We performed a comparison between FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) and Fortinet FortiGate-VM 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."Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."
"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."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a security device. It can optimize security on the networks of a company. It actually protects the company from attacks from outside. With FortiGate, you can categorize the users. You can create a group of users that can access all of the websites for their work. You can limit other users' access."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"It's very easy to set up, it's very easy to make policies and, for an organization, that means you don't need IT expert in firewalls. You just need to have somebody who knows a little bit of IT, and that's it. With other products, you need someone with a "Masters" degree in firewalls."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"There are multiple features I have found to be valuable, such as encryption and integrated security features."
"The solution's application control is very powerful."
"The solution is user-friendly and easy to operate."
"FortiGate NGF is simple compared to other firewalls. It is easy to use and you don't need any training. Any person with basic firewall knowledge can use it."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable aspects of FortiGate NGFW are its top-notch reputation in peer reviews, user-friendly interface, and excellent support."
"The tool's most valuable feature is IPS. In my experience, I haven't encountered any issues with integration. It easily integrates with the FortiGate solution. However, verifying through documentation and assessing their support is necessary."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall has a simple configuration."
"FortiGate-VM's firewall is excellent."
"The ease of access and user-friendly setup is a valuable feature. Fortinet proves to be particularly straightforward to configure, offering simplicity without complexity. Moreover, visibility is easily attainable due to certain factors. Price, implementation, and budget considerations play a role. When it comes to Cisco implementation, the process tends to be more intricate, which many customers find unfavourable for their business needs."
"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."
"We like FortiGate-VM's IPS features and its ability to create multiple virtual firewalls."
"The most valuable features are site-to-site connections and UTM."
"The support is good. We don't have any issues with the technical support."
"The pricing of the solution is good."
"We are able to closely monitor the usages of individual users and see their usage habits and other items, including the data itself, which gives us quite a bit of visibility."
"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."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"The Web-filter in this solution is not very good."
"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."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"The solution needs to integrate VPN features."
"The inability to change passwords when using FortiGate firewall and relying on a local FortiGate database for account creation can be problematic, particularly in non-Active Directory setups."
"The licensing model and pricing need improvement."
"There are some issues with security features and aspects like logs not being up to the mark."
"One area for improvement is the IPS engine."
"The web process often has a memory leak."
"The vendors offer models with different levels of productivity of the product to its users, which is not possible in FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW). It lacks integration options."
"There is an area for improvement in vulnerability management."
"FortiGate-VM could be improved by making it cloud-based. I'd like it to be a cloud-based management solution instead of just a dedicated management orchestration tool."
"If I could add one feature, it would be free security profiles."
"Deployment can be difficult and they could dispense with reliance on FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"Right now, we have two data centers that are a thousand kilometers apart. It would be nice to be able to string them together."
"In the next releases, it would be nice to see central cloud management."
"The reporting is not as good as it is with other firewalls and it should be improved."
"Integration could be better. Whatever devices I'm using with FortiGate are all compatible. The access points and switches are also FortiGate, so I can easily integrate them. But it would be better if we could embed other devices as well. There are compatibility issues with other brands, and we need that. We can only integrate universal brands with FortiGate. The initial setup could also be easier."
"We have had some stability issues."
More FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) Pricing and Cost Advice →
FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is ranked 14th in Firewalls with 37 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is rated 8.4, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) writes "Easy to set up but needs better pricing and more helpful support". On the other hand, 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". FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is most compared with OPNsense, Netgate pfSense, Tailscale, Twingate and Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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