We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Palo Alto Networks Wildfire based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Fortinet Fortigate is the more popular solution because of its ease of deployment combined with its solid set of features, excellent service and support ratings, and the fact that it is more affordable than Palo Alto Networks Wildfire.
"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"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."
"A good tool for file scanning and email threat detection, especially when it comes to attachments and communications."
"It has a user-friendly interface."
"I like the analysis they apply to the unknown files, and I think they have good technology to use as a sandboxing tool. I didn't find something similar to WildFire in the marketplace."
"It is stable and pretty much scalable."
"The scalability is acceptable."
"WildFire's application encryption is useful."
"Being an application-based firewall, this is one of the critical focus factors along with the threat prevention services it provides."
"We have found that Palo Alto Networks WildFire is scalable. We currently have six thousand users for the product."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"Maybe they could make some features more accessible, such as a way to translate directions between two networks that share the same subnets."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"FortiGate should have a better way of detecting and managing the system memory because otherwise if the memory is too low, a system restart is required."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"Web security solutions can be improved."
"The free version does not have real-time updates. It is slow."
"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."
"The VPN and decryption need improvement."
"The only problem with this solution is the cost. It's expensive."
"As a firewall and 360 degrees of security, there needs to be more maturity."
"The price of WildFire should be reduced in order to make it more affordable for our customers."
"The cyber security visibility and forensics features to receive more information about incidents could improve in Palo Alto Networks WildFire."
"The only complaint that we receive from our customers is in regards to the price."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 67 reviews while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) with 21 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks WildFire writes "Intuitive, stable, and scalable zero-day threat prevention solution with a machine learning feature". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Check Point NGFW, 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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FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy navigation tabs; It can be managed and controlled using layer two wireless access points; When compared with other firewalls, building IPsec VPN and SSL VPN is much easier; I can configure virtual networks within the same firewall; And, configuration of NAT and static routes are straightforward. I would recommend it to any organization that needs to provide VPN access for their employees.
FortiGate also has many security functions, such as application control, web filtering, IPS, antivirus, etc., that help companies protect their users. The FortiGate solution also helps optimize traffic from user to application via the hybrid WAN environment. I think what I like most about this solution is that I can combine security functions and SD-WAN, which allows me to scan traffic flow but also to protect the local application server or the user.
For me, the downsides of FortiGate are that it happens to include many bugs, and sometimes it can be a challenge to block content from a website with web filtering since web pages contain websites that consume other resources. Moreover, mobile device administration is complicated, and it does not seem to adapt to smartphone or tablet screens very well.
While it isn’t my favorite, WildFire provides the ability to block threats as they travers your network infrastructure both in retro-time and real-time. WildFire also has zero-trust and actively works to inspect traffic for malicious capabilities by forwarding a file to the WildFire cloud, even in the case that it doesn’t recognize what the file is doing. The reason why WildFire is not my first choice is because I feel that it is lacking many features and that they could improve by adding more functionality. But there doesn’t seem like there is a way to either tune or tweak the solution. If implemented correctly, though, it can be a good, robust solution to achieving great endpoint security.
Conclusion:
In my opinion, FortiGate is better than Wildfire because FortiGate meets my business needs better and has more appealing feature updates and roadmaps as well as great technical support, all of which are important to me.
What type of network is? how many users?
Fortinet products are unique in that they have specific chips to work on hardware rather than overcharging a CPU to 90%, as happens with some Sophos boxes and others.
Things in the cloud... the cloud is a name, it is software running on someone else's computer system and could be only for you or multi-tenancy. Delays and other dramas may occur.
The question as I was invited to comment :| Which is better, does not tell anything, somehow.