We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Cisco SD-WAN 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 the superior solution. All other things being more or less equal, our reviewers found Cisco SD-WAN rather expensive to purchase, not as secure as it should be, and somewhat difficult to deploy.
"The product's brand recognition is one of the most valuable aspects of the solution."
"The segmented traffic it provides is the best in the industry right now."
"Cisco SD-WAN has separate OMP routing."
"I have found the solution's main features are its ability to be customized, network traffic classification, and has a wide range of features that can be set."
"It is very stable with very good firmware."
"With other routing protocols, we have had to send team members to perform installations and configurations. There is a lot of work involved. However with SD-WAN, once it is installed it is fully automated, and we can do all other tasks remotely. We don't have to send staff out to the client's location. It's very independent, and we can establish SD-WAN connectivity easily. It is secure as well."
"SD-WAN is very stable - once it's deployed, you can just forget about it, it runs by itself."
"Cisco SD-WAN is a good product."
"The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"It performs very well."
"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The SD-WAN is the most valuable feature."
"With FortiClient, you can easily connect when you are home, check out what you want to do, and connect to your network when you are not at work. You can switch on servers and you can check what is wrong."
"The simplicity of the configuration and the stability of the product are most valuable. The VPN concentrator is very useful."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"Cisco SD-WAN is not as easy to deploy as the Meraki and FortiGate solutions. The zero-touch deployment could be a lot better. The deployment and initial setup are complicated and could be better."
"The UI has room for improvement."
"The inexpensive Viptela hardware may be replaced with overpriced Cisco routers. This would be a tragic mistake for Cisco as the lightweight commodity platform built by Viptela is the reason to own this solution."
"The user interface needs improvement. Users should be able to find various features faster without much tweaking."
"Technical support could be more helpful and responsive."
"The integration of Cisco SD-WAN with cloud solutions could improve. For example, if any of the applications are hosted in the Amazon AWS cloud we can use a virtual transit gateway for integrating Cisco SD-WAN."
"The cost is too high for certain countries, for example, those in Africa. The solution needs to be more cost-effective."
"I would like to see a better, web-based interface to make changes to the configuration or to view statistics."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"Security is a continuous process. In every product, there is a requirement for improvement. Its pricing should also be improved according to Indian market requirements. They must also improve on the reporting part. Its reporting can be more precise. If we can get a real-time report in a specific format, it will be helpful for customers to know about the current status of their security."
Cisco SD-WAN is ranked 1st in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 86 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 306 reviews. Cisco SD-WAN is rated 8.0, while Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco SD-WAN writes "A solution for integrating services to enhance up-time, performance and lower costs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". Cisco SD-WAN is most compared with Meraki SD-WAN, VMware SD-WAN, Juniper Session Smart Router, Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform and Cato SASE Cloud Platform, whereas Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and OPNsense. See our Cisco SD-WAN vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
See our list of best Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions vendors and best WAN Edge vendors.
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