Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Fortinet and McAfee are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Additionally, 98% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of McAfee users who would recommend it.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Read 151 Fortinet FortiGate-VM reviews

13,890 Views
12,640 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

McAfee Firewall Enterprise ...

Read 5 McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] reviews

75% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

McAfee Firewall Enterprise ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, Netgate and others in Firewalls.

To learn more, read our detailed Firewalls Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

October 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 920,769 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

151

Ranking in other categories

Firewalls (9th)

McAfee Firewall Enterprise ...

Average Rating

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Ehab Ali

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.

Read full review

reviewer999975

Computer Technician at a leisure / travel company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We cannot find resources to help us configure it, so most of the time the virus still goes on our computer and McAfee doesn't detect it

It's pretty easy to use on a daily basis, but there are no other features because it's hard to configure on the server. On the endpoint it's really easy to push. It's hard to configure on the server, though. It's hard to find resources to help us configure it, and there is not much online help that you can find. Most of the time, we were looking at the forums, and we needed to go very deep to find what we were looking for. It was hard, and McAfee was not really helpful when we were trying to get the product to work perfectly. This is why are changing it.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I appreciate the most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM is that it is not much different than hardware appliances."

"The best part about FortiGate-VM is its strong security."

"It gives all the features of a full-fledged firewall with great performance."

"It is a marvellous solution, but a bit expensive against its competitors."

"The most valuable features we have found to be the VPN, ease of use, and overall simplicity."

"I appreciate FortiGate's flexibility, which allows for centralized management through FortiManager."

"I rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten."

"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is one of the easiest and most user-friendly brands we use, with excellent threat intelligence and accessibility."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pros

"It's a very functional and stable product if you're looking for a Layer 7 firewall with reputation filtering and encrypted traffic inspection."

"It does give certain protection for everything that is well configured on our McAfee server. We have good protection with it. If we could find a feature and make it work, it would work perfectly, there would be no bugs, and it would be really good."

"We have 10 offices throughout Brazil, and now they are all connected by using the VPN feature of the firewall."

"ROI: It's good."

"For managing multiple MFE firewalls it is incredibly handy, convenient, and it is easy to use the product with McAfee Control Centre."

Cons

"There is always room for improvement in any solutions, including Fortinet's FortiGate-VM. Although the solution claims to have a superior throughput compared to other OEMs, upon closer examination and comparison, there is potential for significant improvement in this area. In today's rapidly evolving technology world, it is important to continuously strive for enhancement and development, and I believe Fortinet can make significant strides in this direction for the FortiGate-VM."

"Areas for improvement would be application control and web filtering."

"The product is satisfactory. I haven't identified any features to improve, and based on the number of deployments I've handled with FortiGate-VM, there haven't been any complaints from the customer's side."

"Fortinet FortiGate-VM should improve its asset identification, wherein the device can identify assets on the network, like computers."

"The WAF is extremely limited."

"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."

"Interoperability could be improved. The API needs better integration to match accounts and objects more effectively."

"In the Philippine market, where cybersecurity is still growing but not yet fully mature, we have many clients who have Fortinet FortiGate-VM or hardware. However, we cannot really position the Fabric if the licenses, renewal parts, or other components have monetary requirements that hinder full utilization."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM cons

"Customer support and AV are both lacking and are really hard to come to you when the product is installed. Those are the two major points that they need to work on."

"Administration of the firewall is a little confusing for end users."

"HA configuration is a bit difficult for the first time."

"Migrating from v7 to v8 of McAfee Firewall Enterprise, in many cases, involves you having to completely re-write all of your previous McAfee Firewall Enterprise v7 policies due to the difference in the way the interfaces are named in the product going from v7 to v8."

"The hardware is not stable and we have faced many stability issues."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"For medium and enterprise organizations, FortiGate is more affordable."

"The price could be lower."

"This solution is very expensive."

"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."

"We are on an annual license for this solution and it could be cheaper."

"The best part of Fortinet is the license is bundled together, so it is easy to use and apply."

"The price of the solution could be less expensive. There are some features that have to be purchased separately that have their own license."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pricing and cost advice

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

21%

Construction Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	74
Midsize Enterprise	35
Large Enterprise	43

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiGate vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 9% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 8% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 7% of the time

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM Competitors

SonicWall NSa vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL]

Compared 37% of the time

Trellix Network Detection and Response vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL]

Compared 10% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL]

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL]

Compared 9% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL]

Compared 9% of the time

More McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

October 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate-VM product report

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

October 2026

McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] report

Download McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] product report

Also Known As

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM

Firewall Enterprise MFE, Intel Security Firewall Enterprise MFE

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate-VM delivers robust security services and advanced network management suitable for cloud environments, providing solutions like firewall and SD-WAN, with seamless integration across Fortinet devices.

FortiGate-VM is designed for enterprise security, offering comprehensive features like intrusion prevention and application filtering. It's known for its scalability and flexibility, supporting cloud platforms such as Azure and AWS. It enhances threat response and network management efficiency, thanks to real-time threat response, intuitive integration with existing systems, and cost-effectiveness.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

Strong Security: Offers firewall, intrusion prevention, and application filtering.
SD-WAN Capability: Improves network connectivity and performance.
Scalability: Efficient scaling in cloud environments.
Integration: Seamlessly connects with other Fortinet devices.

What benefits can users expect from Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

Enhanced Network Management: Simplifies deployment with real-time threat response.
Cost-Effectiveness: Optimal for managing network protocols at reasonable costs.
Flexibility in Deployment: Suitable for secure virtual machine operations on platforms like Azure or AWS.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM is predominantly employed in industries requiring stringent data center security, enabling network segmentation and VPN services. It's particularly favored by organizations using virtual and cloud networks due to its Unified Threat Management capabilities, making it an efficient solution for protecting virtual environments from threats.

Fortinet

McAfee Firewall Enterprise defends critical assets, such as regulated data repositories (customer, financial, and healthcare data), email and web servers, extranets, and data centers. This proxy-based firewall also offers application visibility and deep application controls for defense, delivers strong policy-based controls, blocks the latest threats, and eliminates unwanted traffic.

McAfee

Sample Customers

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE

French Ministry of Education, RWTH Aachen, Avency, Cegedim, Cobweb, Intel Security, Cemex Mauser, R_sler Oberfl_chentechnik

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, Netgate and others in Firewalls. Updated: October 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best Firewalls vendors.

We monitor all Firewalls 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.