We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiOS and WatchGuard Firebox based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"We use a southern institution that's audited for IT security and the reporting that automatically comes off the unit makes it much easier to meet compliance standards and makes it easier as far as the amount of time that has to be spent to compile that information. If you get your reporting set up correctly when you initially set it up, you just select the one you want and hit print. The auditing trail on it is the best feature."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"There are many useful features, such as web security and advanced threat detection."
"The interface is easy to understand, so when there are threats you get alerts. It's quite intuitive, but if you are ever confused they have instructional videos. For example, if you don't understand a graph there's a link to a video that explains what the graph means. It makes it very user-friendly."
"FortiOS's best features are its function as an internet gateway and how easy it is to manage."
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiOS are the ability to block and make white and black lists. Additionally, the filtering of user access to websites is useful."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are its constant updates and definitions."
"The initial setup is straightforward, and it is very customer friendly."
"The technical support on offer has always been quite good."
"The most valuable features are the ease of use, and the overall simplicity, everyone can use it with a small introduction."
"Simple to move settings between WatchGuard boxes."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the dashboard."
"It also provides us with layered security. It has onboard virus scanning features that allow it to scan before something gets to the host. It will also stop a person from going to a site that is known to be bad."
"The throughput is great. It's perfect. We have no issues whatsoever. The management features are very powerful..."
"All of the features have been valuable. There's nothing on my M270 that I'm not using. If you have remote access, you can see how many users are coming from the outside world to be connected to the systems, through the virus systems that we have behind the firewall, in order to gain access to their files and do their work. We can also see how long they stay online and whether these connections are closed forcefully or for any other reasons, such as a glitch or some kind of misbehavior, to see if internet traffic is optimized and if that particular traffic is under company policies, concerning which websites were visited."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use of the interface."
"Regarding the reporting, I was in the Dimension server earlier today. It's very powerful. I like it. And the management features are easy to use. I like the fact that I can open up the System Manager client or I can just do it through the web if I'm making a quick change."
"I like the High Availability features of the newest ones I'm using because they allow a firewall to fail and still be up and running."
"It would be ideal if they had some sort of GUI interface for troubleshooting and diagnostics."
"The solution needs to improve its integration with cybersecurity."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"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 feel that the reporting needs to be improved."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."
"Their first-level support is often poorly trained."
"It would be better if AWS instances were available. If I want to upgrade from T2.small to T2.medium, it should be available rather than having a big instance and paying a lot of money for that. The issue is that we had deployed in AWS Cloud, and we were using a very small instance. Recently we wanted to move in-house and deploy it on the big instance because it was struggling with the RAM. If we use T2.small, we cannot upgrade it to the T2.medium. It has predefined instances in the marketplace with a lot of cost differences. If I can increase the RAM, I have to choose the T3.large instance. If I'm paying $270 for the small instance, I have to pay more than double the cost for T3.large. It is about $850, and this is not good. So, it would be better if it was cheaper. I think both AWS and Fortinet should think about that. They should provide it on lower instances as well. If I want to upgrade it from T2.small to T2.medium, it should be available, but it's a problem."
"The product needs a feature that allows users to create another site on a VPN."
"There is some room for improvement in the support."
"Fortinet FortiOS can improve the monitoring function, it could be more accurate, easy to use, and understandable."
"FortiOS's bandwidth and interface could be improved."
"The additional features I would like to see included in the next release is better troubleshooting and reporting."
"Real-time threat monitoring is not there."
"One area for improvement could be making the interface even more user-friendly."
"One other shortcoming is that there is no backup for it. We really haven't figured out how we might solve that problem. We may want to put a duplicate in... With WatchGuard, we just have the one box. If that were to fail, we'd probably be really hurting."
"The reporting is a little on the weak side. I would like to see a better reporting set and easier drill-down options."
"The data loss protection works well, but it could be easier to configure. The complexity of data loss protection makes it a more difficult feature to fully leverage. Better integration with third-party, two-factor authentication would be advantageous."
"There is a slight learning curve."
"We use WatchGuard to manage our failover for internet. If a primary internet goes down, it does a failover to the secondary the internet. However, what it doesn't do so well is that if the primary internet has a lot of latency but it's not completely down, it doesn't do a failover to the backup in a timely manner."
"Sometimes, the writing rules are a little confusing in how am I doing them."
"I'd like to have better access to workstation monitoring, connection monitoring, and the amount of time an address is being used, to better gauge proper network utilization. If I knew that something was connected to a particular external location for an extended period that seems abnormal, I'd be able to act upon it."
Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiWeb, Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Fortinet FortiOS vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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