No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs Contrast Security Protect comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 WAF (formerly C...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th), DevSecOps (2nd)
Contrast Security Protect
Ranking in Application Security Tools
36th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Protect is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF)1.1%
Contrast Security Protect1.1%
Other97.8%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Krishnakumar Mahadevan - PeerSpot reviewer
CISO at Spink Solutions Private Limited
Cloud security has strengthened risk posture and improved advanced threat visibility
There are some API gateway and API securities I mentioned. If these are incorporated with AI-related features, particularly those seven key vulnerabilities I mentioned—token theft and tool poisoning—that would be beneficial. AI-related features are not included yet in Check Point CloudGuard WAF. However, they are present in FortiGate. That is the advantage of FortiGate now. FortiGate is stopping all AI-related vulnerabilities now. FortiGate has this capability. It is unfortunate that even Palo Alto also lacks one or two of these features. Check Point Quantum is very good, without a doubt. However, their capabilities are not in comparison with Palo Alto. There are some features, but there are some gaps in comparison with Palo Alto.
ToddMcAlister - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
It provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks.
I rate Contrast Security Protect eight out of 10. Overall, it's a solid product, but I deduct a couple of points because of the interface and some shortcomings in the reporting. If you have a large enterprise where you're dealing with a lot of servers, then it makes sense not to use the internal MySQL database. You should use something like Oracle or Microsoft SQL, but if you don't have many transactions, the embedded MySQL database works great.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I find the configuration and real-time monitoring features valuable."
"It helps me sleep at night, providing peace of mind."
"Check Point CloudGuard WAF has positively impacted my organization by significantly improving both security and operational efficiency, with a noticeable reduction in web-based threats, especially automated attacks and vulnerability exploits, thanks to its real-time prevention and reputation filter that has streamlined my workflow through automatic policy updates and integration smoothly with my CI/CD pipelines, allowing my DevOps teams to deploy security without delays."
"Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) has positively impacted my organization by reducing security incidents."
"We have had a number of real events where developers accidentally made commits of API keys, and we were able to detect and begin response actions in minutes. We had the API key revoked in less than five minutes in such events."
"I have thousands of exposed websites and APIs. Being able to control what is happening and try to prevent any attack is the best feature."
"With the solution, we managed to obtain complete comprehensive visibility of the entire environment in the cloud, thus having better control of each of the resources."
"From a security perspective, it is quite good."
"The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives."
"The solution has excellent real-time capabilities."
"Contrast Security's support is great. They're willing to spend a lot of time on your problem."
"The Protect solution allows applications to continue to run, even with known vulnerabilities, but will report or block attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities."
"Protect provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks."
 

Cons

"Support could be improved, particularly in terms of availability."
"CloudGuard could improve in areas such as ease of integration with Fortinet and reducing costs associated with deployment in cloud environments like Azure."
"A gap for improvement for Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) is the learning curve, as better training modules could help end customers, and pricing and reporting functionality could also be improved."
"They could include web functionalities such as sandboxing."
"We would like to have a solution of this type for the administration of applications from mobile devices."
"While Check Point CloudGuard WAF is a strong solution, it could be improved in a few areas such as simplifying and customizing the user interface and reporting database."
"Pricing is high, although possibly justified by the service received."
"We need to have many of the baselines or development guides providing less complex writing or development."
"We're not using it much anymore because we had some performance issues."
"Protect's reporting GUI is very basic. To get all statuses from the APIs, we needed to write our own KPI dashboard to provide reports."
"Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration."
"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If the pricing for the Infinity platform covers everything, it would be more straightforward. I had a hard time selling it to our CEO as a former CFO because of the differentials. There are different deltas year to year over a five-year period. It is very difficult to explain. It would be easier to digest for our executives if there was a flatter scale"
"Considering all the benefits we've observed, we find the price to be satisfactory."
"It is not cheap, but it is worth it."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly and competitive."
"Check Point CloudGuard Application Security's pricing is comparable to other products in the market."
"I work for an Indian banking client. In India, companies are on a budget. The company liked Check Point very much, but it was a little bit costly compared to FortiWeb. However, it had more features compared to FortiWeb."
"It is extremely affordable and high value for cost."
"I find the pricing to be reasonable."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.
920,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business57
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise40
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudGuard for Application Security?
It is a little bit expensive, but the pricing model is acceptable, though a reduction would make it more competitive with leaders such as Palo Alto.
What needs improvement with CloudGuard for Application Security?
The false positive rate is a concern, but I could recommend improvements where false positives have to be minimized better. This all depends on how the rules are customized and configured, and it c...
What is your primary use case for CloudGuard for Application Security?
The main purpose is to have network security through machine learning, which can offer threat detection and intelligence for my endpoints, and I am looking for application security. I am looking fo...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard AppSec, Check Point CloudGuard Code Security
Contrast Protect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Orange España, Paschoalotto
Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs. Contrast Security Protect and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.