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Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Menlo Secure comparison

 

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
6.8
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Menlo Secure
Ranking in Firewalls
52nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (26th), ZTNA (25th), Cloud Security Remediation (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure 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 FortiGate-VM2.2%
Menlo Secure0.3%
Other97.5%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer2701794 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Bluechip Enterprise at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Provides strong protection and multiple use cases but struggles with market recognition
There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto. Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco. What can be improved is market awareness and adoption of the technology. When selling it in the channel, regardless of how good the technology might be, success depends more on market adoption and awareness.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is easy to implement."
"It provides an ease of management and configuration as well."
"The use of Fortinet FortiGate in an infrastructure saves time, reduces costs, improves the security of users and resources, and prevents data leakage."
"What I appreciate the most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM is that it is not much different than hardware appliances."
"The performance overall is very good."
"The most valuable features are network security, VLAN, network protection, and encryption are very valuable to us."
"We haven't faced any issues with stability since I've been with the company."
"With this solution, you can apply the zero trust concept in place with role-based access to the internet, URL filtering works well and is flexible, and with integration with other security solutions you can quickly respond to incidents so fewer security incidents appear and you can respond more quickly."
"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."
"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."
"We are not aware of a single compromise from the web since implementing the solution."
"We have definitely seen ROI, as we save a ton of money and time because the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools prior to implementing them had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged."
"The solution is invisible to our end users, so it doesn't have any impact on their work or performance."
"This security technology addresses risk and enables people to conduct business without that risk, which is where the ROI is realized."
"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."
"Either you have access to something or don't have access to it, and if you do, we can ensure, 100 percent of the time, that there is nothing malicious that is going to impact our system in any way."
 

Cons

"In terms of room for improvement, logging could be improved. Sometimes the logs are more difficult to read and to identify root cause analysis."
"Technical support would probably be an area for improvement, particularly around the extensibility of hybrid multi-cloud integration with AI."
"The graphical user interface should be enhanced."
"In the next release, I would like to see integration capability with SIEM tools, such as QRadar, and LogRhythm."
"The block, the clarity, the quarantine command, is not very user-friendly. You would have to do everything through the command line and I would have preferred if it wasn't a CLI."
"Not a ten because I think that Cisco is better."
"We are experiencing a failed login issue. There should also be improvements in functionalities we store to enhance our services."
"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."
"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."
"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists."
"The user monitoring could still be improved."
"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."
"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."
"Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product’s licensing must be a little cheaper."
"There is a benefit in terms of the cost of using this solution because the price is very good."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is a very expensive solution."
"We can tailor the suitable license for the customer, whether they require UTB or enterprise features. The options are flexible based on their needs."
"I find it quite reasonable."
"The solution could be better priced."
"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 price is fair for what we get with FortiGate."
"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."
"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."
"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Construction Company
9%
Retailer
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise39
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?
From our perspective, it's quite good. When we have the visibility, we will make our policies depending on the threats that are coming because we are using many different other security measures. F...
What needs improvement with Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?
There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto. Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which mak...
What is your primary use case for Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?
People are mainly using it for zero trust web access. Menlo Secure is built from the ground up to provide zero basic access, and by doing it that way, it has multiple use cases. For example, it man...
What advice do you have for others considering Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?
Secure file sharing and data protection is not exactly what Menlo Secure is designed to do. While it can handle some of these functions, people typically choose another technology for those specifi...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Menlo Secure and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.