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Fortinet FortiDDoS vs VMware NSX comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
Fortinet FortiDDoS
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (11th)
VMware NSX
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (2nd), Cloud and Data Center Security (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (8th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (7th), Network Automation (5th), Microsegmentation Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
Network Virtualization
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Yazan Omar - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-use tool with great GUI
The product's initial setup phase was really easy. There is a lot of time involved in the testing phase and other processes related to the area of deployment, so it may take up to two weeks to deploy the solution. The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. One person is enough to take care of the deployment phase of the product. The person involved in the deployment phase needs to better understand topologies when dealing with Fortinet.
MagdyRaafat - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced security and streamlined management drive efficient connectivity
Open source is a standard solution where you take a gray box or white box and put the software from your end. You can do programming with Ansible and make the network work in the software-defined mode, providing automation and management capabilities. I am currently working with VMware. It integrates easily with everything and can work with any system. When discussing micro-segmentation, it enhances security, providing more secure data in your data center while allowing for extra layers of security outside your data center. If you have an ACI, there is communication between locations, keeping your data secure in your data center and throughout the path it takes, such as to SD-WAN or the cloud. I work with cloud solutions including AWS, Azure, GCP, and private cloud. My overall rating for VMware NSX is 8.5 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host."
"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."
"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."
"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."
"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."
"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."
"The equipment works very well, and I have not encountered any issues with it. It is a good solution for my company."
"The solution already has security profiles and it can protect from DDoS attacks and other kinds of attacks."
"It is a user-friendly product in terms of monitoring and updating policies."
"The solution is very user-friendly and very easy to use."
"This solution can protect Layer 3, Layer 4 and Layer 7 attacks of applications for us."
"The protection resources and the support are valuable features of the solution."
"I find the interface easy to use."
"The equipment works very well, and I have not encountered any issues with it."
"When you have a solid secure solution between your on-prem and cloud solution, then you're in a safe place."
"The most valuable features are its security aspects, especially the IPS and IDS for intrusion detection and protection."
"The performance is good."
"VMware NSX's overlay network is its most valuable feature, as it aligns with any network philosophy and allows for efficient addressing mechanisms. Additionally, the ability to extend the on-premise network into the provider space is beneficial. There are many features provided."
"It operates on a logical level, providing a comprehensive and centralized way to manage your network resources."
"I have found the solution to be stable."
"We secured our organisation with Micro-segmentation."
"NSX can reduce costs and has good service. It is easy for you and your users to use."
 

Cons

"The pricing could be improved."
"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."
"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."
"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"There are some issues with the CDN services."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."
"All the thresholds that need to be configured should be included in the default so that user will not forget or misconfigure."
"I find that there have been issues in the past year with the solution hanging. It freezes often."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"The primary area for improvement is the on-premises capacity limit, currently fixed at 10 GB."
"The web interface could be much better."
"I would like to see analytics, big data."
"The challenge lies within the customer environment, particularly in Brazil, where companies have stringent security requirements for implementing solutions."
"The tool needs to focus more on the area of application traffic management, where it currently has some shortcomings."
"The solution is only sold as part of a bundle and not as an individual product."
"In the future, the solution should be compliant with internet NIC."
"The initial configuration and integration within our existing environment were not easy. The configuration process was a bit complex, specifically during the initial setup."
"I would like to see automation capabilities in the deployment process."
"In the next release, they should enhance the visual interface. With NSX-T, it's difficult to communicate between the public cloud and the container."
"This solution is really unusable from my perspective at this point. Overall, I would rate the solution a one of ten."
"It's not feature-rich."
"I would rate this product an eight because it's a good product but it needs more work. They should fix some of the bugs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."
"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."
"The price is reasonable."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"It's quite pricey."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"The licensing is renewed every three years. The cost for implementation and renovation are a huge portion of that price."
"If five is a good price and one is a high price, I would rate the price a one out of five."
"The price of VMware NSX is very good compared to other solutions."
"I'm unable to give information on the pricing or licensing cost of VMware NSX because I've never been someone who looks into the economic part of any security or virtualization solutions. That's handled by an entirely different team, and I don't even have the slightest idea about the costs associated with the solution, though I've heard pricing for VMware NSX is on the higher side."
"The price is based on the virtual desktop infrastructure(VDI) side and also is dependant on the size of the environment. The price is expensive and it could attract more purchasers in smaller organisations if it was reduced."
"The price is pretty high."
"VMware NSX is a cheaper product compared to its competitor, Cisco."
"The product pricing ranges from medium to expensive. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiDDoS?
The product's initial setup phase was really easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiDDoS?
Fortinet FortiDDoS offers lower costs compared to other solutions. The licensing costs are annually renewed.
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few. -Cisco ACI have physical network g...
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so wh...
What do you like most about VMware NSX?
The product has valuable features for security and network extension.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Fortinet DDoS, FortiDDos
VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
City of Avondale, Lumeta, Kroll Ontrack, Heartland Payment Systems, Baystate Heallth, Exostar, Tribune Media, iGATE, NTT Communications, Synergent, California Natural Resources Agency, Bloomington Public Schools, Columbia Sportswear, Join Experience S.A, Schuberg Philis
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Radware, NETSCOUT and others in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection. Updated: June 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.