We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Fortinet Fortigate VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet Fortigate is the winner in this comparison. According to reviews, it has better support than Fortinet Fortigate VM.
"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."
"Fortinet FortiGate's ease of management is the most valuable feature."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."
"This is an easy solution to deploy."
"We are using the FortiGate 100D series. VPN, firewall, anti-malware, OTM, and intrusion prevention are useful features."
"FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all of these features on one device because it can cause performance issues."
"The pricing is excellent. It's much less expensive than Cisco."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"The solution can scale well."
"The combination of SD-WAN and VPN capabilities is the most valuable feature."
"FortiGate-VM has many valuable features: it's easy to use, it's intuitive, it's got very good traffic inspection features, it's got comprehensive filtering categories, and it has an extensive threat database, using FortiGuard."
"It handles our current load with ease, and I think it can handle a bit more. It definitely can handle a lot more capacity than we currently use."
"It has allowed us to centralize every network service into one appliance."
"I find the simplicity to be most valuable."
"The most valuable features are the web proxy for protection and web gateway for deployment."
"I rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"The UI could be improved."
"They need to improve their technical support."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."
"VM should be more optimized."
"We encountered scalability issues in IPSec Module. The tunnels freeze sometimes."
"The licensing needs to be improved. We need longer licensing periods, especially for POCs and trials. It should be for six months. Right now, it's too short of a timeframe."
"Right now, we have two data centers that are a thousand kilometers apart. It would be nice to be able to string them together."
"The product's initial setup phase is a bit complex."
"Now they do have the ability to pop up a command line, which is nice, however, the fact that you can't do everything within the GUI is probably a problem."
"The price is sometimes very expensive."
"I don't have any specific improvements to suggest, but perhaps the pricing could be enhanced. Regarding updates, more frequent updates would be appreciated. FortiGate-VM is currently focused on providing very good firmware updates, automation, and top-notch features. It stands as a great product for now. Based on our needs and the vulnerabilities we've encountered due to various downloads, I suggest integrating with Kaspersky Gateway. This integration would involve scanning and inspecting both official emails and spam emails. Our customer has successfully worked with Kaspersky Gateway, and overall, the integration has been effective."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM 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 Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and SonicWall NSa, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
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.
Purpose-built appliances offer tested performance measures and provide proven results for the specified traffic and service configuration.
VM can only provide vCPUs, RAM, and hard disk resources. However, in some cloud environments, you only have the VM option, no appliances accepted.
We have several Fortigate VM firewalls operating for 3 years now in the cloud and appliances in our centers that handle the traffic just fine. We have not had to increase the resources above the recommendations and they work just fine.
FortiGate VM
Virtual machines are less efficient than real machines because they access the hardware indirectly.
FortiGate Hardware
Fortigate appliance is purpose built with NPU and SPUs designed to increase throughput while maximizing the ability to decrypt packets in search of malware.
VM deployments are software only and do not include the NPU and SPUs.