We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and OPNsense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is highly regarded for its robust security features, including geofencing, firewalling, IPS, and antivirus. Users also appreciate its user-friendly interface. OPNsense is notable for its scalability and ability to accommodate guest access. Its dashboards, IDS and IPS capabilities, and availability of a free version are also highlighted as valuable features.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM could benefit from enhancements in key activation, log management, IPsec failover, monitoring tools, hardening, availability, VPN connectivity, operating system stability, data center clustering, throughput, web application firewall integration, pricing model, troubleshooting forum, and guidance. OPNsense requires improvements in interface simplification, integration, DNS blocking, peer-blocking, installation, deployment, reporting, SSL inspection, and learning curve.
Service and Support: Fortinet FortiGate-VM's customer service has received both positive and negative feedback. Some customers appreciate the support team's quick response times and expertise. However, others have faced challenges in obtaining prompt assistance and finding information easily. OPNsense has been commended for its exceptional support, rapid response times, and helpful guidance. Nonetheless, a few users have noted the lack of easy accessibility to the support service and have recommended the addition of an associated support service.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is typically simple. OPNsense is not overly complicated or difficult. FortiGate-VM may take more time for larger deployments, however, it provides a user-friendly installation and configuration experience. Clients can perform the OPNsense setup themselves, and it can be completed within a few hours.
Pricing: Fortinet FortiGate-VM requires licensing fees with no extra expenses. OPNsense, being open-source, doesn't require a license, however, hardware costs are involved.
ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers enhanced security and stability. Users consider its ROI to be highly satisfactory. OPNsense delivers a quick return on investment, typically within three months, and eliminates the need for ongoing fees.
Comparison Results: The analysis of user feedback indicates that Fortinet FortiGate-VM outperforms OPNsense in various aspects. Users highly value Fortinet FortiGate-VM for its robust security capabilities, user-friendly interface, effortless deployment, scalability, and extensive filtering options. Moreover, users appreciate the availability of support from Fortinet.
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"It is a good source for firewall protection."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the different types of profiling. It has been the most effective for me. The WAF and the antivirus profile are the most effective in network protection."
"An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured."
"It's a very simple solution to manage."
"I did like the ability to back up the configuration into the cloud, as opposed to having to store the configurations or just downloading them, the backups, to local devices."
"The most valuable features are the web proxy for protection and web gateway for deployment."
"We like FortiGate-VM's IPS features and its ability to create multiple virtual firewalls."
"A top feature is the really good web interface and the classic Fortinet features, such as IPS, IDS, AV scanner, and spam filter."
"It gives all the features of a full-fledged firewall with great performance."
"The most valuable feature is the UTM, which gives them an advantage over other firewalls."
"One of the most valuable features is the network checking. Additionally, the firewall and web filtering functionalities are highly useful."
"It's open source."
"The most valuable features of OPNsense are the GUI and frequent updates."
"We have found pretty much all the features of the solution to be valuable."
"The initial implementation process is simple."
"It has an open license. It works very well, and there is an update every month."
"It is a very good solution. I like the dashboard. I can see what is going on and manage it as I like it."
"It has firewall and VPN capabilities, which are very valuable features."
"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."
"There are some problems that support cannot give you a logical reason as to why it happened. For example, I had a case where I was dealing with a WhatsApp application that was giving issues. Technical support gave more than one reason it could be giving issues, but none of them solved the problem. Eventually I solved the problem, but it was far from the solutions that support had given."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"Their offering for MFA isn't the cleanest."
"In the next release, we would like to see full integration with VMware NSX virtualized networks."
"In the next release, I would like to see integration capability with SIEM tools, such as QRadar, and LogRhythm."
"They could provide more integration options with different platforms."
"The price and licensing of the solution can be better."
"The scalability feature of the solution has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"We haven't attempted to scale the solution just yet. If we want to scale this solution we may have to look at other models. With certain requirements, we probably wouldn't be able to scale it so well as it is right now."
"Price-wise, it could be slightly better, however, if you compared it to other makes and models of equal category, it is generally cheaper."
"I think the most important thing is that it should be easily accessible, but currently, that doesn't seem to be the case. We need a hardware platform that's based on common standards and open computing principles, which would be like a commodity and benefit us greatly."
"While they do have paid options that actually gives better features, for most of the clients, if they tend to take a paid option will instead opt for Fortinet."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"The interface of the solution is an area with shortcomings."
"The IPS solution could be more reliable."
"The logging could improve in OPNsense."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while OPNsense is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and IPFire. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. OPNsense report.
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