Fortinet FortiGate IPS vs Vectra AI comparison

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4,199 views|2,638 comparisons
95% willing to recommend
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7,438 views|3,458 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate IPS and Vectra AI based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiGate IPS vs. Vectra AI Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Integrated management is a very valuable feature.""The solution provides an easy way to filter information and Fortinet lab is a great place to discover new things.""My company never had any complaints about the tool in terms of performance or stability.""FortiGate's SD-WAN capability is the most useful feature for us.""I have found the decryption of Fortinet FortiGate IPS very good. It's called SSL deep inspection, it's working very well. This is how you decrypt access and traffic, and it is through the IPS antivirus center. Additionally, the UI is user-friendly.""The solution is easy to use.""The initial setup is very easy.""The solution is stable."

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"It does a reliable job of parsing out the logs of all the network traffic so that we can ingest them into our SIEM and utilize them for threat hunting and case investigations. It is pretty robust and reliable. The administration time that we spend maintaining it or troubleshooting it is very low. So, the labor hour overhead is probably our largest benefit from it. We spend 99% of our time in Vectra investigating cases, responding to incidents, or hunting, and only around 1% of our time is spent patching, troubleshooting, or doing anything else. That's our largest benefit from Vectra.""One of the most valuable features of the platform is its ability to provide you with aggregated risk scores based on impact and certainty of threats being detected. This is both applied to individual and host detections. This is important because it enables us to use this platform to prioritize the most likely imminent threats. So, it reduces alert fatigue follow ups for security operation center analysts. It also provides us with an ability to prioritize limited resources.""Scalability wise, we have many sensors, and Vectra AI seems to handle them all very well.""It has helped us to organize our security. We get a better overview on what is happening on the network, which has helped us get quicker responses to users. If we see malicious activity, then we can quickly take action on it. Previously, we weren't getting an overview as fast as we are now, so we can now provide a quicker response.""It has reduced the time it takes to respond to attacks. That comes back to the proactive point. It makes us able to lower down in the kill chain, we can react now, rather than reacting to incidents that happened, we can see an instant, in some cases, as it's being implemented, or as it's being launched.""The core product provides excellent visibility, but my favorite feature is Vectra Recall.""The key feature for me for Detect for Office 365 is that it can also concentrate all the information and detection at one point, the same as the network solution does. This is the key feature for me because, while accessing data from Office 365 is possible using Microsoft interfaces, they are not really user-friendly and are quite confusing to use. But Detect for Office 365 is aggregating all the info, and it's only the interesting stuff.""Vectra AI is the best. It is a major product in our cybersecurity."

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Cons
"The prevention mechanisms and implementation are not easy.""Its performance can be better. We have had performance issues in the past, but we sometimes tend to find that it is more related to what we do in our network than anything else. It is quite a good product, and there isn't much to improve.""Monitoring could be improved.""They should add a feature for detailed reporting.""To stay ahead of the competition Fortinet FortiGate IPS needs to think about how to adjust pricing.""Integration with the antivirus companion Webroot is not seamless on Mac computers.""FortiGate's logging and reporting could be improved. I would also like to see Fortinet add a guest management portal.""The solution has limited scalability."

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"We are using SMB 3.0, which is an encrypted protocol. When we get some alerts or something, we cannot go deep into the protocol to see what's wrong because it's encrypted. We need to decrypt the protocol in another way, which is quite difficult. We might go back to SMB 2.0 just for this reason, but that's not a good solution.""We have a lot of system solutions and integrations with system solutions. Vectra is a type of black box. It implements AI-informed detection mechanisms, but we cannot create system detections. I understand that the product is designed this way, but it would be great if we could create our own detections as well.""I'd like to be able to get granular reports and to be able to output them into formats that are customizable and more useful. The reporting GUI is lacking.""Some of their integrations with other sources of data, like external threat feeds, took a bit more work than I had hoped to get integrated.""They use a proprietary logging format that is probably 90% similar to Bro Logs. Their biggest area of improvement is finishing out the remaining 10%. That 10% might not be beneficial to their ML engine, but that's fine. The industry standard is Zeek Logs or Bro Logs, or Bro or Zeek, depending on how old you are. While they have 90% of those fields, they're still missing some fields. In very rare instances, some community rules do not have the fields that they need, and we had to modify community rules for our logs. So, their biggest area of improvement would be to just finish their matching of the Zeek standard.""The main improvement I can see would be to integrate with more external solutions.""One of the things I am not so happy about when it comes to Vectra is the scoring board.""It does a little bit of packet capture on alert so you can look at the packet capture activity going on, but it doesn't collect a whole lot of data. Sometimes it's only one or two frames, sometimes it does collect more. That's why they have the addition of their Recall platform, because that really does help expand the capability."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The pricing for FortiGate IPS is competitive with other products in the category."
  • "We are currently evaluating a Palo Alto solution, and the pricing could be a reason for going for Palo Alto."
  • "They are more expensive than others."
  • "It is not expensive as compared to Cisco."
  • "The price is okay, so far so good."
  • "The solution could be better priced."
  • "The licensing costs are very competitive."
  • "There is an annual license to use this solution. The prices have been increasing over the years."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate IPS Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We are running at about 90,000 pounds per year. The solution is a licensed cost. The hardware that they gave us was pretty much next to nothing. It is the license that we're paying for."
  • "The license is based on the concurrent IP addresses that it's investigating. We have 9,800 to 10,000 IP addresses."
  • "There are additional features that can be purchased in addition to the standard licensing fee, such as Cognito Recall and Stream."
  • "We have a desire to increase our use. However, it all comes down to budget. It's a very expensive tool that is very difficult to prove business support for. We would like to have two separate networks. We have our corporate network and PCI network, which is segregated due to payment processing. We don't have it for deployed in the PCI network. It would be good to have it fully deployed there to provide us with additional monitoring and control, but the cost associated with their licensing model makes it prohibitively expensive to deploy."
  • "At the time of purchase, we found the pricing acceptable. We had an urgency to get something in place because we had a minor breach that occurred at the tail end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017. This indicated we had a lack of ability to detect things on the network. Hence, why we moved quickly to get into the tool in place. We found things like Bitcoin mining and botnets which we closed quickly. In that regard, it was worth the money."
  • "The pricing is very good. It's less expensive than many of the tools out there."
  • "The pricing is high."
  • "Their licensing model is antiquated. I'm not a fan of their licensing model. We have to pay for licensing based on four different things. You have to pay based on the number of unique IPs, the number of logs that we send through Recall and Stream, and the size of our environment. They need to simplify their licensing down to just one thing. It should be based on the amount of data, the number of devices, or something else, but there should be just one thing for everything. That's what they need to base their licensing on. Cost-wise, they're not cheap. They were definitely the most expensive option, but you get what you pay for. They're not the cheapest option."
  • More Vectra AI Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The most significant aspect of IPS is self-explanatory as it primarily focuses on intrusion prevention, which is crucial for Fortinet's internal outbreak prevention efforts and ensuring compliance on… more »
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement in being proactive about identifying and integrating new signatures.
    Top Answer:The two platforms take a fundamentally different approach to NDR. Corelight is limited to use cases that require the eventual forwarding of events and parsed data logs to a security team’s SIEM or… more »
    Top Answer:Vectra AI generates relevant information.
    Top Answer:It's relatively on the pricier side, but when compared to other solutions. It's not the most budget-friendly option, but it can be considered somewhat more cost-effective in comparison to other… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    4,199
    Comparisons
    2,638
    Reviews
    26
    Average Words per Review
    372
    Rating
    8.5
    Views
    7,438
    Comparisons
    3,458
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    772
    Rating
    8.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    FortiGate IPS
    Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiGate IPS is a highly effective intrusion detection and prevention solution. It is designed to secure a user’s system from end to end and ensure that users are equipped to handle even the most sophisticated threats. Organizations across a wide variety of industries trust IPS to help them prevent unwanted intrusions from harming their networks.

    Fortinet FortiGate IPS Benefits

    Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy Fortinet FortiGate IPS include:


    • Vulnerability scanning and patching. IPS scans for threats on a deeper level than more traditional software might. It penetrates the uppermost layer of a network and identifies vulnerabilities that might not be easily spotted. It scans the entire network to give administrators a full understanding of the potential threats that they might have to address. They can then patch the points of vulnerability before those areas can be exploited.


    • Flexibility. IPS is highly flexible in that it is truly agnostic. It is capable of operating across a wide variety of devices and environments. Any network, cloud, or device type that an organization wants to protect can run IPS. Users do not need to buy any other solution to enable this to operate in the way that they need.


    • Reliability. IPS provides a complete protective package without requiring users to sacrifice speed. It allows for quick threat identification and remediation.


    Fortinet FortiGate IPS Features


    • Machine learning and AI. IPS puts powerful machine learning and AI tools into the hands of its users. These tools enable users to find threats that users might not otherwise be able to identify. They identify vulnerabilities that traditional software simply cannot and enables users to address them before they can escalate. They analyze every portion of an organization’s network architecture to find areas that can be exploited.


    • Integration suite. IPS enables users to integrate their security with many different cloud and application security services. This gives users the option to plug any feature hole that they might perceive. Advanced threats that ordinarily cannot easily be dealt with using IPS’ features can now be easily resolved. Organizations can seamlessly combine the features that IPS offers with other platforms to bolster their effectiveness and resolve virtually any type of threat.


    • Security controls. IPS comes equipped with security controllers that enable users to run it on the web server application of their choice.


    Reviews from Real Users

    Fortinet FortiGate IPS is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages are the powerful zero-day protection features and the way it manages to compete with even its fiercest competitors.

    Srahavan A., the CEO of a computer software company, said, “We like signature-based anomaly detection and zero-day protection features. For zero-day protection, we use Cloud Sandboxing, so whenever the zero-day threat occurs, it automatically sends it to its Cloud Sandbox. After getting information from Cloud Sandbox, then the intrusion is defined.”

    Sachin V., a network administrator said, “We've found the most valuable feature to be the very user-friendly interface... It has a good set of UTM features, a good bandwidth shaping mechanism, and other features. It has efficient algorithms and it competes well with Palo Alto and TechPoint.

    Vectra threat detection and response is a complete cybersecurity platform that collects, detects, and prioritizes security alerts. The Cognito platform for Network Detection and Response (NDR) detects and responds to attacks inside cloud, data center, Internet of Things, and enterprise networks. The platform also provides automated response capabilities for low-level threats and escalates more severe anomalies to security personnel.

    Cognito captures data for multiple relevant sources and enriches it with context and security insights. It starts by deploying sensors across different networks in datacenters, IoT, or enterprise networks. The algorithm extracts relevant metadata from network and cloud traffic. The information can also be non-security information that can help investigation. 

    The data is enriched with security context to support critical use cases, such as threat detection, investigation, hunting and compliance. The platform is machine learning-based, which enables it to adapt to any new and current threat scenario. It detects, clusters, prioritizes, and anticipates attacks by using identity and host-level enforcement. 

    With the Vectra platform, a person can investigate 50 threats in just two hours. By prioritizing alerts and leveraging threat intelligence, it provides faster results.Vectra solves today’s security challenges for network detection and response. 

    One of Vectra’s best features is the emphasis they put in pairing research and data science for security insights. It offers behavior codification with unsupervised, supervised, and deep learning models. 

    The pricing is according to a subscription model with a free trial available.Vectra is available for Office 365, Azure AD and AWS Brain.

    Features of Vectra AI

    • AI-based threat detection and response. 
    • Detects attacks in real time with behavior-based threat detection. 
    • Consolidates and correlates thousands of events, detecting threats. 
    • Enriches threat investigation with a chain of evidence and data science security insights. 
    • Machine learning techniques, including deep learning and neural networks. 
    • Gives visibility into cyberattackers and analyzes all network traffic. 
    • Continuous updates with new threat detection algorithms. 
    • Provides encryption at rest and in transit. For the AWS version, it offers AES-256 encryption via AWS Key Management Service. 
    • Guaranteed availability according to the SLA of the service selected. 
    • Does not connect to public sector networks. 

    Benefits of Vectra AI

    • Behavioral models use AI to find unknown attackers. 
    • Context increases the accuracy of threat hunting. 
    • Allows for proactive action by prioritizing the most relevant information. 
    • Provides a clear picture and extensive context for investigations. 
    • Aids decision-making in the incident response process. 
    • Helps working with large datasets by capturing metadata at scale. 
    • Automates time-consuming analysis. 
    • Reduces the security analysts’ workloads on threat investigations. 

    Other advantages of Vectra services include that they can be deployed in the public, private, or hybrid cloud. Support is available via email or online ticketing with an average of 4 hours of response. Phone support is available 24/7. 

    Vectra provides full on-site and online training and documentation. Regarding the user interface, it supports several types of web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. However, it is not available for mobile devices.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Here’s what PeerSpot users of Vectra AI have to say about it:

    "One of the core features is that Vectra AI triages threats and correlates them with compromised host devices. From a visibility perspective, we can better track the threat across the network. Instead of us potentially finding one device that has been impacted without Vectra AI, it will give us the visibility of everywhere that threat went. Therefore, visibility has increased for us." - Dave W., Operations Manager at a healthcare company

    "It does a reliable job of parsing out the logs of all the network traffic so that we can ingest them into our SIEM and utilize them for threat hunting and case investigations. It is pretty robust and reliable. The administration time that we spend maintaining it or troubleshooting it is very low.” - T.S., Senior Security Engineer at a manufacturing company

    Sample Customers
    Riverside Healthcare, Salt Lake City, Dell SecureWorks, Credit Bank Zagreb
    Tribune Media Group, Barry University, Aruba Networks, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Securities Exchange, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Comms Service Provider19%
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    University11%
    Mining And Metals Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Government8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business51%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise36%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise57%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise63%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise65%
    Buyer's Guide
    Fortinet FortiGate IPS vs. Vectra AI
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate IPS vs. Vectra AI and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Fortinet FortiGate IPS is ranked 4th in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) with 54 reviews while Vectra AI is ranked 2nd in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) with 40 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate IPS is rated 8.4, while Vectra AI is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate IPS writes "Very stable with good network protection". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Vectra AI writes "Integrates well with other security solutions and provides good technical support". Fortinet FortiGate IPS is most compared with Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention, Trend Micro TippingPoint Threat Protection System, Cisco NGIPS, Check Point IPS and Cisco Sourcefire SNORT, whereas Vectra AI is most compared with Darktrace, ExtraHop Reveal(x), Cisco Secure Network Analytics, Arista NDR and Corelight. See our Fortinet FortiGate IPS vs. Vectra AI report.

    See our list of best Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) vendors.

    We monitor all Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.