We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Fortinet FortiOS 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."The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"The solution is extremely reliable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"It is easy to manage, and it doesn't need much knowledge from the team. It is a stable device, and there are many features that are included out of the box."
"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."
"This solution has helped our organization by having strong functions and a reliable firewall."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"It has allowed us to centralize every network service into one appliance."
"The most valuable features are the SD-WAN and the web filtering applications control."
"The functionality provided is very good."
"Operations have been flawless."
"It's very easy to set up, even for more junior developers."
"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 initial setup was quite straightforward."
"It efficiently manages large-scale firewall deployments."
"The most valuable feature of this solution would be the caching feature."
"Has a very simple OS and a good price point."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the granular control and their interoperability is good."
"It's easy to use."
"This is an easy means of setting up high-availabilty firewall protection."
"Fortinet has optimized the WAN environment for connecting users to the application."
"FortiOS's best features are its function as an internet gateway and how easy it is to manage."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"Fortinet needs more memory to save the log files. We need it to save the logs on the hardware and not in the cloud. I know this feature is available in FortiCloud, but if we need this log locally, it is not available."
"The product does need better support in the cloud environment. It's not exactly cloud-native right now."
"With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic."
"It is stable, but its stability can be improved."
"The costs could be lowered."
"It would be useful to have integration with different reporting tools. This is something we are sorely missing. It would be a plus to have reporting integrations. It would be good to have more integration with the identity suites, such as Office 365 and Azure Active Directory, of different providers that we use. Integrations are already available, but it would be nice to have some more advanced options."
"Technical support could be better."
"The tool does not have a good name in the market, consisting of enterprise-class businesses, making it an area where the product lacks and needs to improve."
"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."
"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."
"The tech support calls were not the best and could be improved. There have been times when we felt as if we knew more about the device than the support person on the phone."
"We have experience stability issues, when the product sizing is wrong or on configuration errors."
"FortiOS's interface and monitoring could be improved."
"A switch should be introduced."
"There is some room for improvement in the support."
"Fortinet FortiOS's integration could be improved."
"The GUI could be improved to make it more usable, easier to administer, and easier to configure."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiOS is stable. However, last month we had an issue with a released patch. We had to receive another update to fix the firewall issue consuming all of the resources. The patches should be tested more before going into circulation."
"Fortinet's central management needs to be improved. FortiManager's technical tool provider ability should manage all Fortinet security products. Right now, FortiManager only manages the configuration of FortiGate."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "It's a solidly stable device with minimal downtime". 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-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, OPNsense, Netgate pfSense and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiWeb, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection, Darktrace and Sangfor NGAF. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM 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