We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Fortinet Fortigate VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet Fortigate is the winner in this comparison. According to reviews, it has better support than Fortinet Fortigate VM.
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the simple configuration."
"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."
"Fortinet FortiGate's ease of management is the most valuable feature."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution."
"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"The most useful functionality of Fortinet FortiGate is the user interface, multiple engines, and their cloud with the latest integrations. Additionally, the Security Fabric tool is very good."
"The product is easy to use and is stable. The SV1 functionality is a benefit."
"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."
"The most valuable features are network security, VLAN, network protection, and encryption are very valuable to us."
"Technical support is very helpful."
"It gives all the features of a full-fledged firewall with great performance."
"The most valuable features are the SD-WAN and the web filtering applications control."
"Initial setup is very straightforward with a wizard, if needed."
"The VM it's very quick for deployment. If we need to have a POC for a customer, if we don't have any hardware physically at our premises, at our store, in our office, we can download the VM from Fortinet and install all the VM to their environment in order to run it. If we have a customer that says "let's start tomorrow" we are able to do that in a way that's not possible with a hardware version."
"We like FortiGate-VM's IPS features and its ability to create multiple virtual firewalls."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"The solution is fairly complex."
"In the next releases, it would be nice to see central cloud management."
"The product does not have a good graphical interface."
"The block, the clarity, the quarantine command, is not very user-friendly. You would have to do everything through the command line and I would have preferred if it wasn't a CLI."
"There should be more options to use lower-end models in a high availability configuration."
"New versions are complicated with a big configuration."
"It has a monitoring tool, but it could be improved."
"The performance could be better. Some features need to have quality control when the switch is working. The dedicated bandwidth for some users is not reliable."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM 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 FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and SonicWall NSa, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Netgate pfSense. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
Purpose-built appliances offer tested performance measures and provide proven results for the specified traffic and service configuration.
VM can only provide vCPUs, RAM, and hard disk resources. However, in some cloud environments, you only have the VM option, no appliances accepted.
We have several Fortigate VM firewalls operating for 3 years now in the cloud and appliances in our centers that handle the traffic just fine. We have not had to increase the resources above the recommendations and they work just fine.
FortiGate VM
Virtual machines are less efficient than real machines because they access the hardware indirectly.
FortiGate Hardware
Fortigate appliance is purpose built with NPU and SPUs designed to increase throughput while maximizing the ability to decrypt packets in search of malware.
VM deployments are software only and do not include the NPU and SPUs.