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Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway 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 Unified Threat Management (UTM)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
244
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (8th), 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), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (5th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Compliance Management (5th)
Zyxel Unified Security Gateway
Ranking in Unified Threat Management (UTM)
12th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Unified Threat Management (UTM) category, the mindshare of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is 5.7%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is 3.3%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Unified Threat Management (UTM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)5.7%
Zyxel Unified Security Gateway3.3%
Other91.0%
Unified Threat Management (UTM)
 

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.
reviewer2399337 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales and technical consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
User has benefited from stable performance and effective completion of security tasks
I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thinking about using a different solution based on open source because Zyxel Unified Security Gateway…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We find all the features valuable, particularly the firewall, application control, URL filtering, and HTTPS detection."
"The most valuable feature is the centralized dashboard, which is used for managing all of the Check Point Security Gateways."
"The most valuable feature of Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management is the training."
"The tool's most valuable features are the REST APIs that help to automate the deployment and maintenance process. It helps us to reduce time to 15-25 minutes compared to the manual process which used to take around two to three hours."
"Its security and the definition of signatures are pretty good. Especially when you use those firewalls for a website, they pick up the signature very quickly."
"Auto remediation is a very effective feature that helps ensure less manual intervention."
"I give it a ten out of ten."
"It enabled us to move to cloud workloads safely while having the same level of security as we have on-prem."
"The solution can scale well."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
"The Zyxel Unified Security Gateway solution is stable and does its job effectively."
"The cost is very low."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."
 

Cons

"Compliance checks on cloud resources against various industry standards and compliance framework templates need to be improved."
"Dome9 should also support deployments that are on-premises and in a hybrid cloud."
"Pricing in Jamaica is a major issue, with users often citing it as a reason for not using Check Point."
"I am not a technical person, but generically, the user interface can be a little more intuitive. Our staff has trained network security and cloud security professionals, and they get it, but when you are trying to get to the customers to be able to pick it up and maintain it, it can be a bit difficult."
"It's not a scale set. It's a single node. We'd need to look at the scale set to see if there was a way to get better performance."
"Stability wise the product is stable but we had issues when we had really old hardware that had a less than stable OS."
"The migration to TerraForm is a little more complicated, but we made it work."
"Improvements can be made to the user interface."
"I have never seen it in any company that I've worked with before, and I would advise other companies not to buy it."
"The product has some scalability and data management issues where improvements are required."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved. The advanced UI allows me to do whatever I want, but this is where the issue of speed exists."
"The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden."
"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​They support either annual licensing or hourly. At the time of our last negotiation, it was either one or the other, you could not mix or match. I would have liked to mix/match. ​"
"On average, it is normally on the lower end, being less expensive than Palo Alto or Cisco."
"We explored both pay-as-you-go and build-your-own-licensing models, and found both to be competitive."
"The pricing is highly competitive and advantageous, offering great value."
"Its price is very fair."
"The product's licensing costs are yearly."
"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 pricing and licensing have been good. We just had to do a license increase for our portion of it. We had that done within a couple of days. Given the fact that it's purely a software-based license, it ends up being even quicker than doing it for an on-prem firewall."
"This gateway is pretty cheap."
"The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market."
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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
18%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
I cannot definitively comment on whether Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is an affordable product as I haven't done comparisons with other solutions. When our license expires, we plan to explore ope...
What needs improvement with Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden. I'm looking for something new that is slightly simpler. Regarding user experience, the...
What is your primary use case for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions. When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thin...
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.