We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Fortinet FortiGate's reliability is valuable."
"There are great templates, so you don't have to customize them if you don't want to. You do have the option to custom create some folders and some reports, however, with what is there, you don't really need to go through extra effort, as they already give you a lot of predefined views of reports and so forth."
"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"The most valuable features are network security, VLAN, network protection, and encryption are very valuable to us."
"FortiGate-VM has many valuable features: it's easy to use, it's intuitive, it's got very good traffic inspection features, it's got comprehensive filtering categories, and it has an extensive threat database, using FortiGuard."
"The most valuables features are the ease of use and deployment."
"It's almost perfect. It's very stable. We don't have many hardware issues."
"The most valuable feature is the UTM, which gives them an advantage over other firewalls."
"There is an interesting possibility of building a tunnel to a firewall from access points. We use this feature for small branch offices with one to two employees with access to central RDP servers."
"I rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten."
"It has allowed us to centralize every network service into one appliance."
"They now know the details about their network traffic that they did not know before: Applications that they are using and some application they did not know they were using."
"We now know a lot more detail about what our users are doing on the network."
"We have reduced the number of configuration lines by 90%. We need fewer number of admins right now because of it."
"It provides complete security posture from end-to-end. This has given us better visibility into what our security aspects are."
"It gives us the ease that we are secure. We have set up the proper things that help make our data safe."
"The interface with Panorama makes it very easy to use."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its stability, ease of implementation, ease of operation, and security."
"The solution strengthens our IT posture."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"They could simplify the troubleshooting process."
"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We'd like to have more customization and easier customization of policies."
"Fortinet could improve the availability and delivery of its products. It takes four to six weeks for every purchase to arrive."
"Capacity-wise, I think the solution's log storage area is something that needs to be increased since, by default, it stores logs for only seven days."
"There should be integration with an active directory — with Microsoft."
"Technical support could be improved."
"We encountered scalability issues in IPSec Module. The tunnels freeze sometimes."
"There's room for improvement in terms of integration with the load balancer. It isn't like Fortinet, which has a load balancer built into its firewall. It is effortless to integrate within the load balancer-plus-firewall solution."
"The disadvantage with Palo Alto is that they don't have a cloud-based solution that includes a secure web gateway."
"I would like to have automatic daily reporting, such as how many users have connected via SSL VPN."
"The reporting part of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We have ran into issues with Palo Alto’s limitations for resolving large IP lists from DNS lookups, as well as the antivirus interfering with App-ID."
"The product could be better in terms of performance than one of its competitors."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is a complex product to work with."
"On the cloud side, they need to come up with more HA solutions to support the multi-region."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 52 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense, Netgate pfSense and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Azure Firewall, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Juniper SRX Series Firewall and Huawei NGFW. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series report.
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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 and such like, they have always been top of the pile there. The GUI is very good, and their product is very user-focused.
Fortinet is good for scalability and predictable high throughput (ASICs in the hardware), and useful things like authentication flexibility, CLI config (if you have any networking/Cisco people, they always seem to prefer CLI over GUI) and have better OT features, maybe relevant to your manufacturing use?
Fortinet seem to have a broader integration offering with their security fabric than PA do, plus they can do Fortinet-based wifi, switching, etc. Depends if you are prepared to go all-in with a single vendor.
Hi,
Both FT and PA have compelling features for large Enterprises. I would like to add a few good points about Fortinetwhich might be helpful ( from my 13 years of engagement with them as Distributor and Partner)
Fortinet:
Have higher throughput; which comes with competitive rates
Wide range of models to select to meet your requirement, without spending heavliy
Outstanding customer support and very active customer care team
Easly available skilled resources from the channel for deployment and post-implementation support
Regards
Abhilash
Hello. The question is what you are going to have as a result of application