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.
"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."
"Layer-3 firewall and routing are the most valuable features."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"The SD-WAN function is very developed. It has SD-WAN functionality with security features in one device. We can manage from one single console SD-WAN and the security policy."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"One of the key use cases for VMware SD-WAN was assisting a customer in the industrial zone. They required virtualized servers and wanted to enable VMware SD-WAN to connect their sites in Japan or China. We assisted in building the system by integrating VMware servers and utilizing the Cisco suite."
"The most valuable feature is the dynamic multipath optimization."
"It is fairly similar to other solutions. It has the capability for testing link connectivity, which is its unique feature from a control perspective."
"This solution is as stable as most firewalls. VMware is a reputable vendor."
"VMware SD-WAN is scalable."
"The most valuable feature is load balancing."
"I love the solution because of its many features like cluster and cloud VPN."
"VMware is the only SD-WAN solution that integrates with Azure Virtual WAN."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"The room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."
"Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"I think the only issue that needs improvement is the interface."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"The pricing could be reduced or include the first year warranty."
"Web security solutions can be improved."
"There might be potential enhancements in better integration with other platforms, increased stability, and heightened security."
"The dashboards could be improved."
"VeloCloud could improve its integration capabilities with other solutions."
"VeloCloud needs improvement in terms of its security features."
"The firewall can be more advanced."
"There is no security included, which is something that should be improved."
"The security of the firewall should be improved. It would be a good idea to have a standalone product with better security."
"They need more gateways"
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 51 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 WatchGuard Firebox, 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.