We compared Fortinet FortiGate and Fortinet FortiOS based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
Overall, based on user reviews, it is evident that both Fortinet FortiGate and Fortinet FortiOS offer strong security measures, reliable performance, and comprehensive reporting functionalities. While Fortinet FortiGate stands out for its effective firewall capabilities, intuitive interface, and excellent customer service, Fortinet FortiOS excels in areas such as efficient VPN capabilities, robust authentication options, and ease of use. The user feedback also indicates that both products provide good value for money and deliver a positive return on investment. However, there are areas for improvement with each product, such as the complexity of the user interface for Fortinet FortiGate and the need for enhancements in certain aspects of Fortinet FortiOS.
Features: The valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate include strong security measures, effective firewall capabilities, intuitive interface, reliable performance, and comprehensive reporting functionalities. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS offers reliable security measures, ease of use, comprehensive reporting capabilities, efficient VPN capabilities, and robust authentication options.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Fortinet FortiGate is described as minimal and straightforward, allowing for easy deployment. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS has received positive remarks for its affordable pricing and hassle-free setup cost. Users find the licensing process seamless for both products., Users praised Fortinet FortiGate for its effectiveness in enhancing network security and protecting against cyber threats. They commended its robust features, ease of use, reliability, and cost savings. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS received feedback on significant improvements in network security and reliability, comprehensive features, ease of use, deployment, and long-term cost savings. Overall, both products offer a positive ROI.
Room for Improvement: The Fortinet FortiGate product needs improvement in areas such as user interface complexity, challenging setup process, performance issues, and occasional downtime. On the other hand, users have identified certain aspects of Fortinet FortiOS that need to be enhanced for effectiveness.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews indicate that the deployment, setup, and implementation phases for Fortinet FortiGate are generally considered as one timeframe. The reviews mention varying timeframes for these phases. On the other hand, for Fortinet FortiOS, the duration required for establishing a new tech solution varies among users, with some requiring three months for deployment and an additional week for setup, while others needing only a week for both. However, it's essential to consider the context in which these terms are used, as they may refer to the same period of time., Fortinet FortiGate is known for its strong customer service, with prompt and effective support. Technical issues are resolved efficiently, demonstrating reliability. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS has excellent customer service, praised for its promptness, efficiency, knowledge, and helpfulness in addressing needs and resolving issues.
The summary above is based on 154 interviews we conducted recently with Fortinet FortiGate and Fortinet FortiOS users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all of these features on one device because it can cause performance issues."
"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."
"Fortinet FortiGate's reliability is valuable."
"We use a lot of function on the IPS and it works well for us."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"The integration with Active Directory is one of the good features. Most of the customers are now looking for the Single Sign-on feature. So, being able to integrate Active Directory with the firewall is useful. It is also easy."
"We have been able to offer several services to customers in a single box."
"The solution provides good firewall and antivirus protection."
"The VDOM (Virtual DOM) is a virtualized firewall that has some opportunities for flexibility that are an advantage in certain configurations."
"I have found the most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiOS is the low maintenance."
"It's simple to use in terms of inbound and outbound traffic management."
"FortiGate as a product is very easy to configure."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are user-friendliness, ease of use, and threat prevention."
"FortiOS's most valuable feature is a next-generation firewall that can be used as the APT solution in advanced threat protection."
"The solution is extremely scalable."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."
"The product does need better support in the cloud environment. It's not exactly cloud-native right now."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve the integration with Active Directory. Additionally, I would like to have a Cloud Controller, such as they do in the Cisco Meraki solution."
"The solution's firmware updates have significant bugs and issues."
"I can only compare it with SonicWall, and it is missing many advanced features that SonicWall has."
"I want to see a better integration or a better integration with the endpoint protection or with EDR with the security life cycle."
"There are some features for FortiGate using FortiOS that can only be enabled via a command line. These aren't very advanced features they have been part of FortiOS for quite some time but they still aren't accessible from the graphical user interface. It makes it a little bit harder than it should be for us to manage the solution. That's my main concern with the user interface. Another concern we have is some elements for the user interface, if they're not properly configured, it could lead to hardware and performance degradation."
"It would be great if they can push the Microsoft updates through Fortinet OS and provide a centralized patch management system. They should also include the data loss prevention (DLP) and data leakage prevention features. They could also add network monitoring more effectively."
"It could more scalable for the lower end users."
"Technical support could be better. Some competitors have much more responsive support teams."
"FortiOS could provide a more detailed analysis of the network and connected devices."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4. 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 Fortinet FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Cisco SD-WAN, whereas Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiWeb, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Darktrace. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Fortinet FortiOS report.
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In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it kind of depends what you value most.
PA is good at app control, web filtering and such like, they have always been top of the pile there. The GUI is very good, and their product is very user-focused.
Fortinet is good for scalability and predictable high throughput (ASICs in the hardware), and useful things like authentication flexibility, CLI config (if you have any networking/Cisco people, they always seem to prefer CLI over GUI) and have better OT features, maybe relevant to your manufacturing use?
Fortinet seem to have a broader integration offering with their security fabric than PA do, plus they can do Fortinet-based wifi, switching, etc. Depends if you are prepared to go all-in with a single vendor.
Hi,
Both FT and PA have compelling features for large Enterprises. I would like to add a few good points about Fortinetwhich might be helpful ( from my 13 years of engagement with them as Distributor and Partner)
Fortinet:
Have higher throughput; which comes with competitive rates
Wide range of models to select to meet your requirement, without spending heavliy
Outstanding customer support and very active customer care team
Easly available skilled resources from the channel for deployment and post-implementation support
Regards
Abhilash
Hello. The question is what you are going to have as a result of application