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Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Hillstone T-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 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 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 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-VM2.2%
Hillstone T-Series0.6%
Other97.2%
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

"FortiGate-VM's firewall is excellent."
"The firewall capabilities are great, we like the EPS antivirus, it's quite a complete solution, the features on offer are good, we find the solution to be stable, and the product can scale."
"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."
"It's user-friendly and easy to set up, designed with the customer in mind, and works effectively for setting up a VPN connection between both sides and using it for SSL VPN connections for remote users without encountering vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable features are the IPS and Antivirus."
"Overall, this is a good product with good features and priced well compared to others."
"That's primarily why we steer clients in the direction of Fortinet."
"It improves an organization because it's a single vendor solution for edge management."
"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."
"It has been stable so far."
"We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good."
"We found some limitations with Fortinet FortiGate, and we are satisfied with Hillstone T-Series right now."
"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."
 

Cons

"It is difficult to size the VM in terms of machine resources, and for this reason, clients prefer the appliance."
"The product needs to focus on cloud-nativeness and pricing."
"The licensing needs to be improved. We need longer licensing periods, especially for POCs and trials. It should be for six months. Right now, it's too short of a timeframe."
"The pricing is expensive."
"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."
"We have experience stability issues, when the product sizing is wrong or on configuration errors."
"FortiGate should be more customer friendly and budgeted better."
"The WAF is extremely limited."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a support fee that can be bought on a yearly or two-yearly basis. I don't think they do five years. The best benefit is that the same pricing is guaranteed for that duration. If you can afford it, I would recommend using the longest possible time span."
"There is no additional cost. Once you get the licensing fee, you're good."
"For medium and enterprise organizations, FortiGate is more affordable."
"For large enterprises, price is not a problem because they need that solution. However, in the Philippine market, many of our clients are still small to medium businesses, so the price can be challenging. The license for Fortinet FortiGate-VM costs 100K to 150K Philippine pesos per year for VM1 or VM2."
"At present, the SD-WAN licenses are on an annual basis."
"This solution is very expensive."
"​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.​"
"I find it quite reasonable."
"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."
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Top Industries

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

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...
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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.
914,938 professionals have used our research since 2012.