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Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Hillstone E-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 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

Fortinet FortiGate-VM
Ranking in Firewalls
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
151
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Hillstone E-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
41st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (10th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 2.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 0.9%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate-VM2.2%
Hillstone E-Series0.9%
Other96.9%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Ehab Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Presales Consultant at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Unified security fabric has simplified multi-country deployments and strengthened threat response
FortiGate VM delivers exceptional performance and security with no degradation of service or protection (same features as the HW option). As part of the Fortinet Security Fabric, it extends across clouds and distributed locations, mitigating blind spots in virtual infrastructures. FortiGate VM can be rapidly deployed, managed through a centralized platform, and offers a range of purchasing options to suit every need. Also, FortiGate VM offers versatile deployment options across both public and private clouds, supporting all major public clouds including AWS, Azure, and Google as well as most hypervisors such as VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM. These deployments enable organizations to create scalable, high-performance firewalls that can be tailored to different virtualized environments and hyper-scale public cloud infrastructures. FortiGate VM integrates seamlessly with various infrastructure as code (IaC) tools such as Jenkins and GitLab, supporting security as code practices.
TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Offers good features like URL filtering, IPS, and IDS to users
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. When we updated the tool's features, everything became okay. The tool only had some memory-related problems. It took the tool a month to fix the issues.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The pricing of the solution is good."
"The user interface, stability, and scalability are the most valuable features."
"Web filtering and the IPS functionality."
"The platform has a good user interface."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are its flexibility and scalability. This solution is available as a license, which allows us to activate it based on the specific needs of the customer. This gives us and the customer a great deal of versatility and customization options."
"The features, in general, have been so great."
"It's a relatively simple product that is easy to use. It's not overly complex."
"The threat detection capabilities are excellent because of the good features that come with the services and FortiGuard connection, where you can get signatures every hour, including IPS signatures, anti-malware signatures, web filters, and application filters, and you can even create custom signatures such as application signatures and IPS signatures."
"The installation is easy, we have not had any complaints from our customers."
"If an organization is not looking for a web proxy, it's a very, very good product."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"With Hillstone, TCO and ROI are very good, it's an easy sale."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ransomware protection that the tool offers."
"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients secure connectivity from a remote location to their offices or their servers."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"This solution has two main features that we find very valuable; a threat-intelligence option, and a web/application filtering option. The technical support team are very good and very quick."
 

Cons

"We are experiencing a failed login issue. There should also be improvements in functionalities we store to enhance our services."
"One thing that can be better is added automation. And, on top of that, enhanced security when it comes to the automation itself."
"Fortinet support needs improvement. The response times are lackluster. Fortunately, the product is stable and we seldom have issues. Also, it takes months for them to deliver hardware when we order it."
"We mainly get firmware upgrades from time to time, and there are bugs."
"In the next releases, it would be nice to see central cloud management."
"The costs could be lowered."
"Having worked with Fortinet FortiGate-VM for the last three years, I have not encountered any major issues, except for occasional hardware problems such as auto rebooting and CPU utilization spikes that sometimes occur when multiple users log in at the same time, which can create packet latency."
"The technical support is not very responsive and is an area that needs to be improved."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"The current usage reporting is very basic. I would like to be able to access more granular data."
"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The room for improvement would be the SSL VPN license cost."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license can be purchased at intervals of one, three, and five years."
"The solution could be better priced."
"​The basic pricing in Austria is OK, but asking for special offers, e.g., NPOs, NGOs, trade up, and/or trade in, is always useful.​"
"At present, the SD-WAN licenses are on an annual basis."
"There is a benefit in terms of the cost of using this solution because the price is very good."
"Licensing is pretty standard. It's approximately 15% of the total cost per year as a subscription cost."
"The product’s licensing must be a little cheaper."
"There is a need to make payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable. It depends on the model. The product's pricing is around 600 USD. You need to buy a software license to activate the features. You need to pay around 150 USD for that."
"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise43
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it kind of depends what you value most. PA is good at app control, web filtering a...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigate VM integrates well and has excellent centralized reporting. It is very easy to...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiGate-VM?
I am not involved in the pricing and costs associated with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, as those are handled by the CFO. We are in operations, and we just access the product as it is and take care of the...
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Also Known As

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE
Bank of China Macao, Instituto Tecnológico Bolivariano, Ministry of Labor in San Salvador, FEDCO
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Hillstone E-Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.