There are some limitations. As per Dameon's post above:
"You can use both modes on the same gateway with one important limitation: traffic cannot pass through the gateway twice."
So yes, you can use same hardware for both with this caveat.
As to comparison of the features, these screenshots are from VSX VS, but are applicable to the physical appliances as well, if one of them is ONLY working in a bridge mode and another is in routed mode:
In “Virtual System In Bridge Mode” section, you’ll find comprehensive description of its capabilities.
Here are the “traditional” and bridge mode VS’ side-by-side (R77.30):
![](/legacyfs/online/checkpoint/63298_pastedImage_4.png)
![](/legacyfs/online/checkpoint/63300_pastedImage_6.png)
See which blades are available (or not) in each case.
![](/legacyfs/online/checkpoint/63302_pastedImage_8.png)
Note, that as strange as it sounds, you CAN assign IP address to the bridge, which makes a lot of "conventional" functionality possible.
As per Installation and Upgrade Guide R80.10 (Part of Check Point Infinity) , which I encourage you to read, these are the differences between physical and VSX VS bridges:
Cheers,
Vladimir