Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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

 

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 FortiWeb
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

A10 Networks Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi) and Fortinet FortiWeb 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 32.5%, up 24.8% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiWeb, on the other hand, focuses on Web Application Firewall (WAF), holds 7.3% mindshare, up 6.9% since last year.
SSL/TLS Decryption Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
A10 Networks Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi)32.5%
GigaSMART26.2%
Symantec SSL Visibility Appliance21.4%
Other19.900000000000006%
SSL/TLS Decryption
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiWeb7.3%
F5 Advanced WAF9.2%
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway7.8%
Other75.7%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

CH
We used to have to bypass on the firewall, proxy, and IPS; now we can do it in one place
For us, 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. Another thing is SNI. A10 intercepts all the traffic according to the SNI, the server name indicator. It would be better if it intercepted traffic according to the IP addresses. A10 can only understand that a website is within the banking category or the website is in the social media category, according to the SNI. Without SNI, there is no way to understand it; there is no bypass operation. It would be better if worked without SNI as well. Also, the solution comes with web categories like banking and social media. There are suspicious URLs, malicious URLs, etc. It would be better if it had an application category as well. For example, it would be helpful if we had the chance to bypass all Office 365 applications: OneDrive, Skype, Outlook, etc. According to Microsoft, we need to bypass SSL for all Office 365 applications but we need to create custom categories and put all the Microsoft URLs in them and then we can bypass. It would be great if an application category could recognize Dropbox, for example. For now, we have to put the Dropbox URLs in one custom category and bypass them. Application categories could be very useful.
OcheEluma - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced security with comprehensive traffic inspection and some downtime automation needs
One area that needs improvement is the handling of SaaS downtime. When there is downtime at their data center, it becomes a transit point issue for us, causing downtime in our environment as well. Although measures like built-in redundancy and manual switching between data centers exist, there is room for improvement in making these transitions automatic without impacting the customer. Automating the migration without manual intervention would significantly enhance user experience during downtime. Additionally, being able to read non-flagged traffic for operational purposes could also be an area to improve.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With the Thunder SSLi, we're better protected. We can stop use of VPN and proxies. We are better protected against dirty traffic coming back to our schools. Having a secure decrypt zone with the equipment lowers the chances that our security infrastructure could possibly miss an attack."
"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."
"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."
"What we like about Fortinet FortiWeb is it has all the features. We use all of them, so we have to turn on all the options."
"The deployment was very easy."
"Provides good vulnerability scanning, IPS, and geolocalization."
"The most valuable feature is that this product represents a whole solution, including a WAF, and even anti-defacements."
"L-7 protection makes possible to protect legacy/not up-to-date servers/applications without changing the application code."
"The solution is easy to configure and deploy."
"The most valuable features of FortiWeb include its dashboard and out-of-the-box integrations with other Fortinet products, which enhance its effectiveness."
"It offers some feedback and suggestions that guide our system development while helping our vendors to update their applications and fix any issues or bugs."
 

Cons

"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."
"I would like them to have a better UI (better universal design)."
"The product's scalability could be better."
"I would like to have an antivirus option."
"It can be better with web application firewalls."
"For advanced users, it would be really useful to have access and the ability to manipulate packets. If we can access and manipulate the contents of packets, even encrypted packets... that would be powerful. Since we're looking at packets arriving at our network, we would have the private key to access those packets and their information."
"It may be better if it were easier to create roles."
"We would like to know more about the integration with the hardware or security products, such as Gemalto, because we need to move to that point."
"We use Kubernetes, so I would like to have a plugin to configure FortiWeb Cloud automatically using Kubernetes Ingress. That would reduce the complexity of setting up an Ingress object in Kubernetes. Some competing solutions help you configure Ingress and Kubernetes automatically."
"It would also be helpful if they could introduce easier reporting. It's good to have those reports that go to C-level management, and Fortinet does provide some graphs, but if they went into some more detail, that would be great."
 

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 price of Fortinet FortiWeb depends from customer to customer because some customers are considering using other solutions, such as Imperva. The price of Fortinet FortiWeb sits well for the middle-sized customers that we deal with."
"Its subscription prices are cheaper, and it is not very expensive. From a price perspective, Fortinet is a very well-known security vendor. Subscriptions are very simple. They have a couple of licenses on an appliance, and that's it. The cost is not that big. One license is 40K, which they give with all the products. Another one includes the subscriptions for threat prevention, IPS, sandboxing, etc, which is more than enough."
"The solution is cheaper compared with other solutions. It has a yearly license."
"It should be somewhere about 36,000 Euros. That's the cost for three years. It's moderately priced."
"The price of Fortinet FortiWeb is reasonable. This is one of the key factors of why we use this solution."
"Cheaper than others."
"The cost isn't expensive."
"We are on an annual license for this solution and the price is approximately €100."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which SSL/TLS Decryption solutions are best for your needs.
868,229 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
The pricing for Fortinet FortiWeb varies with different models having different prices. It depends on the requirement. For VM machines, the price increases based on CPU configurations of 2, 4, or 8...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
There is room for improvement in Fortinet FortiWeb. The team was only from FortiGate itself. They are making new firmware versions and releasing them before checking, which leads to many bugs in th...
 

Also Known As

Thunder SSLi
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Klein Independent School District
Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, A10 Networks, Fidelis Security and others in SSL/TLS Decryption. Updated: September 2025.
868,229 professionals have used our research since 2012.