We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Palo Alto Networks WildFire based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."The solution is scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."
"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."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"Fortinet is user-friendly."
"It has allowed us to centralize every network service into one appliance."
"The solution is stable."
"It's a very simple solution to manage."
"Regarding specific features, I appreciate the option for external selection, where you can choose either to use a default or create a self-description. This simplifies the process compared to other vendors that require creating a test extension profile and then applying it to the installation. With FortiGate, there is a streamlined approach. From the benefits perspective, clients mainly see cost reduction, especially with FortiGate VM Firewall, as it eliminates the need for additional hardware."
"I like the visibility and monitoring features because they're easy to use to monitor traffic. Features like geo-blocking and more have AI, and we're currently using all of it. But for now, we're only using geo-blocking, and we're able to block traffic from different countries. I also like that it's highly responsive. VM04 is also very powerful."
"I have worked on some of the largest and smallest solutions that Fortinet sells and they all scale really well."
"The most valuable features are the SD-WAN and the web filtering applications control."
"For example, if a security Intel threat talks about an IOC. We can then go to our MSP and say, "Is there a signature for this particular type of malware that just came out?" And if they'll say yes, then we'll say, "Okay. Does it apply to these firewalls? And have we seen any hits on it?" There's absolutely value in it."
"The analysis is very fast."
"The most valuable feature is the improved security that it offers."
"It gives a more accurate assessment of a virus in terms of whether it's truly a virus, malware, or a false positive. We have some legacy software that could pop up as being something that is malware. WildFire goes through and inspects it, and then it comes back and lets us know if it's a false positive. Usually, when it finds out that it's not a virus, it lets us know that it's benign, and it can exclude it from that scan, which means I don't even have to worry about that one popping up anymore."
"A good tool for file scanning and email threat detection, especially when it comes to attachments and communications."
"The cloud-based services are a nice feature."
"It is stable and pretty much scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the cloud-based protection against zero-day malware attacks."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"One thing that can be better is added automation. And, on top of that, enhanced security when it comes to the automation itself."
"Integration could be better. Whatever devices I'm using with FortiGate are all compatible. The access points and switches are also FortiGate, so I can easily integrate them. But it would be better if we could embed other devices as well. There are compatibility issues with other brands, and we need that. We can only integrate universal brands with FortiGate. The initial setup could also be easier."
"We encountered scalability issues in IPSec Module. The tunnels freeze sometimes."
"It is difficult to size the VM in terms of machine resources, and for this reason, clients prefer the appliance."
"The log settings and filters could use some improvement."
"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The GUI could be improved."
"Compatibility and integration with other products or vendors such as Cisco SD-WAN products need improvement."
"In the future, Palo Alto could reduce the time it takes to process the file."
"The only complaint that we receive from our customers is in regards to the price."
"Palo Alto Networks WildFire could improve by adding support for manual submission of suspicious files and URLs. Additionally, it would be an advantage to add rule-based analysis. Currently, it uses only static and AI. We need to be able to analyze archive files."
"High availability features are lacking."
"The cost of this solution could still be improved, in particular, giving product discounts for charitable causes."
"Many years back an update caused an issue with the firewall. However, Palo Alto not only informed us of said issue, they also sent an update that fixed the issue before I even had time to log in to determine if the issue affected our services."
"The product's false positive logs could be more user-friendly to understand. They could provide examples of precious cases to learn."
"The system performance degrades after the solution has been deployed for some time. The data that it gives us becomes a little bit slow. When you try to get some data for troubleshooting, it seems like it's working hard to extract that data."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with 58 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks WildFire 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 Palo Alto Networks WildFire writes "Good technical support and provides automatic analysis that saves us time in filtering email". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Netgate pfSense, whereas Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Proofpoint Email Protection, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Fortinet FortiSandbox and Check Point SandBlast Network.
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