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Chainguard Containers vs Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 13, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
Chainguard Containers
Ranking in Container Security
29th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
3.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Container Image Security (1st)
Check Point Cloud Firewall ...
Ranking in Container Security
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
246
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (8th), Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP) (1st), Vulnerability Management (5th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), Cloud and Data Center Security (3rd), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (5th), WAN Edge (3rd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (4th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (5th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Compliance Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chainguard Containers is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is 3.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security)3.0%
Qualys TotalCloud1.8%
Chainguard Containers1.0%
Other94.2%
Container Security
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats
The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.
ParthasarathyT - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Publicis Sapient
Secures container builds, has simplified compliance audits and reduced vulnerabilities dramatically
The benefit of Chainguard Containers is that it makes development simpler. It makes the development team confident there will not be any bugs or vulnerabilities in the image they are using. It is mainly needed for vulnerabilities, SLAs, security audits, and SOC 2, ISO, and PCI compliance. The image includes SBOM, signature, and provenance metadata, which makes audits much easier. The best features Chainguard Containers offers include a reduced image size. It removes the shell and the package manager, resulting in a significantly smaller image size compared with a normal image. We can deploy production workloads directly without worrying about security concerns. If we want a strong supply chain for security, we will be using it. Many users are already tired of scanning alerts, so this will be a great thing. Removing the shell and package manager has positively impacted my team's workflow and deployment speed by making it quite user-friendly, where the developer can touch it without any hesitation. Chainguard Containers are built and pushed from non-patched binaries, with the packages compiled directly from the source. No dependencies or pre-built distro packages like Debian or Alpine are required, so there are no hidden vulnerabilities. The developer gains full control over what goes inside, and the image size is smaller with fewer vulnerabilities, in fact, zero. It has built-in processes like SBOM, which is Software Bill of Material generated. The image is cryptographically signed, and provenance is tracked, leading to faster patching, minimal footprint, and best supply chain control. Chainguard Containers has positively impacted my organization by reducing constant CVE fixing, resolving security versus DevOps conflicts, and minimizing compliance headaches. After implementing secured-by-default containers, there is less effort on fixing vulnerabilities, faster delivery, and better compliance. The impact on security teams includes a lower risk of attack, less panic during audits, and significantly fewer security noises. A specific outcome we have noted since implementing Chainguard Containers is that for a client who uses more than 200 containers, they previously received vulnerability warnings for every deployment. Once we implemented Chainguard Containers, the vulnerability ratio drastically decreased, from 100 to 30. Nearly 70% of the vulnerability checks have passed. Chainguard Containers are CVE-resistant, which is significant as CVEs represent Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures.
Oscar Nunez - PeerSpot reviewer
Ingeniero en redes y Telecomunicaciones at K-IT
Centralized management has reduced policy time and provides reliable multitenant protection
What I would like, what I think they should improve a little is the management of objects at large scale. When you work with multiple domains, there are thousands of network objects. Detecting duplicates and consistency across domains is a very manual process that should be more automated. Another thing: the SmartConsole interface is very powerful and very good, but the learning curve, compared to other solutions in the market from other manufacturers, could be modernized. I think it does not necessarily have to be done from a client application; it could be done via web, because via web I know that not all the options you have in SmartConsole are available. So it would be good if it could also be done from the web and all the options were available. Another thing that I would really like is more automation with Ansible or Terraform. I know it has improved in recent versions, but I think it is still not mature enough. Compared to other manufacturers that do have a bit more in terms of automation capabilities in integration flows with Ansible or Terraform, Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) could improve. Another thing that could be improved a little would be the TAC response time, because when there are very complex cases, I think there should be more speed initially, more ownership of those urgent cases, and not leave the customer waiting. This has happened to me: when I have cases open with Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) TAC, sometimes they do not respond and I have to keep insisting, and I think that part should improve. I do not know if it depends on who takes the ticket or on the severity of the ticket, but sometimes I have had to insist a lot, and that would be the only problem. Once they attend to me and become involved in the case, the responses they give are very professional and really help directly resolve the problems when there is a bug or troubleshooting to do. As I said, I would like to see a specific improvement in SmartConsole. I think if they improved it—how to say it—gave it a facelift so you could access all the options directly from a browser, that would be great, because sometimes, for one reason or another, you cannot download SmartConsole or, for some reason, the SmartConsole client does not start correctly, and you could do it directly from the browser. I think that would be a good option to improve. Another thing would be that in multidomain environments, I would like a global search function for objects and rules. That is, you could enter and search across all domains at once, because right now you have to go domain by domain, and in environments with many customers, you spend quite a bit of time; you have to exit one domain and enter another. So those would be the improvements I would like to see.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Its dashboards are brilliant. It provides in-depth insights."
"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted my organization by providing visibility into the environment."
"TotalCloud offers a comprehensive suite of features, including EDR, XDR, and TrueRisk, providing a centralized platform for managing vulnerabilities and security risks."
"I appreciate TotalCloud's real-time protection and remediation features. The remediation options include automated one-click remedies and custom changes that help manage vulnerabilities efficiently."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view of risk, reducing the workload associated with consolidating multiple sources for risk prioritization."
"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our organization by helping us save time and manage all assets and remediation, allowing us to achieve quarterly and half-yearly goals."
"It is a cloud-native app that integrates with both IaaS and SaaS. It seamlessly integrates with other platforms."
"I rate the breadth of FlexScan in providing visibility into on-premises, multicloud, and container environments as fantastic."
"The best feature of Chainguard Containers is being distroless, and the main thing I liked about it is that they follow the SBOM process and the continuous rebuilds they were doing, and they were helping me to rapidly remediate the failures which were happening."
"Chainguard Containers has positively impacted my organization even during the proof of concept phase by improving our security posture."
"Specific outcomes and metrics show that before this, every month there would be 15 to 20 vulnerabilities, but after switching to Chainguard Containers, there are now only one or maybe two vulnerabilities."
"Chainguard Containers has positively impacted my organization by reducing constant CVE fixing, resolving security versus DevOps conflicts, and minimizing compliance headaches."
"The tool's most valuable features are threat prevention and protection mechanisms."
"We have unified management. It is one of the advantages of this product."
"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security has helped us reduce our organizational risk significantly, and I believe in Check Point strongly because it has only four critical CVEs from 2020 to 2025, compared to its competition, which has had more than fifteen to sixteen critical vulnerabilities from 2020 to 2025, which proves that Check Point's secured firewall OS security is better than its competitors and it will provide the best security to its network."
"We have more visibility than ever before, appreciating the valuable and proactive insight that we receive from the platform."
"I give it a ten out of ten."
"The clients who are using it have nothing bad to say about its capabilities."
"Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid and cloud as well as on-prem."
"The CloudGuard Network Security's most valuable feature is implementing IPS for accessing our data center and server environment in Azure. It helps us to prevent attacks. By protecting our environment with Check Point, which we were already familiar with, it provided a solution that extended into the cloud environment."
 

Cons

"It is already perfect, but they can bring some newer dashboards and customization options for the dashboard. It would be great to be able to include on-prem assets on the dashboard."
"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"The patching process with Qualys Patch Management, which is part of TotalCloud, does not cover installing certain prerequisites on the servers or workstations. This shortcoming means we must rely on SCCM when any service stack updates or additional prerequisites are needed."
"I didn't give it a ten because I would like to see simpler configuration, more customizable dashboards, and better automation and integration options."
"Qualys TotalCloud's increasing complexity, due to the development and deployment of multiple solutions, is making the GUI difficult to navigate."
"The vulnerability part is good, but the policy compliance module needs improvement because it involves a lot of manual work. Specifically, the remediation part of the controls requires enhancements."
"Their support could be improved."
"TotalCloud could improve the classification of vulnerabilities. Specifically, it could enhance the categorization of what aspects fall under patches resolved by OS or software updates and what pertains to configuration adjustments."
"The biggest challenge in Chainguard Containers is that they provide minimal images, which can make troubleshooting difficult because common debugging tools are also not included."
"The accuracy and reliability of the output from Chainguard Containers are below average, but I still give it an average rating of 6.5 to 7 because of its capabilities and its functionality for a developer-friendly approach."
"Sometimes there are backend errors which we come across again and again, and there is a resolution, but there are pending tickets for it. That sucks sometimes."
"The only limitation or challenge that stood out during my evaluation of Chainguard Containers was the fact that it is primarily based on Alpine, which can be tricky to use in native Kubernetes environments, as we use Tecton primarily, which is a CI/CD pipeline that runs on native Kubernetes."
"CloudGuard Network Security needs to include new features. One specific feature I would like to see is the ability to protect external resources using single sign-on integration with various identity providers, including custom identity providers. Its pricing could also be cheaper."
"I think they have pretty much mastered what can be done. There are some nuances like when you fail over from one cluster member to the other, the external IP address takes about two minutes to fail over."
"Check Point support, beyond CloudGuard, does need some improvement."
"We have Microsoft CASB cloud app security and it's one of the least compatible firewalls. They really need to look at this, as both Check Point and Microsoft are major players. Why aren't they compatible? If we had Palo Alto then we wouldn't have this problem."
"We utilize logging systems, and geolocation is crucial for us as some applications must only be accessible from our country. However, there have been occasional issues with this feature."
"Currently, I would like this solution extended to cellular devices or tablets."
"The solution needs to improve the interruptions that happen during gateway upgrades."
"While Check Point does offer some VWAN offerings, they appear to be more static and less tailored to cloud-native environments compared to Palo Alto's dynamic and flexible approach."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
Information not available
"The product's licensing costs are yearly."
"I quite like the way they priced it. It is very reasonable."
"The pricing and licensing have been good. We just had to do a license increase for our portion of it. We had that done within a couple of days. Given the fact that it's purely a software-based license, it ends up being even quicker than doing it for an on-prem firewall."
"The cost is on the higher side, as it is based on workload, hence we need to decide which VPC or workload needs to be part of CloudGuard."
"It is more expensive than other solutions and would be more competetive in the market if it came down in price."
"Right now, we have licenses on 500 machines, and they are not cheap."
"I suggest that you pay attention to the product pricing because while there are no tricks, and the licensing model is transparent, the final numbers may surprise you."
"Its price is very fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise38
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business133
Midsize Enterprise55
Large Enterprise146
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?
I was not involved in pricing, setup cost, and licensing, but I can say that the setup was fast, within a quarter, an...
What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvements, the features we are using in Qualys TotalCloud are working in the best optimal way, and I d...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
I have been using Qualys TotalCloud for the last eight months to scan the hardware and the virtual devices in our inf...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chainguard Containers?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that while I work on implementation and do not manage billin...
What needs improvement with Chainguard Containers?
The only limitation or challenge that stood out during my evaluation of Chainguard Containers was the fact that it is...
What is your primary use case for Chainguard Containers?
Chainguard Containers was a tool brought into my enterprise as a proof of concept that we evaluated, but we have not ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
Since we use a unified standard for using policies and modules in Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Net...
What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
The main limitations of Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) are not in Check Point itse...
What is your primary use case for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security?
Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) is the main manager that provides network security ...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point vSEC, CloudGuard IaaS, Check Point Virtual Systems, Check Point CloudGuard Network Security, Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Physicians Choice Laboratory Services, Helvetica Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about Chainguard Containers vs. Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.