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FortiMonitor vs xMatters comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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 IT Alerting and Incident Management
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (20th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (21st), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (8th)
xMatters
Ranking in IT Alerting and Incident Management
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the IT Alerting and Incident Management category, the mindshare of FortiMonitor is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of xMatters is 4.8%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Alerting and Incident Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
xMatters4.8%
FortiMonitor2.0%
Other93.2%
IT Alerting and Incident Management
 

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.
Dean-Robinson - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Developer at a media company with 10,001+ employees
A versatile solution with excellent logging capabilities that reduced our time to resolve
The reporting functionality could be improved, though I know that's something xMatters, inc. is working on. For example, sometimes I need to go into the platform and find users who aren't in groups that have been created recently, haven't logged in and so on. Previously, this was hard work, but they added loads of filters, making it more accessible. Still, the ability to create custom-designated reports that I could run and schedule would be fantastic for me. It would be good if they keep improving the reporting functionality, as it can be somewhat restrictive sometimes. There are a couple of improvements that xMatters could make to the incident hub, where we can manage high-priority incidents. More sharing capability between collaborating incident managers would be good to see, including the ability to whiteboard. That would allow them to share and sketch out ideas while looking for a solution. Those two features are essential, and that's why we want to use the solution in conjunction with Everbridge because xMatters doesn't have them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FortiMonitor is really easy to use for monitoring the logs on FortiGate...It is a stable product."
"In FortiMonitor, we're linked up with our Netgear, CactusServer, and NOC. It's really valuable because everything's migrating to one dashboard for us system engineers. We can keep an eye on traffic, blocked sites, and the health of our hardware. That last part, about knowing if something's going to fail soon, is super important. It gives us time to sort things out before any big problems happen. As a system engineer, I need to keep tabs on everything – temperature, monitoring systems, and network operations. This data is really handy because it helps me ensure our site runs smoothly, whether it's turning systems on or off. Just last night, there was a system failure, but thanks to real-time monitoring, I quickly identified the problem and got the necessary replacement parts."
"Fortinet's customer support is very good."
"It provides the best firewall features."
"Overall, I would recommend FortiMonitor to others."
"FortiMonitor's dashboard is very informative and user-friendly."
"With FortiMonitor, you can get all the logs of the traffic information of the destination or the source."
"The most valuable feature of FortiMonitor is the overall ability to monitor the health of the environment."
"The two-way integration between ServiceNow and xMatters allows us to assign tickets to support personnel faster and respond to incidents faster."
"​The ability to notify teams and monitor those notifications in real-time is valuable. Time-based escalation of notifications helps us resolve issues much more quickly."
"Workflows and messaging are most valuable. Workflows are very useful. They are important for consolidating information or stopping duplication from happening. We put all the information into xMatters and then the workflow will push the same information in the correct format directly through to other applications that our end users frequently use, such as Slack, email, and Workplace."
"Being able to split the week however we want is definitely most valuable. We can create shifts and also see other teams' schedules. It is a very easy search to do these things."
"The on-call schedule that they have for groups is amazing in terms of how it works and how it triggers. You don't need to do anything. You just upload the users, and you have the calendar of the schedules. It is amazing how it works and how easy it is to work with this feature."
"It has improved our time to respond; prior to the use of xMatters, it might take hours or even a day to get someone involved on a problem, and now it's down to minutes."
"There are a lot of tools that can do standard notifications, however, the one feature that separates xMatters from others is the ability for it to integrate with any system that has REST API or SOAP API capabilities."
"Made it very easy to implement our roster of people who receive alarms with the REST API."
 

Cons

"The tool's price in Vietnam is high, making it an area of concern where improvements can be made."
"FortiMonitor needs to improve its alert system."
"Additionally, there are no AI features in FortiMonitor, which might be an area for enhancement."
"The solution's initial setup process is time-consuming."
"For our type of country, it is always expensive, but it has competitive pricing."
"Sometimes, we get corruption when upgrading from firmware to the new generation, causing a lot of issues."
"FortiMonitor could improve by having compatibility with other operating systems, such as Linux."
"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."
"Some of the workflow development work that we do for the in-house piece can be quite complicated if you don't have experience using the tool."
"Unfortunately, we have no way to prevent people from choosing not to receive that level of notification."
"This is our biggest issue: licensing."
"What I would like it to do is tell me anytime there is a P1 incident, except when the ticket is assigned to this team or when this word is in the summary, but there is no exclusion option. I have been complaining about this for a couple years. At one point, we created a ticket for this with the developers to review. I assume that once enough people complain about it, they will bump it up in priority to work on. However, if not enough people think it is an issue, then they prioritize their work and work on other features and functionality. However, this is something that has been challenging for us because we have needed to find ways to work around it or just deal with it. So, I would love to see an exclusion option."
"The user interface could be more intuitive. When you are not familiar with integrations and you're starting fresh, looking for where to begin, it is a bit daunting and not as clear as it could be."
"We would like to see a greater variety of integrations with ServiceNow. It works fine as it is, but an enhancement would be the ability to interact with the major incident module in ServiceNow... The way our major incident process works, when an incident is elevated from a P1 to a major incident, that is an extra flag in ServiceNow. It would be awesome to have xMatters get notification when something goes from a P1 to a major and then have it go through a different workflow, rather than our regular P1."
"If you want to alter a custom field, you can do so via import/export. But you can't have an unlimited number of custom fields, so in a large environment with a lot of teams, team provisioning becomes more difficult."
"In terms of restoration, if you delete something, or you have multiple users that have the ability to delete a group, a user profile, or a workflow, the ability to restore it within the GUI is not available. There are a whole bunch of programs that are required to allow for that to happen. A button to go back to a good point in time would be really nice. A lot of other tools have a better backup and restoration solution, but xMatters is a little bit short on that. They have about 95% solution available, but the other 5% requires manual effort. We would like to be able to just push a button and say, "I want to restore this piece back to this date," but we can't do that with the tool right now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"There are additional costs needed for certain functionality, such as scalability."
"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."
"We have a large customer base for Fortinet, and the additional buying power got us really great discounts."
"FortiMonitor's price is very high."
"The price of FortiMonitor is approximately $200 annually for 225 users. The price is competitive."
"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."
"Licensing varies widely, depending on usage. It can be cheap or quite expensive, depending on volume and features."
"This is our biggest issue: licensing. Our customer has only purchased a set number of full licensed users, and we are constantly running up against our license limit. To mitigate licensing concerns, we completely control at the admin level user additions and removals, and do a monthly cleanup process driven by security contractor removal reports."
"I am not really privy to how much my client is paying for this service. They just tell me the number of licenses that they have. Every time that I say, "I need extra licenses to make sure that all Level 1 and 2s have their own xMatters account," they keep telling me that it is too expensive. If the only purpose is to call people, it doesn't justify the cost of paying more than the number of licenses that they already have."
"​You pay for the user, not the number of alerts. Therefore, xMatters provides a better ROI, if you can leverage it for notifications based on alerts from other monitoring tools. ​"
"Then, in pricing, you are limited on your number of SMS messages that you can send a month and the licensing cost annually."
"​Pricing is pretty straightforward and listed on their website. I recommend starting small and expanding later.​"
"I know roughly what we pay per year. For what we use it for and what its purpose is, it is very valuable."
"Cost is probably my biggest concern. I know the solution was recently acquired by Everbridge, and Everbridge was one of the competitors that was included in our RFP five years ago. Everbridge's costs were astronomical compared to where every other solution was, not just xMatters."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
10%
Performing Arts
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise24
 

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
xMatters IT Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SONY, GoDaddy, HCL, ING, ARMOR, billboard
Over 2.7 million users trust xMatters daily at successful startups and global giants including athenahealth, BMC Software, Box, Credit Suisse, Danske Bank, Experian, NVIDIA, ViaSat and Vodafone. xMatters is headquartered in San Ramon, California and has offices worldwide.  Visit our website to see how business like yours found solutions with xMatters.
Find out what your peers are saying about FortiMonitor vs. xMatters and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.