We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Juniper SRX based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Fortinet Fortigate seems to be a superior solution. All other things being more or less equal, our reviewers felt that Juniper SRX’s user interface as well as its pricing could be improved.
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"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."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"The most valuable features are the policies, filtering, and configuration."
"The web filtering feature and the intrusion protection system are the most valuable. It is a resilient appliance. I never had an issue with it in terms of any security breaches."
"It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything."
"The most valuable features of the Juniper SRX Series Firewall are the user-friendly UI, and accessing the solution is simple."
"The ports are really versatile for their application and don't always have to be used for the purpose for which they were made."
"Juniper SRX is a very powerful firewall and sometimes can be used as a router."
"We did not have problems with scaling, as we have less than 500 users in our organization."
"I like the Junos OS, which has been very good for me. It's very clever."
"It provides good routing and high performance of the data center."
"If we need to define our user system from an anti-spam perspective, we can constantly update the antivirus."
"One of Juniper SRX's most valuable features is the site-to-site VPN."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"If I had any criticism that I would give FortiGate, it would be that they need to stop changing their logging format. Every time we do a firmware upgrade, it is a massive issue on the SIM. Parsers have to be rebuilt. Even the FortiGate guys came in and said that they don't play well in the sandbox."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"The support system could be improved."
"The initial setup is complex."
"We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs."
"I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"We purchased three devices and all three have been replaced under RMA."
"The product only has basic features."
"I would like them to add a dashboard because it's difficult to operate."
"J-Web, Juniper Web, is sometimes not working great when users are increasing their internet use. Additionally, they need to improve the GUI, graphical user interface, and the firewall management needs to improve. Their CLI is good, but sometimes the GUI is very slow."
"We tried configuring the IDS for more than four months, but it did not work properly."
"The CLI is verbose. You have to say a lot to do a little. I don't like that part of it. Cisco's command syntax seems to be a good bit more concise. When you're trying to get something done, you don't want to have to type a bunch."
"I've noticed that the management interface could use some updates and upgrades."
"There is room for improvement in scalability and performance. It's scalable and reliable, but when using next-generation firewall features, the performance decreases significantly for Juniper SRX."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Juniper SRX Series Firewall is ranked 18th in Firewalls with 86 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Juniper SRX Series Firewall is rated 7.8. 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 Juniper SRX Series Firewall writes "Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Sangfor NGAF, whereas Juniper SRX Series Firewall is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Check Point NGFW. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Juniper SRX Series Firewall report.
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Hello Fahrorozi,
From my point of view, I would rather choose SRX4200 solution over FortiGate1800.
Why?
1. SRX4200 is a compact 1U device equipped with ports you actually need for full firewall usage and not for datasheet specifications.
2. Juniper Networks started as a Network company so alongside with full NGFW functions of the SRX firewall you are also getting full L3 routing functionalities same ones that are working on Juniper routers with complete granular configuration.
3. All products from Juniper Networks are equipped with their JunOS Operating System which is built on FreeBSD with data and control plane separation. Main configuration and really fast troubleshooting power are provided with structured CLI where you can do everything you can imagine even get into FreeBDS for troubleshooting if needed. Also, a tool like MTR (My Traceroute) for troubleshooting is available. JunOS configuration is the same for every Juniper Networks device so when you will get used to it you can configure every platform the same way (except for stateful firewall functions dedicated only to the SRX platform).
4. Web management is also included on a device that simplifies day-to-day configuration. Web management historically was not quite great, but starting JunOS 21.x it was really improved and provided all you need for device configuration and troubleshooting, also Juniper is still working on quality-of-life improvements.
5. SSL VPN / Client VPN is fully integrated with Juniper SRX and also with a client application.
6. Regarding performance, FortiGate was and maybe is still not providing full packet sanity checks (IP protocol, SEQ number, etc.) in the default configuration. When you enable these features, FortiGate loses some performance because HW acceleration is not possible with these features.
7. Also when you are using NFS with source NAT then you will find a useful feature where you can set to NAT traffic with port number <1024.
8. Regarding C&C, antimalware, IPS, and centralized management it's all similar to all other vendors.
9. Juniper SRX also provides VRF-light routing table separation, and also Full separation with Logical systems that have separate processes for each LSYS. You can also allocate CPU resources for each LSYS.
10. Regarding HA Clustering you can use an active/active data plane (data traversing -> one node in a cluster is entrance and destination is on another node) in a special use case. You can also have free hands regarding failovers using separate interfaces/interfaces groups based on BFD, interface status, and IP reachability. You can also deploy a full L3 cluster.
This is only a subjective short summary, always depends on other factors (interfaces, budget, preferences, etc.). I would suggest you find the nearest partner (Forti or Juniper) to you, schedule a PoC and receive the solution you would prefer.
Instead of FortiGate, I would definitely choose SRX.
A different case is the native L7 firewall when I want to check all applications, then I would maybe consider Palo Alto vs SRX in some cases.
Hi Fahrorozi,
If I have to choose between these two, I will choose FG 1800.
Reasons:
1. More flexible ports to use from 1G to 40G
2. Includes SSL VPN / client VPN for users
3. Has better web management than SRX
4. From the datasheet, some of the throughputs are also larger (IPv4 FW throughput, Max Session, Max Policies, etc).
But you need to know what you need for your company.
- Maybe you only need a 10G interface instead of a 1G
- Maybe you don't need the SSL VPN / Client VPN
- You also don't need a large throughput.
Hope this helps.