Vendor Review

Check Point

Harmony SASE

6.6/ 10 avg

9 min readUpdated Feb 2025

Check Point Harmony SASE is the dark horse in the SASE market, and that positioning is both its greatest strength and its most honest limitation. Born from Check Point's 2023 acquisition of Perimeter 81, Harmony SASE brings startup agility to an enterprise security company with 30 years of firewall heritage. The hybrid on-device + cloud architecture is the most distinctive technical differentiator: rather than routing all traffic through cloud PoPs (the approach taken by every other SASE vendor), Harmony SASE performs certain security functions locally on the endpoint — URL filtering, DNS security, and basic threat prevention run on-device, while advanced inspection (sandboxing, full DLP, CASB) happens in the cloud. This reduces latency for common web browsing by 30-50% compared to full-proxy architectures and eliminates the hairpin routing that plagues users geographically distant from their nearest cloud PoP.

The deployment speed is genuinely unmatched. Check Point claims 15-60 minute user onboarding, and independent evaluations confirm this is accurate — the lightweight agent deploys via MDM or direct download, auto-configures based on user identity from Azure AD or Okta, and begins enforcing policies within minutes. For organizations evaluating SASE through proof-of-concept trials, Harmony SASE lets you go from vendor selection to production pilot in a single afternoon. This speed-to-value proposition is compelling for IT teams under pressure to show results quickly, and it makes Harmony SASE the ideal candidate for competitive bake-offs where time-to-deploy is a differentiator.

The enterprise maturity gaps are real and should not be minimized. The Perimeter 81 integration brought a modern cloud-native architecture and developer-friendly API, but Check Point is still harmonizing this with its legacy management paradigm (SmartConsole, Security Management Server). SD-WAN capabilities through Quantum gateways are the least mature of the four vendors reviewed — basic path selection and WAN optimization exist, but application-aware routing sophistication, branch hardware diversity, and SD-WAN-specific management tooling lag significantly behind Fortinet and Cisco. The PoP footprint is smaller than competitors with approximately 20+ locations, limiting geographic coverage for global enterprises. MSP multi-tenant management is functional but underdeveloped, lacking the operational maturity of Cisco's Security Cloud Control or Palo Alto's Strata Cloud Manager. Check Point is investing aggressively in closing these gaps, but today Harmony SASE is best suited for mid-market organizations prioritizing speed and simplicity over enterprise-scale feature depth.

Cloud-native7/10

The Perimeter 81 heritage gives Harmony SASE a genuinely cloud-native foundation built on microservices and Kubernetes orchestration. The hybrid on-device + cloud architecture is innovative and technically sound. The score is held back by the ongoing integration with Check Point's legacy management infrastructure (SmartConsole, MDS) and the architectural tension between Perimeter 81's cloud-native design and Check Point's traditional security management paradigm.

SSE depth7/10

SSE capabilities cover the fundamentals well — SWG with ThreatCloud-powered URL filtering, ZTNA with identity-aware access policies, basic CASB for SaaS visibility, and DLP with predefined data patterns. Miercom-verified threat prevention scores validate security efficacy. However, the SSE stack lacks the depth of Cisco (Talos intelligence) or Palo Alto (WildFire/ATP), with more limited CASB API integrations, basic DLP without EDM/IDM, and fewer advanced threat prevention capabilities.

SD-WAN6/10

SD-WAN through Quantum gateways provides basic WAN optimization, path selection, and site-to-site connectivity. This is the weakest component of Check Point's SASE offering. Lacks application-aware routing sophistication, ASIC-accelerated performance, and the branch hardware portfolio depth of Fortinet or Cisco. Organizations with significant SD-WAN requirements should evaluate Harmony SASE primarily for its SSE capabilities and look to other vendors for WAN infrastructure.

MSP ready6/10

Multi-tenant management exists through the Infinity Portal with basic tenant isolation and delegated administration. The API is developer-friendly (Perimeter 81 heritage), enabling programmatic tenant provisioning and policy management. However, MSP-specific features — bulk operations across tenants, per-tenant billing integration, white-label portal options, and mature RBAC models — are underdeveloped compared to Cisco and Palo Alto. MSPs managing more than 20 tenants will feel the tooling gaps.

PoP coverage7/10

Approximately 20+ PoP locations globally with coverage concentrated in North America and Europe. Asia-Pacific and Latin American coverage is limited, with gaps in secondary markets. The hybrid on-device architecture partially mitigates PoP coverage limitations by processing latency-sensitive functions locally, but advanced inspection still requires cloud PoP connectivity. PoP expansion is on the roadmap but currently trails all three competitors in total locations.

Strengths

+Hybrid on-device + cloud architecture reduces latency 30-50% vs full-proxy alternatives

+15-60 minute user onboarding — fastest deployment in the SASE market

+Miercom-verified threat prevention with ThreatCloud intelligence

+Clean, modern management UI from Perimeter 81 heritage with developer-friendly API

+Competitive pricing positions Harmony as accessible for mid-market organizations

+Lightweight agent with minimal endpoint resource consumption

Watch out

−Perimeter 81 acquisition integration with legacy Check Point management still has rough edges

−SD-WAN (Quantum) is the least mature offering among the four vendors reviewed

−Smaller PoP footprint (~20+ locations) limits global coverage for multinational enterprises

−MSP multi-tenant tooling underdeveloped for service providers managing many tenants

−CASB and DLP capabilities are basic compared to Cisco, Palo Alto, and pure-play vendors

−Enterprise-scale features (advanced RBAC, compliance reporting, audit logging) need maturation

Verdict

Check Point Harmony SASE occupies a unique position: it is simultaneously the most innovative (hybrid architecture) and the least mature (SD-WAN, MSP tooling) SASE offering among the four vendors reviewed. The on-device hybrid approach is not a compromise — it is a genuinely clever architectural decision that solves the latency problem inherent in full-proxy SASE architectures. When a user in São Paulo performs basic web browsing, URL filtering and DNS security happen on their device in milliseconds rather than routing through a cloud PoP in Miami. For latency-sensitive use cases, this matters.

The deployment velocity is the other standout differentiator. In a market where SASE deployments typically take months of planning, pilot phases, and phased rollouts, Harmony SASE's 15-60 minute onboarding timeline changes the evaluation dynamic. CISOs and IT directors who need to demonstrate security improvements to the board can run a production pilot within a single sprint. This makes Harmony SASE the ideal choice for proof-of-concept evaluations, competitive bake-offs, and organizations that prize time-to-value over feature completeness.

The gaps are significant for enterprise-scale deployments. SD-WAN via Quantum gateways is not competitive with Fortinet or Cisco for organizations with complex WAN requirements. The PoP footprint limits global coverage. MSP tooling needs another 12-18 months of development to compete with Security Cloud Control or Strata Cloud Manager. Check Point is investing to close these gaps, but today Harmony SASE is best positioned for mid-market organizations with 500-5,000 users who prioritize rapid deployment, competitive pricing, and adequate (not best-in-class) security depth. For enterprises with 10,000+ users, global footprint requirements, or complex SD-WAN needs, evaluate the other three vendors first.

When to pick Check Point

Choose Check Point when deployment speed and time-to-value are the primary evaluation criteria. This is the right pick for organizations running proof-of-concept evaluations where you need results in days not months, for mid-market companies without dedicated SASE engineering teams who need simplicity, and for latency-sensitive environments where the hybrid on-device architecture provides measurable performance benefits. Consider Harmony SASE for competitive bake-offs where deployment velocity differentiates vendors. Organizations with existing Check Point firewall infrastructure (Quantum, CloudGuard) will benefit from policy and management familiarity. Avoid if you need enterprise-grade SD-WAN, global PoP coverage across 50+ countries, mature MSP multi-tenant management, or advanced CASB/DLP depth.

Compare all vendors

See how Check Point stacks up against Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto in our head-to-head comparison.

Full comparison →Cisco Fortinet Palo Alto