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FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) vs Portnox comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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
6.9
FortiGate Firewall's ROI is mixed; praised for security benefits, yet criticized for high cost and limited immediate returns.
Sentiment score
7.3
Portnox CORE improved network visibility, security, and efficiency, reducing costs and enhancing decision-making through detailed analytics and automated features.
It has notably improved our efficiency and visibility.
Using FortiGate has enabled us to increase security, control user access, manage bandwidth, and enhance the ability to provide a variety of operations solutions to clients.
It's easy to configure a new connection, and it works in a few minutes if everything works fine.
If you were moving from a traditional on-premise NAC that was 100% managed by the IT department, there would be great savings in going to a cloud-based NAC with Portnox.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
FortiGate customer service is generally good, with varied response times and quality rated between seven and ten.
Sentiment score
7.3
Portnox customer service is highly rated for responsiveness and efficiency, with room for improvement in local services and communication.
I must study the best version to install to avoid previously found bugs.
I would rate Fortinet's support a 10 because they are excellent and very available whenever we needed their help.
In some cases, you need to come prepared because the people there work by the book and ask for particular things. If you don't have them, you cannot proceed, but if you know what they need, after some time, it's pretty easy to get support or whatever you need.
They respond very immediately and provide detailed, amazing support.
I was seeing weird things, and they were able to explain things to me and help me quickly find a resolution.
They resolved issues quickly and provided clear explanations.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is scalable for medium-large businesses, with strong ratings and excellent SD-WAN integration.
Sentiment score
7.5
Portnox is scalable and flexible, supporting growth efficiently, though larger setups may require more resources, rated seven to ten.
The scalability of the FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is quite good; it is easy to make it scalable.
What it allows us in terms of connections to other companies is a straightforward solution that you don't have to use something else.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is praised for stability, reliability, and performance despite occasional compatibility and management challenges.
Sentiment score
7.6
Portnox offers reliable uptime, though CORE users report issues with vendor support and configuration, while Clear performs smoothly.
Regarding next-generation firewalls, I would give the FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) a rating of 10 for stability.
In some cases, you need to restart it, but mostly, it's working flawlessly, especially if you have an HA environment, high availability.
In my experience, there are usually no significant stability issues with FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW).
The product itself is available and its uptime is 100%.
In the four years that I used Portnox, if it crashed or the server crashed, that would not have been more than once.
 

Room For Improvement

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall requires better licensing, support, SD-WAN, GUI, pricing, tool integration, security features, and scalability improvements.
Portnox can improve with better GUI, integration, scalability, support, licensing, false positives, documentation, and Wi-Fi and AI analytics.
Improvements could be made when companies expand and need better equipment and more licenses.
Configuring these services is quite complex and not very user-friendly, requiring technical steps that are difficult for normal users to understand.
When a site is blocked, it is necessary for me to consult the logs to understand what the Next Generation Firewall policy has blocked.
Ideally, we should be able to search for any MAC address in the database, regardless of its authentication status, to see all its associated groups and potential conflicts.
When I'm doing filtering at times, it doesn't filter the items properly.
They don't have much support during Asia Pacific hours.
 

Setup Cost

FortiGate Firewall's pricing is competitive for mid-enterprises, affordable against Cisco, but higher than Barracuda and Sophos.
Portnox offers scalable, competitive pricing based on ports, with annual fees, appreciated value, but no perpetual license option.
It offers cost savings as it is generally cheaper than the competition.
The pricing of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is competitive.
Fortinet tools like FortiGate are costly for us as a higher education institute in India.
If you compare Portnox with all other well-known standard products, it is the cheapest.
The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe.
It is a bit on the high side, but considering the cloud features and how much it costs to run the instance in the cloud, it is not unreasonable.
 

Valuable Features

FortiGate Firewall offers user-friendly, cost-effective security with advanced features, seamless integration, and robust support, favored by IT professionals.
Portnox provides scalable, agentless network visibility with intuitive dashboards and automated security integration, enhancing efficiency and endpoint compliance.
The firewall and VPN features are the most valuable in protecting our customers' networks.
The most valuable features of the FortiGate firewall include SSL inspection, VPN functionality, and threat intelligence features for preventing threats.
FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) has improved our efficiency in setting up security and provided us with more visibility over some issues and incidents we previously faced.
It's notable how Portnox has improved operational efficiency.
It is very easy to implement on our current network hardware.
We use Meraki for our switching, making it simple to point all our networks and offices to Portnox.
 

Categories and Ranking

FortiGate Next Generation F...
Ranking in ZTNA
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (16th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (8th)
Portnox
Ranking in ZTNA
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (6th), Passwordless Authentication (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the ZTNA category, the mindshare of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is 7.0%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portnox is 0.9%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ZTNA
 

Featured Reviews

Juan Solano - PeerSpot reviewer
Implementation improves efficiency and provides greater visibility over issues
One of the most valuable features of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is the ease of usability it offers. It is quite easy for me to learn to use. Additionally, FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) has improved our efficiency in setting up security and provided us with more visibility over some issues and incidents we previously faced.
Scott Kerr - PeerSpot reviewer
It is seamless and integrates well with our Azure setup
We use devices like PLCs and controllers, and when we receive a request to allow one on the network, we bypass typical authentication, associate it with a group account, and push it to a firewalled VLAN. However, problems arise when the same MAC address is requested for a different project. Our current system only finds authenticated MAC addresses, making it difficult to troubleshoot when the same device is used for multiple purposes. Ideally, we should be able to search for any MAC address in the database, regardless of its authentication status, to see all its associated groups and potential conflicts.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW)?
The tool's most valuable feature is IPS. In my experience, I haven't encountered any issues with integration. It easily integrates with the FortiGate solution. However, verifying through documentat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW)?
Fortinet has good prices compared to other vendors; there were cheaper options, and when we compared Cisco, Fortinet's prices were lower.
What needs improvement with FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW)?
I'm not completely sure how Fortinet can improve the FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), however, there were situations of availability related to their switching solutions due to box errors...
What do you like most about Portnox CORE?
It's easy to manage and troubleshoot thanks to the lightweight components.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox CORE?
It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle, so I'll probably give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with Portnox CORE?
We have been having some issues with it. That's why we're considering migrating to Portnox Clear due to some limitations with CORE. At the end of the day, Portnox Clear's capabilities are much more...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Data Realty, Royal London, Wales Millennium Centre, McLaren Construction Group, EL AL Israeli Airlines, 
Find out what your peers are saying about FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) vs. Portnox and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.