We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiOS and WatchGuard Firebox 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 most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution."
"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"The solution is extremely reliable."
"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
"The product is scalable and easily expands."
"The initial setup is easy. It's the easiest firewall installation process on the market. I work with three or four other products and this one is the easiest."
"What I like about this solution, is that it is the only solution that currently offers VPN for clients."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are its constant updates and definitions."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the SD-WAN, SSL inspection, and IDS/IPS functions."
"Fortinet FortiOS's valuable features include intuitive policy creation and deployment, precise parameter settings to determine thresholds, and security profiles such as web filtering and remote application filtering, among others."
"Compared to other firewalls, the segmentation is much easier in FortiGate."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the granular control and their interoperability is good."
"From my experience with their customer service team, I would say that they seem quite knowledgeable and fairly quick to respond."
"The most valuable features are the VPN and web blocker security."
"The most effective and helpful features of WatchGuard Firebox, especially when purchased with the full suite of applications, are its bundled applications and subscriptions for comprehensive protection against various threats."
"It also provides us with layered security. It has onboard virus scanning features that allow it to scan before something gets to the host. It will also stop a person from going to a site that is known to be bad."
"This product offers great protection using the default settings."
"Firebox operates effectively in the background, blocking potential threats without a need for constant monitoring."
"One of my favorite features is the Geolocation service, where you can actually block specific activity or IP addresses registered to certain countries. For example, I don't want any web traffic from Russia or North Korea. I may even lock down certain policies down to 'I only want U.S. IP addresses.' I find that very useful."
"WatchGuard Firebox's two-factor authentication feature is particularly useful and provides an added layer of protection."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"Application management can be improved."
"Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"FortiOS doesn't work well with all browsers. I think they need to do a better job of making it compatible with the various browsers that are out there."
"Real-time threat monitoring is not there."
"The reporting and monitoring could improve, they have a lot of limitations. The monitoring is not easy compared to the other firewall."
"The product needs a feature that allows users to create another site on a VPN."
"SD-WAN configuration could be easier."
"The solution's graphic interface could be a bit more responsive and include notations when changes are made."
"There is some room for improvement in the support."
"Right now, it's very trendy to integrate everything into the cloud. This solution would be more effective if they did more integration in that regard."
"The only downside is that it is missing an API, that you can use to easily collect information from it."
"I would like to have a little more control over access points and the ability to see the bandwidth that is passing through a specific access point. We are not able to see that. We can see what traffic is passing through the Firebox itself, but we can't identify if it is coming from a particular access point or not."
"The level of support from WatchGuard is not as good."
"The scalability of the solution needs improvement."
"I haven’t dug deeply into the reporting features yet or if they are working well. However, I have generated several reports and there was too much unnecessary information, in comparison with the reporting features in the Sophos firewall. Sophos' reporting is more readable and easier to configure."
"The drawbacks are just sometimes not having the technical information that we need in order to easily make connections with all of our Internet-based clients."
"Websense is an application that monitors and filters internet traffic. Websense was derived from WatchGuard. But when you go to WatchGuard to actually implement that particular feature, you have to use some type of additional feature and you have to pay for it, unfortunately. I think it should be free or free in the WatchGuard box itself, as an option. It would be nice if they didn't charge us for that."
"There could also be better reporting. For example, there should be more out-of-the-box management reports."
Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Fortinet FortiWeb and Darktrace, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Fortinet FortiOS vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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