Check Point 4000 Appliances vs. pfSense

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Check Point 4000 Appliances
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Check Point’s 4000-series appliances is a legacy firewall offering. It also provides IPsec VPN access and intrusion prevention within the offering.N/A
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
pfSense is a firewall and load management product available through the open source pfSense Community Edition, as well as a the licensed edition, pfSense Plus (formerly known as pfSense Enterprise). The solution provides combined firewall, VPN, and router functionality, and can be deployed through the cloud (AWS or Azure), or on-premises with a Netgate appliance. It as scalable capacities, with functionality for SMBs. As a firewall, pfSense offers Stateful packet inspection, concurrent…
$179
per appliance
Pricing
Check Point 4000 AppliancespfSense
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
SG-1100
$179
per appliance
SG-2100
$229
per appliance
SG-3100
$399
per appliance
SG-5100
$699
per appliance
XG-7100-DT
$899
per appliance
XG-7100-1U
$999
per appliance
XG-1537
$1,949
per appliance
XG-1541
$2,649
per appliance
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Check Point 4000 AppliancespfSense
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
Check Point 4000 AppliancespfSense
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Check Point 4000 Appliances
9.1
1 Ratings
7% above category average
pfSense
7.6
11 Ratings
11% below category average
Identification Technologies9.01 Ratings5.110 Ratings
Visualization Tools8.01 Ratings7.08 Ratings
Content Inspection9.01 Ratings4.111 Ratings
Policy-based Controls9.01 Ratings10.011 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.01 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Firewall Management Console10.01 Ratings9.510 Ratings
Reporting and Logging10.01 Ratings8.011 Ratings
VPN10.01 Ratings10.011 Ratings
High Availability10.01 Ratings10.011 Ratings
Stateful Inspection9.01 Ratings7.011 Ratings
Proxy Server8.01 Ratings6.011 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Check Point 4000 AppliancespfSense
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Sophos UTM
Sophos UTM
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Check Point 4000 AppliancespfSense
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.7
(24 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Check Point 4000 AppliancespfSense
Likelihood to Recommend
Check Point Software Technologies
Well suited for small to medium business with less than 1000 users. Good edge device, NAT is easy to work with. The anti-malware, anti-spyware are worthwhile paid add-ons. Anti-spoofing is built in, and required to be put in. The split of management between Gaia and secure platform applications is painful, but nothing that can't be gotten around.
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Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
Because pfSense is built around open source software, it is very convenient to be able to deploy in the event of hardware failure. We once had a client with a proprietary router that failed. While the router was under warranty, the expected time for the new router to arrive was about 2 weeks. We decided to implement pfSense for the client as a stop gap and ultimately ended up deploying the full enterprise appliance. Being able to get up and running using commodity hardware was a huge win for the client. We've also had a great amount of success deploying pfSense hardware at apartment complexes. The DNS resolver works great and we've had no issues handling multiple VLANs with various DHCP scopes on it. Finally, we've had clients that require having a failover cluster. Utilizing the built in CARP capabilities, we've been able to provide a very robust failover system that requires little maintenance and no downtime in the event of equipment failure.
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Pros
Check Point Software Technologies
  • If you have critical data then you can use this firewall for secure your organization
  • You can also use for cloud security
  • If you want the deep packet inspection then this is one of the best firewall for you.
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Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
  • Easy to use. Good user interface design! Easy to understand and easy to set up.
  • Lower hardware requirement. 3 years ago, we used an old PC to run it. Now, we have changed to a router device with Celeron CPU and 8GB RAM. It runs smoothly with a 1000G commercial broadband.
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Cons
Check Point Software Technologies
  • Steep learning curve for admins
  • No packet tracer application like the ASA to test flows prior to putting in new rules, etc.
  • Policy packages are all or nothing. I cannot uninstall or turn off a piece of the overall policy, it's all or nothing.
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Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
  • I did kind of mention a Con in the Pro section with OpenVPN.
  • When I create a config for an employee other employees are able to login to that config.
  • I could be doing something wrong when I am making it - I am not afraid to admit that as I am pretty new to all of this, but it seems like it builds a key and I would think the key would be unique in some way to each employee, but I could be wrong.
  • I actually do not have a lot of Con's for this software - I did not get to set this up on our work network so I am not sure of any downfalls when installing.
  • I installed this on my personal machine in a Hyper-V environment to get a feel for it before I started working on it at work and it seemed pretty smooth. I didn't run into any issues.
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Usability
Check Point Software Technologies
No answers on this topic
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
The interface is simple, has sane defaults, and is consistent throughout.
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Alternatives Considered
Check Point Software Technologies
We were using the Cisco ASA 5525 but this firewall was not fully secure. Lots of advanced features were missing so we installed the Check Point 4000 Appliances and we are really happy with the features, advanced IPS and web filtering help us to protect our organization and also more control our user traffic.
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Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
While you can get the performance out of other products, pfSense offers the unique ability to put other services on the same device. Products such as Untagle's NG Firewall and SonicWall's TZ series offer cost effective options for firewall and VPN services, having incoming load balancing and connection proxies on the same device as the firewall offers extremely easy configuration and day to day management of network services
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Return on Investment
Check Point Software Technologies
  • We have not seen a zero-day exploit since implementing the anti-spyware, anti-malware, and URL filtering functionality
  • We have not seen a successful intrusion into our systems since the implementation of our checkpoint 4000
  • We have had this firewall for 5+ years, and it still has much life left in it.
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Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
  • Using pfSense has allowed us to build a professional network in our small office without needing a lot of proprietary hardware, saving thousands of dollars in IT infrastructure investment.
  • The cost for using pfSense is free, so it's a great option for those who don't have a large IT budget
  • pfSense utilizes all of the industry standard services to provide all of it's functionality, so support for service-level issues is readily available
  • Because of how much work has been put into pfSense to make it rock solid and reliable, we're able to support our network with minimal IT staffing, saving us thousands of dollars/year in personnel alone.
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