We compared Fortinet FortiGate and VMWare SD-WAN based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate is highly regarded for its ease of use, extensive features, and affordability. However, it could benefit from enhancements in SSL VPN, multi-factor authentication, and filtering. VMware SD-WAN is praised for its efficient multipath optimization and robust cloud web security, but it needs improvements in customization, Broadcom routing support, firewall capabilities, and inter-cloud connectivity. The customer service and support for both products have received varied feedback.
"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"VeloCloud developed DMPO to increase performance and connectivity."
"The setup is very straightforward."
"I find the application-aware routing feature to be the most valuable."
"VMware SD-WAN is easy-to-use."
"One of the standout features is its ability to dynamically manage enterprise networks based on applications."
"The initial configuration and deployment are quite easy."
"The most valuable feature of VMware SD-WAN is the virtualization platform. You can use the software on any hardware. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
"This solution is as stable as most firewalls. VMware is a reputable vendor."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"Usually, we sell the bundle with the UTM or threat management piece with IPS, IDS. Other providers, such as Palo Alto, are ahead in terms of safe functionality. So, for me, delivering truly safe service is probably something that still needs to be improved."
"Lacks training for new features."
"They've become quite expensive."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"The cost of VeloCloud could be lowered."
"The firewall can be more advanced."
"I would like to see more features added to increase visibility."
"VeloCloud could improve its integration capabilities with other solutions."
"The only thing that I'm having issues with is on one of the sites, I can't see the location on the map."
"There is one feature that would set VMware SD-WAN apart from others solutions, and that is what I call inter-cloud connectivity. All the solutions regarding VMware are good because for example, If I go from my workplace to a retail office and I want to use my applications in the Cloud, that is possible. Perhaps we have customers who have their IT partial environments hosted in different cloud locations, such as Amazon and Azure, and the interconnection between the clouds, this is not possible. If it was possible it would be a market game-changer. Having the SD-WAN solution that is good at optimizing and facilitating traffic between different cloud providers would be great."
"Technical support is in need of improvement."
"Its integration with the security systems would be a nice implementation. They can also consider using a management platform for both network and security operations. This would be a great improvement."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 306 reviews while VMware SD-WAN is ranked 4th in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 50 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while VMware SD-WAN is rated 8.2. 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 VMware SD-WAN writes "To fully utilize cloud vendors' hardware networking, Microsoft and VMware support everything". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Check Point NGFW, whereas VMware SD-WAN is most compared with Cisco SD-WAN, Meraki SD-WAN, Cato SASE Cloud Platform, Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform and Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. VMware SD-WAN report.
See our list of best Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions vendors and best WAN Edge vendors.
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One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. It is a very stable, reliable, and consistent solution. We like that we can manage the entire network from one interface; there is no going back and forth as some other solutions force you to do. Fortinet Fortigate firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system; there is no need for additional devices. This solution offers great built-in features for web filtering and the VPN is an extremely valuable feature.
The reporting with Fortinet Fortigate needs some degree of customization so that more usable reports can be created. If you want extra features, you need to buy extra licenses, which can get expensive quickly. We would have liked to get more features with the general license. We would also like to see better cloud management.
We like VMware SD-WAN for our clients that want a very easy-to-use solution. VMware SD-WAN offers simple troubleshooting and great cybersecurity. One amazing feature it has is DMPO (Dynamic MultiPath Optimization), which helps ensure data integrity. VMware SD-WAN comes loaded with several defined applications so that you don’t have to create them yourself - this is a huge time-saver.
Reporting and security with VMware SD-WAN could be improved, though. There really needs to be some failover capabilities, especially with their own devices. We would also like to see a mobile application. Many other solutions are already offering this as a basic feature. It would help make this solution easier to manage.
Conclusion
We felt the biggest difference between Fortinet Fortigate and VMware SD-WAN was the ease of use. The zero-touch provisioning offered with VMware SD-WAN makes it very easy to set up and the DMPO makes it easy to manage. We also felt the SD-WAN on VMware SD-WAN was better.