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Check Point NGFW vs OPNsense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
318
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Check Point NGFW
Ranking in Firewalls
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
308
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
OPNsense
Ranking in Firewalls
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point NGFW is 3.0%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 12.3%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable
In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.
Manikandan Kannan - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlined management through dual-interface configuration capabilities with excellent support
We use Check Point NGFW for security purposes. Our clients use it for security reasons, as mentioned during the call The most valuable feature is the availability of two consoles. In the normal GA login, I can create interfaces and configure interface IPs, while in the SmartConsole, I manage the…
Eddy Ramirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Good interface and firewall capabilities and overall easy to use
The security has improved as we can isolate the network. We can do attrition prevention via a tool that comes with the solution. We can have a VPN solution in place for those that work from home, outside the network, in a secure manner. We also like that it offers good authentication. It offers radius-based authentication, which has been useful for the company. The main platform is under the Open VPN firewall. The solution has high availability. When we have different ISPs, we can actually load balance those links or actually put some priority or even classify the traffic that might go into one ISP or another.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"The interface and the IPS intrusion prevention are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The ability to split single hardware into multiple virtuals along with support for dynamic routing using BGP is very useful for our environment."
"Check Point has a really cool GUI."
"The most valuable feature for us is the VSX, the virtualization."
"Newer versions are much more stable."
"I like the dashboard, redundancy, log analysis, threat prevention and ISP, and VPN."
"The SmartView monitor and SmartReporter help us to monitor and report on traffic."
"Within the organization, the inspection of packages has given us great help in detecting traffic that may be a threat to the institution."
"OPNsense is easy to use and open source."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"The DNS-level filtering is impressive for thwarting time scanners."
"The interface and the dashboard are the most valuable features of this solution."
"What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control."
"The IDS and IPS features are valuable. From the usability perspective, there is a lot of good documentation. As IT professionals, we found it very easy to configure the firewall. It was easy to configure and use."
"The most valuable features in OPNsense are reporting and visibility."
"I mostly rely on the solution's network intrusion detection and prevention system, along with other systems, CMs, and log management."
 

Cons

"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having better visibility. Palo Alto has better visibility."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"Fortinet needs more memory to save the log files. We need it to save the logs on the hardware and not in the cloud. I know this feature is available in FortiCloud, but if we need this log locally, it is not available."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"The web UI for VSX could be better."
"Some features, like the VPN, antispam, data loss prevention, etc., are managed in an external console. In the future, I'd like all features in the same console, in one place, where we can see and configure all features."
"I still don't have access to the reporting service."
"Finding support is a little bit hard."
"The need to offer scheduled policy pushes in Smart Console."
"It would be nice to add more features to the WatchTower app to be able to perform certain administrative functions without the need for local access."
"VMware is not supported by the platform."
"When installed on Windows, the system with low storage space slows down."
"In terms of improvement, the performance could be enhanced."
"OPNsense struggles to handle large volumes of voice traffic, indicating scalability issues in that specific use case."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"I would like to see better SD-WAN performance."
"The IPS solution could be more reliable."
"An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense."
"The only thing that I would like to see improved is the Insight or the NetFlow analysis part. It would be good to have the possibility to dig down on the Insight platform. Right now, we can easily do only a few analyses. If this page becomes more powerful, it surely will be a well-adopted platform."
"I would like better documentation concerning the provided packages and their integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"It is quite affordable for our customers. There is a separate cost for IPS, antivirus, web filtering, and other features. They have a great choice of licenses. You can go for the license that you want, which is quite useful."
"The price of FortiGate support is too expensive."
"It is affordable. Palo Alto is much more expensive than Fortinet."
"I would say that all things considered, the pricing is pretty good."
"The pricing for the product is alright."
"Licensing is usually on a three-year period."
"Its price is normal. If I compare it with other vendors, such as Palo Alto, it's normal. Palo Alto is expensive."
"It may be considered relatively expensive, but the investment is justified when compared to other competitors."
"Check Point NGFW can be expensive compared to other competitors, but the price matches the functionality and efficiency of the solution."
"While it may be slightly more expensive, when compared with competition it is reasonable."
"Comparatively, Check Point pricing is a little high. However, if you have that budget, I would recommend anybody to go with Check Point."
"One of the main reasons that we went with Check Point is that they provide a good solution for a firewall but at an affordable price. As a state agency, we can't afford Cisco Firepower. It's just out of our budget to be able to pay for something where licensing and hardware are so expensive. Check Point has really met our needs for a budget-friendly solution."
"Check Point should provide some basic license for mobile access VPN by default, for at least five to ten users."
"Cisco pushes clients to purchase their hardware, and this is not the case with Check Point. This helps to easily manage costs."
"Check Point solutions are very expensive here. They're good, but they're expensive... Check Point is only useful for customers that have a big IT budget."
"Its pricing is unbeatable in comparison to other firewalls. You can have a small instance that could be €80 a month with the hardware underneath. Azure Firewall and FortiGate are out of the question at this price. If you are on a public cloud, you need the underlying infrastructure. Other than that, there is no additional cost. If you have it on-prem, you have to buy the server or the appliance. The hardware cost is replaced with the infrastructure cost in the cloud. You also have costs for the public IPs and underlying VMs, but that's not related to OPNsense. It would be the same for a FortiGate deployment on Azure. You need a FortiGate license, and you need the underlying infrastructure that scales up depending on your needs."
"It's not expensive."
"We are using the paid version."
"OPNsense is a well known open-source tool."
"OPNsense is open source software so at this time it is free for us to use."
"I'm using the free version of OPNsense. I didn't check the pricing for the solution because I still need to test it before getting the approval to purchase OPNsense, and it isn't easy to get approval from the higher-ups."
"The price of OPNsense is good."
"It is a free solution, and when you compare it to alternatives like FortiGate, which is quite powerful but also costly, the value becomes evident."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
59%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Government
3%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
How does Check Point NGFW compare with Fortinet Fortigate?
I have experience on both from Disti and channel experience. Please find below my comments (nothing new as such). -Ch...
Which would you recommend - Azure Firewall or Check Point NGFW?
Azure Firewall is easy to use and provides excellent support. Valuable features include integration into the overall ...
What do you like most about Check Point NGFW?
Check Point NGFW provides essential security, featuring no-obligation access for secure connections, strong intrusion...
What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?
Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and cl...
What do you like most about OPNsense?
What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?
I consider the pricing of OPNsense to be high when compared with other market products. However, as a free firewall p...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Check Point NG Firewall, Check Point Next Generation Firewall
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Control Southern, Optimal Media
1. Deciso B.V. 2. iXsystems, Inc.  3. EuroBSDCon  4. Netgate  5. Claranet  6. Voleatech  7. Open Systems AG  8. Securebit AG  9. Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH  10. AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH  Additional customers include: T-Systems International GmbH, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone GmbH, 1&1 IONOS SE, OVHcloud, Hetzner Online GmbH, Strato AG, PlusServer GmbH, Host Europe GmbH, United Internet AG, 1&1 Versatel Deutschland GmbH, QSC AG, Bechtle AG, Cancom SE, Computacenter AG & Co. oHG, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH, Atos SE, Capgemini SE, Accenture plc, IBM Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point NGFW vs. OPNsense and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.