We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Palo Alto Networks Wildfire based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Fortinet Fortigate is the more popular solution because of its ease of deployment combined with its solid set of features, excellent service and support ratings, and the fact that it is more affordable than Palo Alto Networks Wildfire.
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"The SD-WAN is the most valuable feature."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"Unified Threat Management (UTM) features."
"The security on offer is very good."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"Stability is never a concern."
"The analysis is very fast."
"Whole team can use the firewall and understand it."
"The most valuable features of this solution are sandbox capabilities."
"The technical support is good."
"WildFire has been instrumental in blocking a number of new threats, before common desktop anti-virus tools were able to detect them."
"The most valuable feature for us is the VPN."
"We have found that Palo Alto Networks WildFire is scalable. We currently have six thousand users for the product."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"I think there could be more QoS features"
"There are problems with the custom reporting of the unique traffic. The data is there, but it is too difficult for us to extract."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"The pricing could always be better."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"Palo Alto Networks WildFire could improve by adding support for manual submission of suspicious files and URLs. Additionally, it would be an advantage to add rule-based analysis. Currently, it uses only static and AI. We need to be able to analyze archive files."
"Any enhancements should likely be focused on the firewall appliance to further strengthen overall security capabilities, such as refining app and user identity features."
"The initial setup was complex."
"The only complaint that we receive from our customers is in regards to the price."
"There are some formats that the solution cannot support ."
"Other vendors have some sort of bandwidth management built into the firewall itself and Palo Alto is missing that."
"The initial setup was a little bit complex, mainly due to the GUI console and management challenges."
"The solution can improve its traffic management."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with 58 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks WildFire writes "Good technical support and provides automatic analysis that saves us time in filtering email". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and Meraki MX, whereas Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Proofpoint Email Protection, Fortinet FortiSandbox and Check Point SandBlast Network.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy navigation tabs; It can be managed and controlled using layer two wireless access points; When compared with other firewalls, building IPsec VPN and SSL VPN is much easier; I can configure virtual networks within the same firewall; And, configuration of NAT and static routes are straightforward. I would recommend it to any organization that needs to provide VPN access for their employees.
FortiGate also has many security functions, such as application control, web filtering, IPS, antivirus, etc., that help companies protect their users. The FortiGate solution also helps optimize traffic from user to application via the hybrid WAN environment. I think what I like most about this solution is that I can combine security functions and SD-WAN, which allows me to scan traffic flow but also to protect the local application server or the user.
For me, the downsides of FortiGate are that it happens to include many bugs, and sometimes it can be a challenge to block content from a website with web filtering since web pages contain websites that consume other resources. Moreover, mobile device administration is complicated, and it does not seem to adapt to smartphone or tablet screens very well.
While it isn’t my favorite, WildFire provides the ability to block threats as they travers your network infrastructure both in retro-time and real-time. WildFire also has zero-trust and actively works to inspect traffic for malicious capabilities by forwarding a file to the WildFire cloud, even in the case that it doesn’t recognize what the file is doing. The reason why WildFire is not my first choice is because I feel that it is lacking many features and that they could improve by adding more functionality. But there doesn’t seem like there is a way to either tune or tweak the solution. If implemented correctly, though, it can be a good, robust solution to achieving great endpoint security.
Conclusion:
In my opinion, FortiGate is better than Wildfire because FortiGate meets my business needs better and has more appealing feature updates and roadmaps as well as great technical support, all of which are important to me.
What type of network is? how many users?
Fortinet products are unique in that they have specific chips to work on hardware rather than overcharging a CPU to 90%, as happens with some Sophos boxes and others.
Things in the cloud... the cloud is a name, it is software running on someone else's computer system and could be only for you or multi-tenancy. Delays and other dramas may occur.
The question as I was invited to comment :| Which is better, does not tell anything, somehow.