We compared Fortinet FortiGate and Fortinet FortiOS based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
Overall, based on user reviews, it is evident that both Fortinet FortiGate and Fortinet FortiOS offer strong security measures, reliable performance, and comprehensive reporting functionalities. While Fortinet FortiGate stands out for its effective firewall capabilities, intuitive interface, and excellent customer service, Fortinet FortiOS excels in areas such as efficient VPN capabilities, robust authentication options, and ease of use. The user feedback also indicates that both products provide good value for money and deliver a positive return on investment. However, there are areas for improvement with each product, such as the complexity of the user interface for Fortinet FortiGate and the need for enhancements in certain aspects of Fortinet FortiOS.
Features: The valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate include strong security measures, effective firewall capabilities, intuitive interface, reliable performance, and comprehensive reporting functionalities. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS offers reliable security measures, ease of use, comprehensive reporting capabilities, efficient VPN capabilities, and robust authentication options.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Fortinet FortiGate is described as minimal and straightforward, allowing for easy deployment. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS has received positive remarks for its affordable pricing and hassle-free setup cost. Users find the licensing process seamless for both products., Users praised Fortinet FortiGate for its effectiveness in enhancing network security and protecting against cyber threats. They commended its robust features, ease of use, reliability, and cost savings. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS received feedback on significant improvements in network security and reliability, comprehensive features, ease of use, deployment, and long-term cost savings. Overall, both products offer a positive ROI.
Room for Improvement: The Fortinet FortiGate product needs improvement in areas such as user interface complexity, challenging setup process, performance issues, and occasional downtime. On the other hand, users have identified certain aspects of Fortinet FortiOS that need to be enhanced for effectiveness.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews indicate that the deployment, setup, and implementation phases for Fortinet FortiGate are generally considered as one timeframe. The reviews mention varying timeframes for these phases. On the other hand, for Fortinet FortiOS, the duration required for establishing a new tech solution varies among users, with some requiring three months for deployment and an additional week for setup, while others needing only a week for both. However, it's essential to consider the context in which these terms are used, as they may refer to the same period of time., Fortinet FortiGate is known for its strong customer service, with prompt and effective support. Technical issues are resolved efficiently, demonstrating reliability. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS has excellent customer service, praised for its promptness, efficiency, knowledge, and helpfulness in addressing needs and resolving issues.
The summary above is based on 154 interviews we conducted recently with Fortinet FortiGate and Fortinet FortiOS users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Quota."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the different types of profiling. It has been the most effective for me. The WAF and the antivirus profile are the most effective in network protection."
"Unified Threat Management (UTM) features."
"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."
"The most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."
"Fortinet FortiOS's valuable features include intuitive policy creation and deployment, precise parameter settings to determine thresholds, and security profiles such as web filtering and remote application filtering, among others."
"The technical support is very good and the assistance they gave was very good."
"What I like about this solution, is that it is the only solution that currently offers VPN for clients."
"There are a lot of features that we like within the solution. The resources or performance of the firewall is very good. However, the real selling point is the fact that the solution offers so many features, it gives our clients a lot of extras that they can work with. There's a lot on offer."
"It's very easy to use."
"For ten to 12 years it has been quite secure."
"Compared to other firewalls, the segmentation is much easier in FortiGate."
"It efficiently manages large-scale firewall deployments."
"One of the problems I was having was with user mapping, and it is an issue for which I have escalated tickets with Fortinet support."
"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."
"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."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"Fortinet FortiGate should improve the VPN tokens."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"Backup can be improved."
"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
"There is no flexibility."
"The additional features I would like to see included in the next release is better troubleshooting and reporting."
"FortiOS doesn't work well with all browsers. I think they need to do a better job of making it compatible with the various browsers that are out there."
"Could be improved by supporting an allocation of quota base management regarding user data."
"SD-WAN configuration could be easier."
"The complexity of the VPNs should be improved."
"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 can improve the monitoring function, it could be more accurate, easy to use, and understandable."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4. 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 Fortinet FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Cisco SD-WAN, whereas Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Fortinet FortiWeb, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Darktrace. See our Fortinet FortiGate 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