Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF)

What do you like best about the product?

It's ease of use and accessibility for new users. Genuinely helpful products with affordable price. Makes sense for enthusiasts and companies. Not much else to say.

What do you dislike about the product?

Nothing in particular, I would continue to use the service if I was doing anything at the moment that required it. It's a good product, nothing comes to mind as a dislike

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

It was handling security of my endpoints that i created personally as enthusiast. Benefits me by keeping me assured that my data is safe from attacks.

What do you like best about the product?

I like the strong protection Check Point WAF offers against web application attacks. Its easy-to-manage interface is a big plus for me, as is the real-time threat detection that it provides. I also appreciate the detailed visibility into web traffic and security events, which makes it easier to monitor and respond to potential threats. The documentation was helpful during the initial setup, allowing for a straightforward configuration. Additionally, it integrates well with other security tools, which enhances its effectiveness in our security infrastructure.

What do you dislike about the product?

One area that could be improved is reducing false positives and making policy tuning more straightforward. The reporting and dashboard customization options could also be more flexible and user-friendly.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Check Point WAF protects web applications from cyberattacks, detects malicious traffic, reduces security risks, and improves application security without affecting user experience.

What do you like best about the product?

Strong protection against OWASP Top 10 attacks
Easy integration with cloud environments
Good real-time threat prevention and bot protection
Centralized management and visibility
AI-driven threat intelligence from Check Point
Scalable for enterprise workloads
Helpful automation and policy tuning feature

What do you dislike about the product?

Initial setup can be complex
Can be expensive for smaller companies
Some advanced configurations require expertise
Dashboard/UI can feel overwhelming at first
Occasional false positives that need tuning
Support response time may vary depending on the plan

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Check Point CloudGuard WAF is solving web application security problems by blocking attacks such as SQL injection, XSS, bots, and API threats. It helps secure cloud applications, reduce security incidents, improve visibility into traffic, and support compliance requirements. The benefits include stronger protection for business applications, reduced downtime, lower risk of data breaches, faster threat response, and improved operational efficiency through centralized management and automation.

What do you like best about the product?

I use Check Point WAF to protect our internet-facing web application and APIs from web-based threats like SQL injection and cross-domain issues. The solution provides advanced threat prevention and automated policy cleaning. I appreciate the traffic inspection and reverse migration capabilities that ensure application availability and maintain security compliance. It supports both community and hybrid environments. We also integrate it with our broader security ecosystem, which helps in monitoring and provides better visibility for threat detection. Cloud integration capabilities have simplified development, providing better visibility to application networks and stronger protection against top vulnerabilities.

What do you dislike about the product?

While Check Point WAF provides strong application security and configuration capabilities, there are some areas that could be improved. The initial set of policy tuning process can be complex for new administrators, requiring a good understanding of web application traffic patterns. The interface could be more user-friendly, and the reporting and dashboard customization options could be enhanced to provide more actionable insights. Additionally, licensing can be challenging for smaller organizations, I assume. Faster deployment templates for cloud-native applications would further simplify the implementation.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use Check Point WAF to protect our web application and APIs from threats like SQL injection and ensure security compliance. It offers advanced threat prevention, automated policy cleaning, and supports hybrid environments, though initial setup needs expertise.

What do you like best about the product?

I appreciate how quickly you can get it up and running. Compared to older WAFs that take time to tune, this one is much faster to deploy and requires less ongoing maintenance, which makes a real difference in day-to-day operations.

What do you dislike about the product?

The platform is also not the most intuitive at first. While the core functionality is strong, getting familiar with some of the advanced features and configuration options takes time, especially if you’re used to simpler WAF solutions.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

It helps a lot with handling modern threats like API abuse, OWASP-type attacks, and zero-days without waiting for signatures or manual rule updates. That means you’re not always reacting after the fact — it blocks things much earlier in the cycle.

What do you like best about the product?

The AI engine catches zero-day attacks without throwing false positives at us all day. Bot protection killed our scraping problem, and managing cloud plus on-prem from one dashboard saves real time.

What do you dislike about the product?

The initial learning curve is steeper than I'd like. Documentation could be clearer for advanced policy tuning, and the console can feel sluggish when pulling reports across larger time ranges.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

It solves the problem of constant manual tuning that older WAFs needed. Now our APIs are shielded from injection attacks and credential stuffing automatically, and our team spends way less time triaging noise.

The customers I have worked with were primarily using Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) as an application security solution, mostly leveraging Check Point CloudGuard for various purposes such as protecting their application servers from the top 10 OWASP attacks and for Zero-Day protection.

My clients were not working separately with Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF); they were receiving a unified platform that included firewall, email security, and endpoint security, so the integration effectively eliminated silos in their environment.

Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) was valuable primarily because the data center was in Dubai, making it convenient for customers in the region, and the user interface was really helpful and easy to understand.

Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) helps my clients reduce total cost of ownership, and the return on investment was really high for Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF), and it was the only product with GenAI security features compared to other WAF products.

Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) provides benefits such as reduction in alert fatigue with fewer false positives, Zero-Day protection, and the introduction of GenAI LLM features that customers really appreciate.

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.

I have been working with Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) for almost two years.

I can rate stability at approximately 8.5.

I can say scalability is a 9.

Technical support is rated at 10.

I am currently working with Palo Alto as the product I replaced Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) with. I totally moved to Palo Alto from Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF).

The initial setup for Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) is simple; it is not that complex as long as a customer has a basic understanding of how WAF works.

Deployment was really easy for Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF); it does not have any complex deployment requirements.

Barracuda is the main competitor of Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF), along with Fortinet, but Barracuda excels in application security and is doing great in this space.

No product can provide 100% protection, but Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) uses multi-method protection with AI machine learning to detect abnormalities, alongside features like ThreatCloud for real-time analysis of potential zero-day threats. I will highly recommend Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) to other users. I have given this review an overall rating of 8.

Public Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

I want to protect my application hosted in my cloud by preventing attacks against my top OWASP Top 10 threats. I am enabling Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) as my application firewall.

The integration is straightforward because I am hosting in the cloud, so Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) can be hosted in a public location wherever my cloud vendor is located as a service provider, and I can host the application within a change of DNS.

I have been using it for six months, and the biggest advantages for me are that Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) offers more than other F5 firewalls, which have only application protection called ASM (Application Security Monitoring). In contrast, Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) provides protection on IPS along with application protection.

Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) itself provides an IPS function where I can protect against my Layer 7 traffic, which is not available in other vendors. The traditional WAF does not have the capacity of IPS functions.

The intrusion prevention capability, I can only see in Layer 3 functions and stateful functions, which is the traditional firewall capability. Other vendors are keeping this in their Web Application Firewall, but Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) has integrated it differently.

False positives are significantly less here compared to traditional Web Application Firewalls because they are more focused on the AI front. Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) integrates an AI platform within the Web Application itself using API protection with AI and what they call GenAI protection.

They excel at creating the profile itself, which is the basic functionality of WAF. Normally, I deploy in preventive mode, which takes some time for learning, but I prefer to operate in preventing mode only.

The negative aspect is that Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) uses Check Point Harmony in its management console, which sometimes creates latency when connecting to or opening the platform. This is one function they are lagging in.

The reporting functions need improvement. For example, I want to calculate traffic metrics, but I cannot see them in the current Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF). To know the overall traffic for today on the application, I have to check multiple dashboards instead of one single dashboard.

I have been using it for six months, and Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) offers more than other F5 firewalls, which have only application protection called ASM (Application Security Monitoring). Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) provides protection on IPS along with application protection. Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) itself provides an IPS function where I can protect against my Layer 7 traffic, which is not available in other vendors.

It is very stable.

Scalability is very good.

The support team is providing good support.

It is easy to deploy and does not require much effort.

Return on Investment is a key factor for me in deciding to buy a solution on a major scale, so it is very important for me to consider it. I would say the ROI is about 15 to 20 percent.

I am comparing it to F5.

I would definitely recommend this solution because I do not want to implement one more traffic function. I can eliminate the firewall and use Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) alone, thus eliminating Layer 3 traffic directly connecting to my Web Application Firewall.

I would say the TCO is reduced by 20 to 22 percent. The reduction in false positives will definitely be more than 30 percent.

Breach Reduction reduces the false positive part significantly. For example, I have multiple solutions from multiple vendors, and it definitely reduces my false positive alerts and aids in my Breach Reduction efforts. If a person is having a bot attack or if someone attacks with network anomalies on my application, I can identify that.

I rate Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) overall as an 8 or 8.5 out of 10.

Hybrid Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)