We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Zscaler Cloud Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall."
"Layer-3 firewall and routing are the most valuable features."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are the ease of use, IPS system, application filter, web filtering, and email security. Additionally, there is a migration tool that other vendors do not provide. We only need to upload the configuration file to the tool, and it converts everything, except the passwords, and gives us the new configuration, which we can directly upload on the firewall. This migration process takes a maximum of 15 minutes."
"The tool improved the security in our company's virtualized environment, as it was helpful in creating an additional layer of security for the organization and for the use of the internet."
"The web GUI is easy to use."
"The performance overall is very good."
"It's a very simple solution to manage."
"Regarding specific features, I appreciate the option for external selection, where you can choose either to use a default or create a self-description. This simplifies the process compared to other vendors that require creating a test extension profile and then applying it to the installation. With FortiGate, there is a streamlined approach. From the benefits perspective, clients mainly see cost reduction, especially with FortiGate VM Firewall, as it eliminates the need for additional hardware."
"FortiGate is a nice and very good product."
"I rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten."
"It is a stable solution."
"Once you have Zscaler running you have access to configure it however you want."
"Includes advanced tech protection."
"The scalability is okay. We have around 2200 people using this solution."
"Most of the features that Zscaler has to offer, we will deploy."
"It provides in-depth visibility into your network, ensuring that traffic flowing into your organization, be it from offices or individual users, is effectively filtered and secured through multiple layers of protection."
"The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution."
"The visibility and log availability offered are highly valued for troubleshooting purposes, and this is a key factor driving customer interest in the firewall module."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having better visibility. Palo Alto has better visibility."
"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"It claims it does DLP, but the degree and level of controls are very basic."
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"There were challenges during setup, and many of them were self-inflicted."
"I have worked on some of the largest and smallest solutions that Fortinet sells and they all scale really well."
"The product has issues with integration. I would like to see better integration in future releases of the product."
"The price is sometimes very expensive."
"Price-wise, it could be slightly better, however, if you compared it to other makes and models of equal category, it is generally cheaper."
"It would be better if it could provide you with options before completely blocking anything through the web filter. If you are doing a deep SSL inspection on the site if it says it's expired, it doesn't give you the option to continue at your own risk. I can't say that it's bad, but SSL internally isn't really a requirement. However, its security features can help. Right now, we have people going out and spending on purchasing the SSL certificates for internal sites."
"In the next releases, it would be nice to see central cloud management."
"In the next release, I would like to see integration capability with SIEM tools, such as QRadar, and LogRhythm."
"Its technical support services could be better."
"They do not provide a few components that are fundamental to differentiate the products"
"Instead of the standard license, they should certainly provide customers with the visibility to access and view the logs."
"It would be better if they improved their policy, package visibility, and flexibility while we're creating rules for inspection. It could also be cheaper or more things could be included in the basic package. In the next release, I would like better coverage in the Asia Pacific region and better quality of service."
"The product could improve its integration with some legacy systems."
"It would be nice to have some sort of a form factor, a physical form factor perhaps, or virtual machine that you could install on devices or on a cloud, and have some cloud computing."
"There are some areas it could improve when it comes to blocking, we have to block some things manually. For example, if we block a top-level domain we have seen that the new IPs come through, the IPs are not blocked. There should be some more granular way of doing it. My only request is if you're blocking something at a top level, the sub-level sub-domains and all those other IPs should be blocked too automatically."
"Pricing is a challenge."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while Zscaler Cloud Firewall is ranked 23rd in Firewalls with 15 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while Zscaler Cloud Firewall 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 Zscaler Cloud Firewall writes "A highly stable and comprehensive cloud security and access solution". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Zscaler Cloud Firewall is most compared with Azure Firewall, OPNsense, Cisco Multicloud Defense, Cisco Secure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall report.
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