Check Point NGFW unifies firewall, IPS, cloud sandboxing and AI-driven threat prevention with the ability to decrypt and inspect TLS 1.3 traffic. Integrated SD-WAN, zero-trust segmentation and automatic IoT device discovery broaden protection that many peers treat as add-ons. Because these advanced controls are baked into the gateway and run at line rate, the solution meets the rubric’s top-tier functionality requirements.

Check Point NGFW can run as a hardware gateway or a virtual image in data centers and is listed in cloud marketplaces such as AWS, giving enterprises consistent deployment options on-prem and in major clouds. Public-cloud templates are available but usually require some parameter tuning, and the REST API hooks into SIEM or SOAR tools with modest scripting effort. No mainstream containerized edition is offered, which prevents a top compatibility score.

SmartConsole provides centralized policies and searchable logs, yet reviewers note the interface is crowded and initial configuration feels overwhelming. New admins often require formal training and still resort to the CLI for certain tasks, so the learning curve and documentation land in the mid-range compared with peer firewalls

Check Point provides 24×7 TAC coverage with a 30-minute first response on critical tickets. ThreatCloud pushes new IPS, Anti-Virus and Anti-Bot signatures about every two hours, giving multiple updates each day. Advance replacement hardware is shipped the same or next business day and customers can tap a large knowledge base, matching the rubric’s level-4 criteria.