We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Juniper SRX based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Fortinet Fortigate seems to be a superior solution. All other things being more or less equal, our reviewers felt that Juniper SRX’s user interface as well as its pricing could be improved.
"It blocks the vulnerabilities that can negatively impact us."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."
"Fortinet FortiGate's reliability is valuable."
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"The usage in general is pretty good."
"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."
"It provides good routing and high performance of the data center."
"It helps us perform our daily jobs."
"It helped us with its routing capabilities which eased the cost, because otherwise I would have had to take a router and firewall, and then integrate it. With this, however, it was an integration of firewall and routing services all together in a single product. That was one thing that I loved about it."
"The virtualization feature is the most valuable feature. Sometimes customers are requesting a private connection using mobile data when they are connecting to remote sites."
"The technical support is quite good."
"The features that I have found valuable are the ones for the main purpose we are using Juniper - its firewall to protect our network for our internet access."
"The reason that we picked Juniper SRX is for the scalability, the fit for purpose, the tools that are available, the ongoing support and the ability to monitor, but particularly for the virtual routers in our data centers so that we can quickly upscale them when needed, when we need more throughput."
"It's fine, and it's good. It's very stable."
"Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."
"I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"They need faster serviceability and more security features."
"It could have features that other products support like blade options and stand-alone endpoint security."
"The GUI needs improvement."
"When I was going to upgrade the OS, the solution didn't accept certain USB devices."
"The user interface and the GUI need improvement."
"There is room for improvement in scalability and performance. It's scalable and reliable, but when using next-generation firewall features, the performance decreases significantly for Juniper SRX."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"The solution could cost less. It's a bit expensive right now."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Juniper SRX Series Firewall is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 86 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Juniper SRX Series Firewall is rated 7.8. 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 Juniper SRX Series Firewall writes "Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Sangfor NGAF, whereas Juniper SRX Series Firewall is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Check Point NGFW. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Juniper SRX Series Firewall report.
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Hello Fahrorozi,
From my point of view, I would rather choose SRX4200 solution over FortiGate1800.
Why?
1. SRX4200 is a compact 1U device equipped with ports you actually need for full firewall usage and not for datasheet specifications.
2. Juniper Networks started as a Network company so alongside with full NGFW functions of the SRX firewall you are also getting full L3 routing functionalities same ones that are working on Juniper routers with complete granular configuration.
3. All products from Juniper Networks are equipped with their JunOS Operating System which is built on FreeBSD with data and control plane separation. Main configuration and really fast troubleshooting power are provided with structured CLI where you can do everything you can imagine even get into FreeBDS for troubleshooting if needed. Also, a tool like MTR (My Traceroute) for troubleshooting is available. JunOS configuration is the same for every Juniper Networks device so when you will get used to it you can configure every platform the same way (except for stateful firewall functions dedicated only to the SRX platform).
4. Web management is also included on a device that simplifies day-to-day configuration. Web management historically was not quite great, but starting JunOS 21.x it was really improved and provided all you need for device configuration and troubleshooting, also Juniper is still working on quality-of-life improvements.
5. SSL VPN / Client VPN is fully integrated with Juniper SRX and also with a client application.
6. Regarding performance, FortiGate was and maybe is still not providing full packet sanity checks (IP protocol, SEQ number, etc.) in the default configuration. When you enable these features, FortiGate loses some performance because HW acceleration is not possible with these features.
7. Also when you are using NFS with source NAT then you will find a useful feature where you can set to NAT traffic with port number <1024.
8. Regarding C&C, antimalware, IPS, and centralized management it's all similar to all other vendors.
9. Juniper SRX also provides VRF-light routing table separation, and also Full separation with Logical systems that have separate processes for each LSYS. You can also allocate CPU resources for each LSYS.
10. Regarding HA Clustering you can use an active/active data plane (data traversing -> one node in a cluster is entrance and destination is on another node) in a special use case. You can also have free hands regarding failovers using separate interfaces/interfaces groups based on BFD, interface status, and IP reachability. You can also deploy a full L3 cluster.
This is only a subjective short summary, always depends on other factors (interfaces, budget, preferences, etc.). I would suggest you find the nearest partner (Forti or Juniper) to you, schedule a PoC and receive the solution you would prefer.
Instead of FortiGate, I would definitely choose SRX.
A different case is the native L7 firewall when I want to check all applications, then I would maybe consider Palo Alto vs SRX in some cases.
Hi Fahrorozi,
If I have to choose between these two, I will choose FG 1800.
Reasons:
1. More flexible ports to use from 1G to 40G
2. Includes SSL VPN / client VPN for users
3. Has better web management than SRX
4. From the datasheet, some of the throughputs are also larger (IPv4 FW throughput, Max Session, Max Policies, etc).
But you need to know what you need for your company.
- Maybe you only need a 10G interface instead of a 1G
- Maybe you don't need the SSL VPN / Client VPN
- You also don't need a large throughput.
Hope this helps.