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

Bitdefender Hypervisor Introspection vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 5, 2025

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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
411
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Bitdefender Hypervisor Intr...
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (64th), Anti-Malware Tools (57th)
WatchGuard Firebox
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (11th), Firewalls (14th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (8th), Anti-Malware Tools (12th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (20th), Application Control (7th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Muhammad-Imran - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable but bad technical support, and an out of date database
We primarily use the solution to protect our business The solution protects us so that we have regular security from attacks. It prevents disasters from happening on our system. The endpoint protection is the solution's most valuable feature. The database needs improvement. It needs to be…
Rajesh  Makwana - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient bandwidth management and secure network access with a strong firewall
The primary use case of the Firebox mainly revolves around bandwidth management, unnecessary web blocking, application control, and protection against brute force attacks. It is also implemented for load balancing, SD-WAN, and branch-to-branch connectivity from one location to another. We also use…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have a redundant setup for failover, however, it has not had to fail over ever and we have not had a capacity issue."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"It's very similar to a Cisco firewall, yet less expensive."
"The SD-WAN is the most valuable feature."
"I like the simplicity of this solution and the fact that it saves us time. The deployment was really straightforward and useful and I am impressed by the anti-virus endpoint detection and response offered by this solution."
"The endpoint protection is the solution's most valuable feature."
"The solution has exchange protection. It has a content control, device control, a firewall, and anti-malware as well. They are all quite valuable features for us."
"It's pretty simple to understand when you want to do any diagnostics on your network. If you want to go in and see what packages are having trouble getting through, what's being held, stalled, etc., it's very easy to use in that way."
"The most valuable features of the WatchGuard Firebox are all the security and updated features. You are able to configure the solution from the cloud platform and the application and web interface are very nice."
"WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response is a reliable solution."
"As a whole, it has a very low requirement for ongoing interaction. It's very self-sufficient. If properly patched, it has very high reliability. The total cost of ownership once deployed is very low."
"The ease of use is most valuable. You can quickly train someone who hasn't seen a firewall in life. You can get people up to speed, and in a few months, they are able to manage this product very easily. It is a very user-friendly, scalable, and stable product. Its price is also spot-on."
"The Dimension control, the one-spot reporting and control, has been nice. It's been easy to go in and make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing and that only the right stuff is getting in."
"Policy VPN, site-to-site VPN, traffic monitoring, anti-spam filters, and all other advanced features are valuable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is traffic management."
 

Cons

"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."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"The solution lacks sufficient filtering."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"The product does need better support in the cloud environment. It's not exactly cloud-native right now."
"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."
"There are SD-WAN network monitoring, SD-WAN features, Industrial Databases, Internet of Things, Detection, etc., however, we do have not licenses for those features. We thought that if you bought a product, you should have all of the features it offers. Why should you need to make so many extra purchases to enable features? They should have one price for the entire offering."
"There are blurred lines between anti-virus and endpoint detection so I would say it can be confusing when you are considering buying this program. I would like to see that being explained better to the customer."
"The database needs improvement. It needs to be updated quite a bit."
"There needs to be better integration with the environment. Especially, for the active directory and also for keeping up with the changes from Microsoft. We use a lot of Microsoft OS. I have noted that sometimes they lag behind Microsoft updates. For example, when with Windows 10. I had some issues with deploying to Windows 10 because the solution was behind in updating their own services to match the Microsoft release."
"The area where I think this product can be improved is the user interface and the reporting. It can be quite difficult to find the correct logs and to actually find out what is going on. The digging can be time-consuming."
"Last year, I had an issue with one of the Fireboxes going down. It was overheated, because my server room became overheated and this fried it."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say their web blocker feature. It is still quite a confusing setup, especially when you want to filter out a particular category for granularity. For example, you do not want to filter Facebook but you do want to filter Facebook games only. It can be done, but the process to do it is very confusing."
"WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention catches so little. When I've implemented it, it just can't look at the traffic in a thorough enough manner to capture as much as it should. And I find that I'm disenchanted with all data loss protection solutions I've tested and looked at."
"The pricing could be improved. It is definitely one of the more expensive products."
"The licensing can be a bit expensive."
"The website must provide more information on the product."
"One area for improvement is the limitation in the product portfolio compared to competitors like Fortinet, which offers a broader portfolio including Authentication, VPNs, FortiMail, Sandbox, and Email Security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think that the pricing is fair."
"At the time we bought them, I was satisfied with their pricing; I don't know how the new pricing will be."
"We have the full license that included all of the features and support."
"I had to pay for the license for the firewall, but it is guaranteed to have updates. I expect a good service for it. It was about €1000 for a year, and there was no additional cost."
"We pay for the solution annually."
"It's expensive, but compared to the competition it's okay."
"It is quite affordable for our customers. There is a separate cost for IPS, antivirus, web filtering, and other features. They have a great choice of licenses. You can go for the license that you want, which is quite useful."
"Licensing is usually on a three-year period."
"There's a yearly cost for licensing. For us, that comes to $1,400. There are no additional costs beyond the license itself."
"I would rate the pricing at seven out of ten. As for the licensing costs, we typically have yearly licenses for our clients, but there are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"The cost was somewhere in the vicinity of $2,000 to $3,000 for each one..."
"It's an affordable tool"
"The cheapest configuration, for maybe five people, is approximately $500."
"As per my knowledge, the product is more affordable than alternatives."
"The price of WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service is pretty reasonable compared to similar solutions."
"The solution is cheap."
"We paid $4000 in AUD for WatchGuard Firebox per year. There were no additional costs."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Anti-Malware Tools solutions are best for your needs.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Retailer
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
HVI
WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response, WatchGuard Application Control, WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention, WatchGuard Gateway AntiVirus, WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Kansas Development Finance Authority (KDFA), Quilvest
Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
Find out what your peers are saying about Bitdefender Hypervisor Introspection vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.