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A10 Networks Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi) vs Fortinet FortiADC comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

A10 Networks Thunder SSL In...
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
SSL/TLS Decryption (2nd)
Fortinet FortiADC
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

A10 Networks Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi) and Fortinet FortiADC aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. A10 Networks Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi) is designed for SSL/TLS Decryption and holds a mindshare of 23.2%, down 31.7% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiADC, on the other hand, focuses on Application Delivery Controllers (ADC), holds 7.3% mindshare, down 9.4% since last year.
SSL/TLS Decryption Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
A10 Networks Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi)23.2%
Symantec SSL Visibility Appliance23.7%
Fidelis Elevate19.5%
Other33.599999999999994%
SSL/TLS Decryption
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiADC7.3%
NetScaler11.7%
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)11.4%
Other69.6%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

KM
Data Center Network Engineer at BRIDGETON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Enables our content filter to do its job without any noticeable delay
Its most valuable feature is its ability to do its job accurately, effectively, and very quickly. The amount of traffic that we have going through our system is astounding. We have 6,900 students and about 1,100 staff members. Most of our teachers and staff are connecting through our system. You add to that all the cell phones, the iPads, and all the computers, and then each individual website's connection, that's a lot of traffic in a period of one second. The delay with the SSL decryption turned on is almost unnoticeable. That is great because most SSL decryption solutions — a couple of competitors we did try — their devices crashed as soon as we turned decryption on.
Suraska Sanjaya - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead at Adapt Information Technologies (Pvt) Ltd
Application load balancing has improved traffic distribution and supports straightforward clustering
I did not explore the advanced features as I only performed load balancing in the application and cluster implementation. I need to study Fortinet FortiADC more. Regarding Fortinet FortiADC reporting, our customer has not requested the reporting part from us, and I have not considered that. There appears to be an advanced reporting part that I am not aware of. The advanced analytics part was not requested from us. The only thing customers expected was load balancing.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Its most valuable feature is its ability to do its job accurately, effectively, and very quickly. The amount of traffic that we have going through our system is astounding... The delay with the SSL decryption turned on is almost unnoticeable."
"This is one of those devices that, once you turn it on and it's functioning properly, you'll forget that you have it."
"By not renewing six proxy boxes, rather just three of them, it saved over $100,000."
"We have several proxies in our environment, so we localized internet traffic between these proxies. Instead of getting a really huge proxy box, according to our size, we can use three boxes and share the traffic with A10's load-balancer feature."
"With the Thunder SSLi, we're better protected; we can stop use of VPN and proxies, are better protected against dirty traffic coming back to our schools, and having a secure decrypt zone with the equipment lowers the chances that our security infrastructure could possibly miss an attack."
"Fortinet FortiADC is a good product; we implemented a Fortinet FortiADC cluster and use application load balancing, and the implementation process is straightforward and cluster implementation is also very easy."
"Fortinet FortiADC is a good product because each and every piece of content is monitored by it."
"The solution is less expensive than F5 or Imperva and is the most reasonably priced option available."
"Because ADC is the intermediary between the servers and the end-user application, it gives thorough information about the traffic, what the problem is."
"Key features include SSL Offloading, VM availability, and L7 load balancing."
"I use load balancing technology like Round Robin or low weight to maintain session-based connections. This ensures that clients can connect to their applications without interruption."
"The most valuable feature is its simplicity."
"Customer service is excellent."
 

Cons

"I would like them to have a better UI (better universal design)."
"There is one thing I would like to see changed. In their features for setting things up, there is a templating system that would normally assist clients. However, we had a better time setting up the device either through the command line or through the interface and not using the templates that were pre-installed. So there is room for improvement to the templates for initial installation."
"It would be great if it supported SSL operations according to Active Directory users. For example, if we want to bypass one of the servers or a client's internet access for SSL interception, we have to do it according to the IP address. It would be better if we could do it according to the Active Directory username. A10 says they kind of support that but we haven't tested it."
"SSLi is a very powerful device. It has many features and to get them configured is kind of tough."
"I had a terrible experience with Fortinet support. I only used support once when I bought the solution. I got no response for two days. However, I believe that it's no longer the case. Fortinet solutions have problems when they're launched. For example, we had issues with Fortinet's authenticator when it came out. We also had trouble with FortiNAC in the beginning."
"When the FortiADC is part of a platform with components like FortiManager and FortiGate, automation and pushing configuration are very inconvenient."
"There is a mismatch between the number of features they are offering and the device capacity on how much it can handle."
"The user interface could be more friendly and CLI could be more like that of Fortigate."
"Fortinet FortiADC should include an advanced-level SD-WAN."
"Fortinet has some drawbacks, and it can be a bit challenging to scale."
"The solution should improve finding false positives and false negatives. There are a lot of false positives."
"Though FortiADC is useful, I'd appreciate more user-friendly features and in-depth insights into network activity, like detailed logs and AI-driven feedback for optimization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing costs, yearly, are just under $15,000. Your initial cost of acquisition is obviously going to be more than $15,000..."
"We always pay for support. Any organization of our size who doesn't is asking for problems."
"When you purchase the equipment, you purchase the licensing and warranty. It's all fairly standard. We haven't been caught with anything surprising."
"The solution could be more cost-effective."
"The price is competitive"
"The product has average pricing. I rate its pricing a five out of ten."
"The solution's pricing is an issue and should be improved."
"I believe the price is good. It's fair. There are no extra costs."
"They offer a perpetual license."
"Our basic license excludes features such as antivirus and IDS. Due to license limitations, some functionalities are not configured."
"Compared to F5, FortiADC pricing is better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
7%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?
For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.
Do you recommend Fortinet FortiADC?
I recommend Fortinet FortiADC. My experience with Fortinet has been very positive. Our company has been using it for around five years. We mainly use FortiADC for the load balancing of application ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiADC?
Pricing is not considered on our side since we are the implementation team. Our pre-sales team considers the pricing and all the details.
 

Also Known As

Thunder SSLi
FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Klein Independent School District
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, A10 Networks, Gigamon and others in SSL/TLS Decryption. Updated: November 2026.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.