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FortiMonitor vs NETSCOUT vSTREAM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

FortiMonitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
37th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (40th), IT Alerting and Incident Management (16th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (11th)
NETSCOUT vSTREAM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
87th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of FortiMonitor is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETSCOUT vSTREAM is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FortiMonitor0.7%
NETSCOUT vSTREAM0.4%
Other98.9%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2677554 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer III at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Managing diverse networks with detailed alerts enhances device oversight
FortiManager is very helpful in managing our networks. We use it to manage 20 farms and various networks with hundreds of devices. The version we are using provides more detail than the older dashboard. We appreciate the alerting capabilities, which are integrated with SolarWinds to notify our team via SMS.
KL
Network Engineer at Inniti Network Solution
A user-friendly solution that is easy to install and improves visibility
I would like to see improvements made to the user guide. From my personal experience, it is helpful to see a list of steps describing what to do next in different situations. An example is what to do and what to back up in the case of certain types of failure. There are also cases where a customer can't understand specific features. Enhancements to the user guide would be helpful for this. More features for network fragmentation would be helpful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FortiMonitor is 100% stable."
"The tool continuously improves, adapting to support new vendors and technologies. Importantly, it automates the process, triggering alerts when devices require attention, and eliminating the need for manual intervention."
"FortiMonitor offers comprehensive monitoring capabilities, allowing me to track network traffic in and out effectively."
"Fortinet's customer support is very good."
"FortiMonitor is really easy to use for monitoring the logs on FortiGate...It is a stable product."
"Overall, I would recommend FortiMonitor to others."
"It provides the best firewall features."
"FortiMonitor's dashboard is very informative and user-friendly."
"The generation of KPI-like information that feeds to the nGeniusONE (management) server is the most valuable feature."
"One of the valuable features is the packet decoding."
"vSTREAM gives us better visibility and reporting about our network infrastructure, allowing for cost-optimization."
"Sometimes it took a month to troubleshoot something that we can now do within days."
 

Cons

". Enhancements in the dashboard, such as clearer alerting, maintenance window management, software version tracking, and better visualization, would be beneficial."
"There is room for improvement in the FortiMonitor report. It is not ideal for showcasing to tech customers or managers, especially when trying to display high CPU usage from logins within a specific range of months or the most recent month."
"Sometimes, we get corruption when upgrading from firmware to the new generation, causing a lot of issues."
"Sometimes, during high CPU usage, we cannot access FortiMonitor and must refresh it."
"FortiMonitor could be improved by making it more convenient for smaller workloads, such as when configuring a few branches."
"We use FortiToken, and it's a pain to use because you have to send things through your phone and then confirm by email. Only after this can you log in. It's dual-factor authentication. I wish that I could just log in or bring up a dashboard where I could log in from."
"I think the current features are really good for me, nothing else comes to mind right now. Maybe some small improvements could be made in the customization and configuration part of the UI to make it easier or more intuitive. Customizable UI options, like we saw in the demo, could be helpful for everyone. But in our operational environment, having clear health status and system details is crucial for us system engineers. One feature I'd really like to see is a credential management system. It would help us keep track of who's logged in and how many times, which is important due to user restrictions. Sometimes, we need to manage logins more efficiently, like logging off other users to free up credentials. So having a feature like that would be really helpful."
"The solution's initial setup process is time-consuming."
"Room for improvement exists in filtering in the packet decode."
"I would say that this is not a scalable solution."
"I would like for it to have a smaller footprint of the virtual appliance and better performance."
"I would like to see improvements made to the user guide."
"The stability is okay, but sometimes we see that the memory on the server is not 100 percent correct and we need to stop and start the software to have it reallocated again."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, I rate the pricing a nine since it is a good solution that is available at a cheap price."
"The tool's pricing model in Vietnam is a bit high. I rate the product price as an eight out of ten."
"Compared to other solutions, FortiMonitor is a very expensive solution."
"The price of FortiMonitor is approximately $200 annually for 225 users. The price is competitive."
"In terms of licensing, while it may not be the most expensive option on the market, it's relatively cost-effective. You can obtain licenses at a lower cost, with the calculation being straightforward. For example, if you onboard around 5,000 devices, you'll need approximately 5,000 licenses, as each device typically counts as one license."
"We have a large customer base for Fortinet, and the additional buying power got us really great discounts."
"There are additional costs needed for certain functionality, such as scalability."
"FortiMonitor's price is very high."
"Licensing is quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
19%
Energy/Utilities Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have a clear bias because I work for Panopta. We aren't a fit for everyone, but I can confirm that Panopta is a lot less work to stand up and maintain. It's also a lot easier to use and onboard n...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiMonitor?
FortiMonitor does save time but not significantly on costs, as there are still expenses related to procurement, installation, and licensing.
What needs improvement with FortiMonitor?
There are areas for improvement that FortiManager is addressing. We have not yet upgraded to the latest software versions, being a full revision behind, but we plan to update soon since the current...
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Also Known As

Panopta
vSTREAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SONY, GoDaddy, HCL, ING, ARMOR, billboard
Metropolitan Police Agency, Banpara, PropertyRoom.com
Find out what your peers are saying about FortiMonitor vs. NETSCOUT vSTREAM and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.