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Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Fortinet FortiOS 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.7
iboss offers significant ROI by saving bandwidth and enhancing security, despite increased costs from cloud migration and device pricing.
Sentiment score
7.1
Cato SASE Cloud Platform reduces costs and enhances efficiency with improved reliability, optimized traffic, and decreased maintenance expenses.
Sentiment score
6.3
Fortinet FortiOS offers cost-effective, scalable security, with competitive pricing and partnerships, enhancing ROI compared to top brands.
With iboss, whenever you turn on your laptop, the iboss agent automatically connects to the iboss cloud, enforcing all security policies. So with respect to the security side, it strengthens measures.
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I have seen some cost effectiveness from iboss; it has reduced certain support requirements, making it a more hands-off solution.
Managing Director
Once it is deployed, I do not have to revisit or replace the hardware.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
The pricing of FortiOS is competitive and reasonable compared to other leading products such as Palo Alto and Check Point.
Senior Manager at ITX360 (Pvt) Ltd
Fortinet is strong in terms of cost and compatibility with other vendors.
Technology Consultant at 1ware
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.8
Iboss support is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, with some concerns about communication but generally favorable reviews.
Sentiment score
7.5
Cato SASE Cloud's customer support is responsive, efficient, 24/7, with high user satisfaction and occasional concerns about sales communication.
Sentiment score
8.2
Fortinet FortiOS support is responsive and helpful but sometimes slow with complex issues, lacking top-tier vendor standards.
They are very fast, responsive, and knowledgeable.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
The quality of the support is fantastic.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
We had promising discussions about resolving these issues, but no real action followed.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Their knowledge portal and Cato Academy portal are excellent resources.
Product Lifecycle manager at Air Spring
Our customer service experience is excellent
Vice President at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I think the technical support by Cato SASE Cloud Platform is quite good.
Product & Services Integrator at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
I would rate them nine or ten out of ten.
Technology Consultant at 1ware
Fortinet technical support is very responsive and helpful.
Senior Manager at ITX360 (Pvt) Ltd
Support engineers sometimes lack eagerness to assist with issues such as the memory problem.
Director, IT Infrastructure Department at Zemen Bank S.C.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Iboss efficiently scales to meet growing resource demands, supporting large user bases with robust support and adaptable infrastructure.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cato SASE Cloud Platform excels in scalability, supporting enterprises globally with efficient management and eliminating frequent hardware upgrades.
Sentiment score
8.2
Fortinet FortiOS is highly scalable, adapting to different organizations, supporting growth and global deployments, yet may need hardware upgrades.
They are also able to meet on-demand requirements based on your contract with them, and can easily provide adequate resources and scalability.
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
If I start seeing sluggishness or anything like that, I just reach out to my rep, and they connect with their dev team, typically resolving it the same day.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
As an MSSP, we find it scalable for end users across EPP platforms, network, and cloud sides.
Product Lifecycle manager at Air Spring
When customers' networks grow and needs expand, we can easily switch between models to trade up devices.
Technology Consultant at 1ware
It allows for the expansion of users and devices without additional licensing costs.
Senior Manager at ITX360 (Pvt) Ltd
We have been using Fortinet for bandwidth shaping and many other bandwidth-related functions.
Associate Director IT Operations at Procento
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Iboss is generally stable with reliable support, despite initial deployment challenges, and is often praised for minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
8.3
Users praise Cato SASE Cloud Platform for its stable, reliable performance, high availability, and smooth operation across global deployments.
Sentiment score
7.8
Fortinet FortiOS is praised for stability, with minor issues usually tied to configurations or external factors, not the system.
It's been pretty solid; I've never had an outage with them, and if I ever had, it's only been once out of the seven years.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
We've experienced zero downtime.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device despite our ClearPass sending information to the iboss box.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
I would rate the stability of the solution as ten on a scale of one to ten.
Vice President at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I find Cato SASE Cloud Platform overall stable.
Product & Services Integrator at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
While the product is largely stable, it sometimes faces memory issues in specific versions like 11 OE, which can be disruptive.
Director, IT Infrastructure Department at Zemen Bank S.C.
There were no lags, there were no issues, and no hanging of the firewall.
Associate Director IT Operations at Procento
Stability is a seven out of ten because during version migrations, and sometimes with new versions, Fortinet is not as good.
Technology Consultant at 1ware
 

Room For Improvement

Iboss struggles with Mac support, ISP integration in India, and needs improvements in security features and cloud integration.
Enhancing identity integration, security features, interface, third-party compatibility, and sector-specific tools would boost Cato SASE Cloud's appeal.
Fortinet FortiOS requires improvements in VPN, pricing, compatibility, UI, security features, support, updates, deployment, and pricing consistency.
It is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
We also had a problem with a transition when we upgraded from one appliance of theirs to another, but their engineer lost a good deal of our data.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc.
The platform lacks strong security features on the edge.
Product Lifecycle manager at Air Spring
To improve Cato SASE Cloud Platform, I think they sometimes need more built-in features for security in larger networks when doing local authentication.
Product & Services Integrator at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Fortinet FortiOS faces memory issues, which can lead to unexpected downtimes.
Director, IT Infrastructure Department at Zemen Bank S.C.
There should be more documentation on how to use the CLI or how to perform CLI versions of tasks that can be done through the GUI.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
Compared to other market leaders like Palo Alto and Check Point, FortiOS has many bugs in its initial releases.
Senior Manager at ITX360 (Pvt) Ltd
 

Setup Cost

Iboss offers competitive, transparent pricing with valuable cloud solutions, appealing to enterprises for predictable budgeting and desired functionality.
Cato SASE Cloud offers competitive, flexible bandwidth-based pricing, with user-rated cost-effectiveness and discounts through partnerships for yearly licensing.
Fortinet FortiOS is often pricey but justified by features, with agreements influencing costs, suitable for mid-size businesses.
It offers the same features you would get from a vendor that charges 250,000 British pounds for a fraction of the price.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
The following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern.
Managing Director
I do not find it particularly expensive, but for some companies, they may not have the budget to be at that level of security for their networks.
Product & Services Integrator at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
The pricing is flexible due to our special partnership with Cato Networks.
Vice President at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It is an affordable solution for us.
Technology Consultant at 1ware
Fortinet products are somewhat pricey, similar to Cisco equivalents, however, they have justified their price point.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
I am satisfied with the pricing, licensing, and setup costs of FortiOS, rating it nine out of ten compared to other familiar leading firewalls.
Senior Manager at ITX360 (Pvt) Ltd
 

Valuable Features

Iboss provides comprehensive cloud security with advanced features, enhancing data protection and management efficiency for network security.
Cato SASE Cloud Platform enhances network performance with advanced security, traffic optimization, centralized management, and cost-effective global SD-WAN capabilities.
Fortinet FortiOS is praised for UTM, user-friendly interface, robust security, excellent performance, cost-effectiveness, and seamless management.
The solution's mental health function can detect if someone needs help.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
It's given us a lot more visibility into our computer assets that may be infected with viruses and also shows us people who have unusually large uploads or might be engaging in high-risk activities, such as searches or going to sites not categorized by their web crawler.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
iboss was the best solution for us because, no matter what domain you were in, everything is under a single pane of glass, which is exactly what we wanted.
Managing Director
It is scalable for end users across network and cloud sides and saves operational costs.
Product Lifecycle manager at Air Spring
The single-pass architecture has improved user experience with Cato SASE Cloud Platform as it provides security teams in companies a platform where they can easily obtain information if there are breaches or security issues.
Product & Services Integrator at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
It is user-friendly when it comes to turning on features, and it has been reliable and effective.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
The threat intelligence in FortiOS is very high, and the system is scalable without additional licensing costs.
Senior Manager at ITX360 (Pvt) Ltd
The solution offers good threat intelligence, which is crucial for our customers' security purposes.
Technology Consultant at 1ware
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Cato SASE Cloud Platform
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (11th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (4th), WAN Edge (6th), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (2nd)
Fortinet FortiOS
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cato SASE Cloud Platform8.7%
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks10.4%
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform8.9%
Other72.0%
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiOS1.1%
Fortinet FortiGate16.0%
OPNsense8.9%
Other74.0%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
reviewer2697738 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product & Services Integrator at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Cloud security has unified global network design and has simplified threat visibility
I think all of the functionalities, such as the secure web gateway feature, are quite good. I also believe Cato SASE Cloud Platform is one of the only solutions that has not only a software firewall solution but also a physical software solution where you can change the company's firewalls and put in sockets from Cato SASE Cloud Platform, which I see as an advantage for them. The single-pass architecture has improved user experience with Cato SASE Cloud Platform as it provides security teams in companies a platform where they can easily obtain information if there are breaches or security issues. I assess the benefit of integrating WAN optimization as good. There is ease in making rules between WAN optimization, especially when it comes to global connections because of all their points of presence that are spread over the world. I think the real-time threat protection of Cato SASE Cloud Platform is also good. Their points of presence are quite efficient, and I do not see any delays in that area.
MS
Associate Director IT Operations at Procento
Single-pane management has simplified firewall control and has improved risk mitigation
I would not say that Fortinet FortiOS is not very scalable. Generally, what happens is that for enterprises, we hire consultants who do the capacity planning and sizing to determine what kind of firewalls to put in place. At the same time, it is not only the number of users; it also depends on the number of WAN links coming in and everything, because we have been using Fortinet for bandwidth shaping and many other bandwidth-related functions. They should improve their machine learning AI capabilities of Fortinet FortiOS because there is too much competition. Other players are also improving and making a lot of changes in their UI and overall operating system.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
What is your primary use case for Cato Networks?
I can see that I am a consultant at a reseller and I am the architect of Cato SASE Cloud Platform designs. In the bas...
What advice do you have for others considering Cato Networks?
It is difficult to find types of companies I would not recommend Cato SASE Cloud Platform to, and I believe you can u...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cato Networks?
I do not find it particularly expensive, but for some companies, they may not have the budget to be at that level of ...
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiOS?
I rate the pricing for FortiOS as eight or nine out of ten. It is an affordable solution for us.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiOS?
I would not say that Fortinet FortiOS is not very scalable. Generally, what happens is that for enterprises, we hire ...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cato Networks
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Paysafe, AdRoll, Pet Lovers Centre, Arlington Orthopedics, Humphreys & Partners Architects
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, Cato Networks and others in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). Updated: May 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.