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Change Auditor for Windows File Servers vs Fortinet FortiAnalyzer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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

Change Auditor for Windows ...
Ranking in Log Management
31st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer
Ranking in Log Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Change Auditor for Windows File Servers is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is 1.9%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

KF
Provides granular queries of security logs and real-time alerting helps me mitigate risks
The real-time alerting helps me mitigate risks. For example, someone adds a member to the domain admin group. We have an alert set up, so if someone does this unexpectedly, we get notified. Then, we can check and verify if the action is legitimate or a potential threat to the environment.
Manikandan Kannan - PeerSpot reviewer
Simplifying log management by displaying detailed access information
The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is its ability to simplify and display logs clearly, providing details like which IPs are accessing the system, the destination, and the policies applied. This visualization and detail make managing logs more straightforward. In conjunction with our VMware setup, Fortinet FortiAnalyzer enhances organizational efficiency, meeting the standard log retention period for up to a year.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In terms of features, the querying is great."
"The solution's most valuable aspect is that it can be fully integrated with Microsoft solutions and it doesn't impact the productivity order."
"We use the solution for enterprise firewalls, URL filtering, and SD-WAN."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the reports and the playbooks."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is reporting."
"The report templates are valuable. It works very well, and integrations also work well."
"The log events are quite useful for us."
"The most valuable features of the solution are report generation and traffic logs."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is excellent at a rating of ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of FortiAnalyzer is its visibility, especially in network investigations."
 

Cons

"The pricing could be improved. It needs to be reduced."
"The customer service and support could improve their approach to questioning issues. They tend to ask questions one at a time, which creates a lot of back-and-forth communication."
"The product should be integrated with other third-party solutions for context exchange."
"It's possible that they could add some advanced analytics and some proactive controls for logging analytics. That will help a lot."
"The deployment is complex and has room for improvement."
"When somebody is new to the system they find it difficult to perform certain operations, like backups, and to see where the reports are."
"One area for improvement could be better support for third-party products, as it doesn't have as much visibility with these compared to Fortinet's own products."
"Pricing should be about 10-20% lower."
"Technical support could respond to queries faster."
"The solution could improve by allowing the ability to search logs in integrated solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is per user. The cost is approximately $15/user on a yearly basis. If you need to, you can always upgrade as well."
"Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is quite an expensive tool."
"It is expensive for small business customers. It is only available for customers with a high number of firewalls to manage or to report. If a customer has only five boxes of FortiGate, the price of FortiAnalyzer can be more than the five boxes. So, we can't easily put this solution for small business customers."
"The product's prices are a bit higher than the other solutions available in the market, but I would say that the tool's quality and support are areas that are good."
"The enterprise version of this solution is costly. We have considered FortiAuthenticator for network control, but the pricing was focused on the larger companies and didn't suit our needs as a smaller business."
"I would rate the price of FortiAnalyzer as seven out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"It is acceptable for on-premises, but it is expensive for the cloud."
"Its worth spending on FortiAnalyzer if you have multiple firewalls in your network."
"FortiAnalyzer was in the product itself, but two years ago they split it from Fortinet. We paid the license two years ago."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Change Auditor for Windows File Servers?
They've already made improvements! They have a tool called IT Security Search, which lets you perform queries outside of Change Auditor. It's much faster. This is a really good addition and helps u...
What is your primary use case for Change Auditor for Windows File Servers?
I use Change Auditor for Windows File Servers to log history. It's helpful when we have critical changes in Active Directory, like adding or removing items. I use it extensively for monitoring.
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiAnalyzer?
The reporting features, which offer customization, real-time insights, and compliance support, are particularly noteworthy aspects.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiAnalyzer?
I have experience with pricing, licensing, and setup costs as I prepare quotes for clients. While Fortinet FortiAnalyzer might be more expensive than some other solutions, it remains very competiti...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiAnalyzer?
When I had contact with FortiManager and Fortinet FortiAnalyzer, it was not so easy, but with some reading or training on the platform, it becomes easy to use.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dragon Capital, Howard County MD
General Directorate of Information Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Change Auditor for Windows File Servers vs. Fortinet FortiAnalyzer and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.