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Check Point VPN-1 [EOL] vs Fortinet FortiGate comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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

Check Point VPN-1 [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortinet FortiGate
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
595
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (2nd), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (2nd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Ralf Zlabinger - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Informationssicherheit at Bacher Systems EDV GmbH
Very good IPS, anti-malware, and VPN capabilities
This product has now served more than 30 years in the market and has evolved tremendously over the years. Check Point administration and management help you through visibility and performance. Even though its price is high, you have one management platform that has a great user experience and is easy to use. The log viewer and its indexing is especially useful. It can lower your administration time and can also be used with an API. If you want a perfect and centralized solution that gives you fast access to all of your network areas, this is the right product. The new AI functions will speed up the administration even more.
VR
Practice Head at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Unified security has protected diverse environments and supports consistent policies everywhere
I would say 8 out of 10 regarding the stability of Fortinet FortiGate. It requires a lot of bug fixing and what I understand, Fortinet is fast enough to provide bug fixes and patches, but usually I suggest Fortinet should do thorough testing of their releases and software releases and once probably they can reduce the frequency of new releases but make it stable. That's what my recommendation is. As far as the core objective of Fortinet FortiGate is concerned, I think they are meeting the targets but I guess for rolling out new features and new updates, they are doing a bit of hurry just to cope with the market dynamics. But possibly, I understand that they are compromising on the quality of the software and stability. So over there they have to improve. Rest of the aspects, I guess they are doing pretty good. We are happy. Regarding my experience with Fortinet FortiGate in comparison to maybe some other vendors such as CyberArk, Fortinet is in the top three and they give a lot of competition to their nearest peers in the market. But I guess Fortinet is really struggling in software-defined LAN, Wi-Fi, and FortiSwitches space. So they have to make their products more affordable in Forti-switching and Forti-WiFi space. They are not able to compete effectively with the nearest competitor HP Enterprise and HP Aruba.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support has been good."
"It allowed us to have content filtering and commercially available firewall perimeter management that had been available since 1997, was very functional, and was one of the best brands that had been securing the network."
"The product offers fairly good centralized administration and monitoring with decent capabilities that allow the administrator to have relevent control over devices."
"VPN clients are easy to use and deploy."
"The application control of the solution is something that I find very valuable."
"Its most outstanding feature is content filtering."
"The solution offers very easy usability, the product can scale well, the solution is extremely reliable, the pricing and licensing models are pretty good, and the user interface, both the web and CLI versions, are very good."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Quota."
"The usage in general is pretty good."
"The ability to set up remote systems is the most valuable feature."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"Fortinet offers comprehensive security solutions for various purposes."
"The solution effectively controls browsing traffic."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are its SD-WAN capabilities, such as dynamic routing, and other features, including security options such as antivirus, IPS, and IDS—all integrated into one device."
 

Cons

"Every time we made a change, the policy took about three minutes to apply, and obviously, when there were emergency changes or changes that we needed that were escalated, they were not modified very, very quickly."
"The reporting from the file or reporting from mobile access needs improvement. The solution, in general, could use better reporting tools."
"It should have excellent integration with the other security tools."
"Pricing is sometimes challenging, although it brings a lot of features."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"The solution’s stability could be improved because we sometimes faced some drops."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."
"Security is a continuous process. In every product, there is a requirement for improvement. Its pricing should also be improved according to Indian market requirements. They must also improve on the reporting part. Its reporting can be more precise. If we can get a real-time report in a specific format, it will be helpful for customers to know about the current status of their security."
"Without a license, it becomes difficult to implement static DNS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"When comparing the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG to other solutions it is expensive. The price could be better."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is an expensive solution with a yearly subscription."
"We find the most valuable aspect of this solution is the price. It is affordable, and cheaper than other firewalls."
"The price of FortiGate is reasonable as I plan to buy new switches. The initial gadgets are already booted, and the pricing seems normal on the market. As for additional costs, I haven't subscribed to many extra features, so I'm only using what I need. Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us."
"There is a license to use Fortinet FortiGate."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable for an SME."
"The licensing scheme of Fortinet is better than Cisco. It is more logical."
"In my opinion, the pricing of the product is reasonable."
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant with 51-200 employees
Jan 3, 2016
Sophos UTM vs. Fortinet FortiGate
I have used both Sophos and Fortinet products in production and I have found the Sophos UTM appliances (hardware and virtual) to be a better fit most of the time -- with a few caveats which I will touch on below. In both instances, the transition from TMG will be mostly straightforward. The main…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business373
Midsize Enterprise139
Large Enterprise195
 

Questions from the Community

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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 at large. In my opinion, Fortinet would be the best option and l use Fortinet too...
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 the firewalls change every 5 to 7 years as stated but you really do need to upg...
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 good. The most valuable features for me are their web and email filtering. I wou...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SF Police Credit Union, Carmel Partners, S_ren Rothe
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, Netgate and others in Firewalls. Updated: October 2026.
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