No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Hillstone T-Series comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 T-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
42nd
Average Rating
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 2.1%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone T-Series is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate-VM2.1%
Hillstone T-Series0.6%
Other97.3%
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
Is stable and has a user-friendly dashboard and a good interface
We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good We cannot secure a specific IP class with this firewall. Another loophole with Hillstone T-Series is that when we connect through WiFi and turn our hot spot on, all who connect through the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"High network throughput while providing leading edge network security technology for a competitive price.​"
"The solution can scale well."
"FortiGate is a nice and very good product but the implementation and post-implementation of the product are cumbersome."
"The solution is very easy to set up. It doesn't take a lot of time and offers a quick deployment, so you can start using it almost right away."
"The stability of the solution is good, and we haven't faced any issues at all while using the product."
"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate include the flexibility of hybrid cloud capabilities and the way they are structuring their multi-tenancy and for managed services, along with manageability."
"One of the most important features is web filtering, because they can block certain types of websites, which is good for in-school security, and all of the other filters are also very important, including the antivirus and antispam inspection."
"It's very easy to set up, even for more junior developers."
"Hillstone supports IOT setup and detecting intrusions from IOT or CCTV connectivity, and with this solution, we can also detect unauthorized devices plugged into the CCTV network and sound the alarm to the administrator."
"The only firewall able to monitor traffic from a CCTV network. Can detect unauthorized devices plugged into the network, which standard firewalls can't do."
"We found some limitations with Fortinet FortiGate, and we are satisfied with Hillstone T-Series right now."
"We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good."
"It has been stable so far."
 

Cons

"Technical support is horrific, absolutely terrible. I'd give them a negative rating."
"The solution could use very well-defined support for resellers."
"It should have the SD-WAN feature. This would increase the number of features that are available in the box."
"The users must buy FortiSIEM to get advanced analytics."
"It would be useful to have integration with different reporting tools; this is something we are sorely missing."
"It is a very good product, and it is good at standing by itself. It can maybe have a little bit of integration with other products, but it is not that important for most use cases."
"The price model is not transparent by any means and should be made more clear. What's included in the packages is often not very obvious."
"Interoperability could be improved."
"They have a very good technical support team, but I think there are some communication issues due to language differences."
"Licensing is not cheap."
"Licensing is not cheap, but there are customers who will buy because they understand that this has a cost involved and they will cater their budget for that."
"Another loophole with Hillstone T-Series is that when we connect through WiFi and turn our hot spot on, all who connect through the hotspot get all the functions, and the security does not work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price falls somewhere in the middle; it's neither cheap nor expensive."
"The product’s licensing must be a little cheaper."
"The price is expensive compared with other vendors, like Cisco and Huawei."
"The price is fair for what we get with FortiGate."
"VMs can be affordable, but for high-demand scenarios, I'd still recommend the hardware. For the cost, it's a ten out of ten."
"The customer must buy his own license."
"At present, the SD-WAN licenses are on an annual basis."
"​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.​"
"On a scale from one to ten, with one being low and ten being high price, I would rate the price of Hillstone T-Series at three. There are no additional costs other than renewal costs."
"We got a much cheaper price than that provided by Fortinet right now."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Transportation Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise43
No data available
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
Hillstone T-Series Intelligent Next-Generation Firewalls, Hillstone iNGFW
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE
University of Córdoba
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Hillstone T-Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.