to buy ShieldX."

"ShieldX also enables us to migrate to cloud environments faster. That is an important part of it for sure because it takes the exact same policies that we would apply to our on-premise environment and enables us to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"We are very happy with the pricing and licensing. It's about getting a site-wide license. One of the challenges that we've had with our previous vendor had been the cost of licensing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

17%

Outsourcing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	73
Midsize Enterprise	41
Large Enterprise	81

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...

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What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?

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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 ...

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Comparisons

Azure Firewall vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Compared 7% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Compared 6% of the time

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

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

Compared 4% of the time

More Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) Competitors

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs ShieldX

Compared 18% of the time

Illumio Segmentation vs ShieldX

Compared 14% of the time

VMware NSX vs ShieldX

Compared 9% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs ShieldX

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Flow Network Security vs ShieldX

Compared 7% of the time

More ShieldX Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)

August 2026

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) report

Download Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) product report

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX

July 2026

Download ShieldX product report

Also Known As

CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO

Overview

Check Point Cloud Firewall delivers advanced threat prevention and administration ease with centralized management of hybrid clouds. It offers seamless cloud platform integration, maintaining consistent security policies and enhancing efficiency.

Check Point Cloud Firewall is designed for comprehensive cloud security, ensuring perimeter protection, traffic inspection, and threat prevention. It is often used for safeguarding workloads and applications in public cloud settings like AWS and Azure. The firewall effectively controls both east-west and north-south traffic and supports hybrid cloud setups. Utilizing features like VPN, IPS, and URL filtering, it secures environments across multiple platforms, helping manage compliance effectively while addressing latency, API integration, and onboarding challenges.

What are the key features?

Advanced Threat Prevention: Defends against cyber threats across hybrid clouds.
Auto-Scaling: Automatically adjusts resources to meet demand.
Unified Security Management: Centralizes management for consistent security.
REST API Automation: Enables seamless integration with existing workflows.
Robust VPN Capabilities: Ensures secure data transmission across networks.

What benefits to expect in reviews?

Ease of Administration: Simplified management processes across environments.
Operational Efficiency: Enhances productivity by reducing risk and complexity.
Consistent Security Policies: Maintains a uniform security posture between clouds.
User-Friendly Interface: Streamlines user interactions and task completion.

Check Point Cloud Firewall sees frequent use in sectors needing robust perimeter protection, such as finance and healthcare, where compliance is critical. Its capabilities suit businesses utilizing public cloud infrastructures, managing complex hybrid models, or requiring strong VPN services and traffic control.

Check Point Software Technologies

ShieldX offers advanced, scalable security for cloud and data center environments, addressing dynamic threats with precision. Its robust framework enables efficient threat detection and response, safeguarding critical infrastructure.

Specialized in delivering comprehensive security, ShieldX is designed for organizations looking to protect their cloud assets and on-premises data centers. It integrates seamlessly within existing IT frameworks, providing multi-layered defense against cyber threats. ShieldX uses machine learning and AI to detect anomalies and respond to potentially malicious activities, ensuring data integrity and availability while maintaining regulatory compliance.

What are the most important features of ShieldX?

Dynamic Security Policies: Automatically adjust security measures based on current threats.
Micro-Segmentation: Provides granular control of traffic between workloads.
Automated Threat Detection: Leverages AI to identify and mitigate threats instantly.
Comprehensive Visibility: Gain insights into network activities across all environments.

What benefits should users look for in ShieldX reviews?

Scalability: Easily adapts to growing security needs without disrupting operations.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces overhead by streamlining security management processes.
Enhanced Compliance: Supports adherence to regulatory requirements with minimal effort.
Increased Uptime: Minimizes downtime by preemptively addressing threats.

ShieldX is widely implemented in industries like finance and healthcare, where data protection is critical. Its versatile security protocols are tailored to meet specific sector needs, fostering a reliable defense against sector-specific threats. Organizations in these fields leverage ShieldX to ensure client data confidentiality and operational continuity.

Fortinet

Sample Customers

Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance

Iowa State University

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