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Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Fortinet FortiWeb 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

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (7th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th)
Cato SASE Cloud Platform
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (5th), WAN Edge (5th), ZTNA as a Service (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (5th)
Fortinet FortiWeb
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
Alexander Azikov - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide a seamless experience for end users with internet duplication feature
The setup and onboarding process is very straightforward - I'd rate it a ten out of ten for ease. We use CatoCloud as our cloud provider. They have points of presence, and we connect to the nearest one to our physical location. All the routing, inspection, and logic for what to route, block, or allow happens in the cloud, not on the local device. Our deployment took a couple of weeks because we installed the sites manually. If we had a team to help switch locally, it could have been done in a week. The deployment process is straightforward. We set up all the sites in their cloud system; then, they ship the sockets directly to the location or our main office. We connect the device to the internet, it gets activated, we assign it to a specific site inside the cloud, and it's online and ready to use. It's very easy.
Kacem CHAMMALI - PeerSpot reviewer
Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb
The xFF, or X-Forwarded-For feature, IP reputation, and protected hostname. We can block access using the IP address, so no one can connect to our web server or website using the real IP. They need to use the FQDN instead. Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb and the option to protect the hostname. All traffic passes through FortiWeb. Machine learning capabilities in FortiWeb: I don't use machine learning all the time. In the initial phase of FortiWeb deployment, we use the learning process to detect the traffic passing through FortiGate to our website.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"It is quite simple and easy to use."
"When I first encountered Cato, I didn't know how to use it, but after a week of training, I could onboard our systems to it, so the solution was easy to learn and navigate."
"The most valuable feature is that it also works as a next-gen firewall because it has security features."
"What I found most helpful in Cato Networks is that it works out of the box. One of its main advantages is that it's a simple product to deploy. You subscribe, and you're ready to run."
"Additionally, Cato has a global point of presence, which means instead of using other technologies to connect branches and provide access for a retail organization or any organization with branches, we can utilize Cato's backbone. Furthermore, by consolidating different technologies into one solution, there are additional cost savings from that perspective."
"I rate Cato SASE Cloud Platform at 9.5 out of 10."
"The most valuable feature of Cato Networks is the CASB and the documentation is useful."
"I would definitely recommend Cato Networks to other users."
"Before a platform faces the internet, Fortinet FortiWeb inspects the traffic."
"High-performance and detection engines, provide a high rate of exposure of web attacks."
"Also, if you serve files or you accept files with your server, Fortiweb has built-in antivirus. The Fortinet product family also provides good IP intelligence (botnet C&C, etc.)."
"It can scale well."
"FortiWeb offers machine learning in the latest product. This fixed many problems. There are no false negatives."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Fail-Open."
"I like FortiWeb's usability and ease of configuration. It's simple to configure rules and exceptions inside the attack log. We block everything by default. If something isn't working, we ask the system admin to adjust the template and add exceptions."
"Security Fabric integration. This is really a value-added feature as FortiWeb can interact with the rest of the client’s Fortinet pack to provide an intelligent security layer like (FortiSIEM for central log management and correlation, FortiGate, FortiSandbox for malware analysis, etc.)."
 

Cons

"Its pricing could be better."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"However, Cato's solution is modular. You don't have to buy the whole package; instead, you can start with some of the functionality and then expand it as you see fit, based on its value and as your other contracts expire."
"Cato Networks security could be better."
"They should include a web application firewall feature in the solution."
"The platform lacks strong security features on the edge. All security features are on the cloud."
"Its functionality is a bit limited in some areas as compared to a Cisco solution. It is not as granular. It doesn't have the manageability, feature set, and capabilities of a larger or an enterprise-level solution. It just needs a more robust feature set and granularity."
"The tool needs to be more granular. Its reports are not very in-depth."
"The price could be better."
"There's no principal in Malaysia, only a distributor."
"Fortinet FortiWeb needs to improve the way it's configured. Common services like publishing exchange should be done in one click only."
"There is room for improvement in the portability on multi-cloud environments."
"The false positives are annoying.​"
"The solution could improve by being able to handle different use cases."
"Fortinet WAF came out recently, and there is not much feedback about customer experience. For each project, customers ask about the scenarios and references of the customers who have implemented this solution, which we don't have. They need to simplify the customer experience and provide more information so that we can propose Fortinet Fortiweb as a WAF solution to customers and convince them. They need to improve their service and training. We need good training to implement and use it properly and know more about it. We still don't know much about Fortinet WAF. We didn't get any proper training sessions. Other vendors like Cisco, Palo Alto, Check Point, and Barracuda provide such sessions. Whenever we receive a request from a customer for this solution, we just give the price. We don't propose this solution because we don't know much about it. We propose whatever we are familiar with and what is supported."
"The initial setup depends on familiarity with the product. It's manageable with the right expertise."
"The memory use in each of the appliances is problematic."
"FortiGate could be improved on the security end because we've had some incidents with the customer. Otherwise, there is no problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, 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."
"The pricing is on the higher side, almost an eight out of ten."
"The solution has reasonable pricing. It has a yearly subscription. The pricing depends on the permit to code. Sometimes, we need to increase the permit, and the cost will automatically change. There's no fixed cost. Unless we request additional modules such as DNS security, ELP, and decent features, there will be no additional cost."
"Cato Networks is an expensive product, but it works out of the box, so that's the usual trade-off, make versus buy. If you decide to buy a product that doesn't require much programming, then you'd want to go for Cato Networks, which will work naturally, and immediately without any complex setup. However, the product is a little bit more expensive than the competitors. On a scale of one to five, I'd rate the pricing for Cato Networks as four."
"The platform is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is flexible."
"Cato Networks seems more expensive than Cisco Meraki."
"The product is very competitively priced, and that's compelling. They don't charge the customer based on the operational cost like other brands such as Palo Alto. Cato has its own fully-fledged cloud, with their own data centers, equipment, and so on, which is an advantage. I rate the solution five out of five for affordability."
"If you compare with VeloCloud, the price is the same or even cheaper."
"It is an expensive suite and it is an expensive solution, but it is a manageable one for an enterprise."
"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a ten out of ten."
"Keep a loose margin between your actual bandwidth and the product sizing when using hardware appliances. Only virtual machines are upgradable to larger sizes."
"It is not a cheap product. It is not like a Linux or a Genex that you can deploy. It is a hardware appliance, and it is built for a specific reason and reliability. It is an enterprise-class solution. You wouldn't find an SMB investing in something like this."
"We are on an annual license for this solution and the price is approximately €100."
"It should be somewhere about 36,000 Euros. That's the cost for three years. It's moderately priced."
"There are no licensing costs."
"FortiWeb can be purchased in VM mode for a lower price and the same features."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
26%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Educational Organization
42%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have a couple of thoughts for improvement, but usually when I address them with my rep, they put it into the featur...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We use it primarily for simpler filtering because we're a K12 entity.
What do you like most about Cato Networks?
The solution is a simple WAN solution. We've onboarded the socket on the Cato platform, and it provides connectivity....
What is your primary use case for Cato Networks?
I use Cato SASE Cloud Platform primarily as a single vendor, integrated SD-WAN plus SASE solution.
What advice do you have for others considering Cato Networks?
I rate Cato SASE Cloud Platform at 9.5 out of 10. There is always room for improvement, especially in edge security f...
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?
Fortinet FortiWeb is cost-effective compared to solutions like F5. It offers strong performance for the price, provid...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
The cloud-based security service of Fortinet FortiWeb could be enhanced to match the level of providers like Cloudfla...
 

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
Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, Cisco and others in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). Updated: April 2025.
851,042 professionals have used our research since 2012.