Check Point Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways vs. pfSense

1) For huge DC environments and complex networks 2) Where clients were consistent up-time like FSI and healthcare 3) Application-aware client req. and preventing day 0 cyber attacks. 4) Securing East-West traffic, hyper-scaling capabilities 5)Some advantages - Best Security meets Ultimate Hardware and SandBlast Zero Day Protection out of the box, Modular hardware 6) High Performance CPUs

Incentivized

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.

• SSL inspection provides more effective mitigation of threat and data leakage with the ability to inspect and analyze encrypted traffic.
• Threat emulation and extraction provides protection against zero-day threats without compromising the data of infected files.
• 'Office mode' VPN provides a seamless connected experience for remotely connected individuals.
• Application control features provide granular restrictions to the type of application traffic than can pass through the network.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• HTTPS Inspection -- The firewall has troubles re-packaging the packet in a way that some websites are able to interpret correctly
• Support -- Even getting support directly from Check Point isn't the easiest of experiences. They are more concerned about how fast they can close a ticket out, rather than fixing the problem.
• Custom reports -- Custom reporting is extremely limited

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

The interface is simple, has sane defaults, and is consistent throughout.

Check Point has a variety of support options that can be used to optimize your investment in the product. Companies with a larger information security and certified checkpoint engineer employee base can benefit from a standard SLA, while companies with a smaller security engineering footprint or more critical implementations can opt for premium, elite or diamond packages that even include the ability to provide on-site engineers for major security incidents. Check Point PRO support also provides the ability to outsource maintenance concerns by automating case creation and follow up when application components fail.

Incentivized

In a heterogeneous environment, we wanted to keep multiple vendors for multiple purposes. CP was found very good in handling basic Next generation firewalls features along with handling of VPNs.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• Although there are better alternatives out there, Check Point delivers results for the price we paid for the system.
• Since implementation, we have not have any major issues with the product, minor issues were resolved in a timely fashion.
• Check Point currently fulfills our need for an outside facing firewall, when our organization grows larger, we will be looking at higher level enterprise solutions.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized