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

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Hillstone T-Series comparison

Sponsored
 

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
589
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Fortinet FortiGate-VM
Ranking in Firewalls
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Hillstone T-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
43rd
Average Rating
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 18.3%, down from 21.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 2.0%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone T-Series is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate18.3%
Fortinet FortiGate-VM2.0%
Hillstone T-Series0.3%
Other79.4%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd
Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches
Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.
KO
Network Administrator at THK Co Ltd
Faced hardware limitations and setup challenges but have improved network protection over time
I spent much time finding exact firmware on Aruba which was working with these guns, but it is not optimal because it is not the latest version, so there could be potential security problems. We decided to replace those access points with another one. I personally have trouble because I don't know the exact life cycle of Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes. I don't know if the life of boxes is five years or something else; we moved from our previous company, which sold us to other companies. Before 10 years, we had a special department that took care of core networks, including firewalls. After that, this responsibility fell to me and my colleague. It is not easy to set up these Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes properly because we didn't have previous experience with this kind of solution. At first, we set up only a few rules that were not secure enough, and over a couple of years, we improved the settings and security of these Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes. Currently, I have one Fortinet FortiGate-VM that needs to be replaced next year, and this box is not so powerful, so I need to redirect some traffic to another Fortinet FortiGate-VM. It is stable, but because the CPU processor of this box is not powerful, I need to redirect some traffic to another box. In the future, I need to choose a higher-level box to prevent potential troubles with the power of this box.
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

"This solution has a unique range of features that are not available with any other product."
"The best features of this tool include threat protection, email filtering, and web filtering, and FortiAnalyzer's integration with the firewall and FortiSASE is beneficial."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"The solution has a very good set of rules, the customization potential is quite impressive, it can be customized based on our licensing contracts, the initial setup was pretty simple, technical support is rather helpful, we find the stability to be pretty good, and we find the pricing to be fairly good."
"I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable."
"This solution works well on a daily basis, detecting various types of malicious traffic."
"Fortinet FortiGate works well for me."
"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."
"It is highly scalable because it has a mesh architecture that allows consistent policies."
"For myself, the UI is pretty much perfect."
"It’s easy to integrate the solution with our network infrastructure."
"We work in the archiving domain where a secure environment is very important. We have some special requirements regarding the security of infrastructure."
"The features I find most useful in Fortinet FortiGate are its simplicity of utilization, which is very important, and its provision of interfaces to see the alerts and other things."
"FortiGate was quite useful for this scenario, but we are just in the planning and analyzing phase."
"They are very affordable compared to Palo Alto and other vendors, offering a great solution for networking and SD-WAN with extremely good protection."
"The solution is highly stable."
"We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good."
"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."
"We found some limitations with Fortinet FortiGate, and we are satisfied with Hillstone T-Series right now."
"It has been stable so far."
"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

"The platform's compatibility with Wi-Fi equipment needs improvement."
"Fortinet FortiGate SWG can't be used on its own, and you have to get FortiAnalyzer."
"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."
"The solution's stability should be improved because it is extremely unstable."
"Fortinet FortiGate SWG could improve the price, it is expensive."
"The customization could be improved. Cisco, for example, is much better at this."
"To improve Fortinet FortiGate, I think they need to improve the software and make updates more quickly, rather than taking a long time to update the software or firmware."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"The price is sometimes very expensive.​"
"There should be more options to use lower-end models in a high availability configuration."
"Negatives are it could be the same as physical, because if the physical box has some defects, obviously it does not work."
"However, it also has some weak points that require careful sizing of the solution before using it with all security features switched on, because it has a significant downgrade of throughput capacity when switching on more security features."
"The product does not have a good graphical interface."
"The technical support could improve. They took approximately one month to solve a firewire issue to update."
"The user interface (UI) and the performance of interface both need improvement."
"I think Fortinet should provide us with more reporting from the AI/ML point of view. They could also offer the SaaS application in a single box. The VPN and ZTNA have so many verticals that they work as a standalone solution. They need to be in a single box."
"Licensing is not cheap."
"They have a very good technical support team, but I think there are some communication issues due to language differences."
"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."
"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."
"They have a very good technical support team, but I think there are some communication issues due to language differences."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, it's at a good price point for our market."
"FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall is cheaper than Cisco or CheckPoint."
"The solution is cheap."
"It's expensive, but compared to the competition it's okay."
"FortiGate SWG is reasonably priced."
"The product pricing is reasonable."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"Setup cost may be not so low, as you expect, because it depends on different factors, but TCO for 5 years may pleasantly surprise you."
"The best part of Fortinet is the license is bundled together, so it is easy to use and apply."
"The tool is neither expensive nor cheap, so it is okay."
"With Fortinet FortiGate-VM you can bring your own licensing, or it can be paid on a yearly basis."
"The product’s licensing must be a little cheaper."
"I rate the product price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"For medium and enterprise organizations, FortiGate is more affordable."
"The license can be purchased at intervals of one, three, and five years."
"It's not a cheap solution but it comes with its benefits."
"We got a much cheaper price than that provided by Fortinet right now."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
886,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Media Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business364
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise191
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business72
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise39
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
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...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM?
An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
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: April 2026.
886,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.