Check Point Harmony SASE vs. Microsoft Azure

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Harmony SASE
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Check Point Harmony SASE, based on Perimeter 81 which was acquired by Check Point in late 2023, is designed to simplify secure network, cloud and application access for the modern and distributed workforce.
$10
per month per user
Microsoft Azure
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.
$29
per month
Pricing
Check Point Harmony SASEMicrosoft Azure
Editions & Modules
Essentials
$10
per month per user
Premium
$15
per month per user
Premium Plus
$20
per month per user
Enterprise
Custom
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Harmony SASEMicrosoft Azure
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details+$50 per month per gateway. Discounts available for annual pricing.The free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Check Point Harmony SASEMicrosoft Azure
Features
Check Point Harmony SASEMicrosoft Azure
Identity Management
Comparison of Identity Management features of Product A and Product B
Check Point Harmony SASE
10.0
1 Ratings
12% above category average
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Multi-Factor Authentication10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Zero Trust Security
Comparison of Zero Trust Security features of Product A and Product B
Check Point Harmony SASE
9.8
1 Ratings
12% above category average
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Continuous Verification10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Secure Web Gateways10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Segmentation Leveraging9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Admin Access Control10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Check Point Harmony SASE
-
Ratings
Microsoft Azure
8.5
27 Ratings
3% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.126 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.725 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.624 Ratings
Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.225 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.326 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.424 Ratings
Operating system support00 Ratings9.026 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
Automation00 Ratings8.224 Ratings
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Check Point Harmony SASEMicrosoft Azure
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User Ratings
Check Point Harmony SASEMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
7.9
(2 ratings)
8.8
(96 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(17 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(36 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
6.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(27 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Check Point Harmony SASEMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
Check Point Software Technologies
I'd suggest that Perimeter81 is recommended when you want something that is easy to administrate, with little maintenance, unlike a VPN/secure network that you host and manage internally. We've had incidents when there has been downtime at Perimeter81, which has effectively locked us out of some of our secure services (anything locked down via IP). They have made improvements to their infrastructure and it seems to have improved in recent months, but this is something to keep in mind for critical connections
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Microsoft
Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
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Pros
Check Point Software Technologies
  • Simple easy to read icon.
  • You can hover over and see if you are logged in via the systems tray on your computer.
  • Easy to switch between regions around the world.
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Microsoft
  • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
  • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
  • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
  • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
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Cons
Check Point Software Technologies
  • Customer support was lacking before, now seems better.
  • Had much difficulty using Chrome as my browser to install the app.
  • Increase the throughput speeds at time would be nicer.
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Microsoft
  • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
  • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
  • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
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Likelihood to Renew
Check Point Software Technologies
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
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Usability
Check Point Software Technologies
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
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Reliability and Availability
Check Point Software Technologies
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
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Support Rating
Check Point Software Technologies
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
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Implementation Rating
Check Point Software Technologies
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
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Alternatives Considered
Check Point Software Technologies
In the beginning, it was a bit rough getting it to work and getting any kind of quality support from customer service. But recently they really improved their service and customer service. I believe they raise 100M in new funding which provides them the resources to make a better product with better tools and a better help desk.
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Microsoft
As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
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Return on Investment
Check Point Software Technologies
  • I think it is just a cost of doing business.
  • I don't think the cost is too prohibitive.
  • We also use it as an example of what a small cost can provide big protection for your security.
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Microsoft
  • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
  • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
  • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
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ScreenShots