We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and OPNsense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is highly regarded for its robust security features, including geofencing, firewalling, IPS, and antivirus. Users also appreciate its user-friendly interface. OPNsense is notable for its scalability and ability to accommodate guest access. Its dashboards, IDS and IPS capabilities, and availability of a free version are also highlighted as valuable features.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM could benefit from enhancements in key activation, log management, IPsec failover, monitoring tools, hardening, availability, VPN connectivity, operating system stability, data center clustering, throughput, web application firewall integration, pricing model, troubleshooting forum, and guidance. OPNsense requires improvements in interface simplification, integration, DNS blocking, peer-blocking, installation, deployment, reporting, SSL inspection, and learning curve.
Service and Support: Fortinet FortiGate-VM's customer service has received both positive and negative feedback. Some customers appreciate the support team's quick response times and expertise. However, others have faced challenges in obtaining prompt assistance and finding information easily. OPNsense has been commended for its exceptional support, rapid response times, and helpful guidance. Nonetheless, a few users have noted the lack of easy accessibility to the support service and have recommended the addition of an associated support service.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is typically simple. OPNsense is not overly complicated or difficult. FortiGate-VM may take more time for larger deployments, however, it provides a user-friendly installation and configuration experience. Clients can perform the OPNsense setup themselves, and it can be completed within a few hours.
Pricing: Fortinet FortiGate-VM requires licensing fees with no extra expenses. OPNsense, being open-source, doesn't require a license, however, hardware costs are involved.
ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers enhanced security and stability. Users consider its ROI to be highly satisfactory. OPNsense delivers a quick return on investment, typically within three months, and eliminates the need for ongoing fees.
Comparison Results: The analysis of user feedback indicates that Fortinet FortiGate-VM outperforms OPNsense in various aspects. Users highly value Fortinet FortiGate-VM for its robust security capabilities, user-friendly interface, effortless deployment, scalability, and extensive filtering options. Moreover, users appreciate the availability of support from Fortinet.
"The solution is stable."
"Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"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."
"We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."
"The solution can scale well."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"We are able to closely monitor the usages of individual users and see their usage habits and other items, including the data itself, which gives us quite a bit of visibility."
"The solution's initial setup process was very easy."
"Initial setup is very straightforward with a wizard, if needed."
"We like FortiGate-VM's IPS features and its ability to create multiple virtual firewalls."
"The platform has a good user interface."
"The ease of access and user-friendly setup is a valuable feature. Fortinet proves to be particularly straightforward to configure, offering simplicity without complexity. Moreover, visibility is easily attainable due to certain factors. Price, implementation, and budget considerations play a role. When it comes to Cisco implementation, the process tends to be more intricate, which many customers find unfavourable for their business needs."
"I did like the ability to back up the configuration into the cloud, as opposed to having to store the configurations or just downloading them, the backups, to local devices."
"The product is quite user-friendly so we didn't have a lot of issues that needed to be addressed."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"The initial implementation process is simple."
"The DNS-level filtering is impressive for thwarting time scanners."
"The solution is user-friendly and easy to configure."
"The IDS and IPS features are valuable. From the usability perspective, there is a lot of good documentation. As IT professionals, we found it very easy to configure the firewall. It was easy to configure and use."
"It is a very good solution. I like the dashboard. I can see what is going on and manage it as I like it."
"I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings."
"We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable."
"The initial setup is complex."
"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool."
"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."
"Monitoring and reporting could be better."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"To improve FortiGate-VM, Fortinet needs to harden it more. For example, if you are using Hyper-V, then you need guidelines for hardening FortiGate-VM that are specific to the Hyper-V environment. If it's VMware, there should be at least a guideline on how to harden the firewall."
"Improvements are needed for the responsive UI and JIT traffic reporting."
"New versions are complicated with a big configuration."
"It would be better if it could provide you with options before completely blocking anything through the web filter. If you are doing a deep SSL inspection on the site if it says it's expired, it doesn't give you the option to continue at your own risk. I can't say that it's bad, but SSL internally isn't really a requirement. However, its security features can help. Right now, we have people going out and spending on purchasing the SSL certificates for internal sites."
"Capacity-wise, I think the solution's log storage area is something that needs to be increased since, by default, it stores logs for only seven days."
"Fortinet support needs improvement. The response times are lackluster. Fortunately, the product is stable and we seldom have issues. Also, it takes months for them to deliver hardware when we order it."
"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."
"With FortiGate, we sometimes encounter bugs in various operating systems."
"I would like to see better SD-WAN performance."
"An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense."
"The user interface could be improved, and the DNS section should be more intuitive."
"The support for OPNsense is good because we have documents available on the internet. The support could improve a little."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"There should be more technical documentation."
"When using the solution at the beginning was difficult. There was a steep learning curve."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while OPNsense is rated 8.4. 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". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, Netgate pfSense and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and IPFire. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. OPNsense report.
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