Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs ShieldX comparison

The compared Fortinet FortiGate-VM and ShieldX solutions aren't in the same category. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked #9 in Firewalls , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 1.9% mindshare in the category. ShieldX is ranked #13 in MS , and holds a 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Fortinet FortiGate-VM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ShieldX users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Fortinet FortiGate-VM and ShieldX compete in the network security category. ShieldX appears superior due to its advanced security features, although Fortinet stands out for its pricing and support.

Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is recognized for advanced threat protection, extensive firewall capabilities, and reliable protection. ShieldX is noted for deep visibility into network traffic, micro-segmentation capabilities, and granular security policies.

Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiGate-VM could improve its configuration complexity, reporting capabilities, and initial setup challenges. ShieldX could benefit from enhanced integration with third-party tools, more streamlined management interfaces, and faster response times from support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiGate-VM deployment is generally straightforward, though some users face challenges with initial setup. ShieldX deployment is smoother with less intricate setup. Fortinet's customer service is highly rated, while ShieldX's support is adequate but could be faster.

Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is known for competitive pricing and strong ROI, making it cost-effective for larger deployments. ShieldX has higher pricing, but its advanced features justify the expense, presenting a compelling value proposition for some users.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. ShieldX Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. ShieldX

December 2024

Download the complete report

Helped 872,008 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

Mindshare comparison

Firewalls Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate-VM	1.9%
Fortinet FortiGate	20.4%
OPNsense	11.0%
Other	66.7%

Firewalls

Microsegmentation Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ShieldX	0.5%
Illumio	29.4%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation	26.7%
Other	43.400000000000006%

Microsegmentation Software

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

Read full review

Samuel-Mottet

EMEA Enterprise Solutions Architect at 11:11 Systems

User-friendly, easy to set up, and works very well for SMB customers

We are using VM01 most of the time, as we have more customers, although sometimes we can use VM02. In the EMEA region, we mainly have customers related to Fortinet FortiGate-VM. My favorite capabilities are VM01 and VM02. We use it in a hybrid cloud solution, meaning the customer on-premise is using another technology or the same. It's better for us if they are using Fortinet, and we don't face issues with this solution. For what we need to do, which is setting up a VPN connection between both sides and using it for SSL VPN connections for remote users, it works effectively and we haven't encountered vulnerabilities. It's user-friendly and easy to set up. It's designed with the customer in mind. As someone who is precise, I understand the importance of selling the solution effectively while ensuring it meets the customer's needs. This means that my focus is on gathering customer feedback. It's not just about what I see; it's about understanding the customer's perspective. Customers often want to know how they can use the solution and how to set it up, which is the main concern I address. Fortinet Security Fabric's Real-time Threat Response capabilities are satisfactory; it's a good solution.

Read full review

MichaelProcyshyn

IT Director at park holidays uk

Proactively monitors, blocks, and reports what it has blocked; and self-updates meaning there is zero maintenance

The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput. The traffic through our website depends on holiday bookings. It's very quiet in November through January, and then our traffic picks up quite rapidly and, at our peak, we will take in excess of a million pounds of business a day through our website. The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides. Uptime on the system has been 648 days and we do very little to it because it self-updates and alerts. It does everything that we need it to do, so the administration side of it is zero. One of the beauties about ShieldX is that it's such a good "fire-and-forget" product.

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

"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall has a stateless balance proposition"

"Fortinet FortiGate provides superior protection compared to other firewalls, with high processing capabilities."

"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is more realistic in application, allowing for more specific, customized security policies without the extensive work involved with static rules."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."

"The solution is very, very easy to use."

"The most valuable features are the policies, filtering, and configuration."

"The best feature of Fortinet FortiGate is value for money."

"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Regarding specific features, I appreciate the option for external selection, where you can choose either to use a default or create a self-description. This simplifies the process compared to other vendors that require creating a test extension profile and then applying it to the installation. With FortiGate, there is a streamlined approach. From the benefits perspective, clients mainly see cost reduction, especially with FortiGate VM Firewall, as it eliminates the need for additional hardware."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the integration within the environment, with centralized reporting."

"The product can scale."

"The most valuable feature is geofencing, where we can block all access from all non-domestic locations."

"The ease of access and user-friendly setup is a valuable feature. Fortinet proves to be particularly straightforward to configure, offering simplicity without complexity. Moreover, visibility is easily attainable due to certain factors. Price, implementation, and budget considerations play a role. When it comes to Cisco implementation, the process tends to be more intricate, which many customers find unfavourable for their business needs."

"I like FortiGate's IPS, IDS, and URL filtering."

"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is purpose-built as a next-generation firewall, excelling in its performance of this specific function."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to operate."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pros

"The Adaptive Intention Engine is fantastic. It allows us to develop security policies using the language of our internal customers. It's machine-learning applied to security workflows. That allows us to much more easily construct the policies that will protect those workflows."

"...It takes the exact same policies that you would apply to your on-premise environment and enables you to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"We were able to see what devices are talking to each other, giving us more visibility."

"The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput."

"ShieldX has been designed from the very beginning to work well in cloud environments. It understands autoscaling, automation, and auto-configuration. These are the things which are important in today's operating environment."

"It has helped us tighten our security posture. Now, staff can only access things that they should be accessing."

"The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides."

Cons

"FortiGate needs to be elastic to the market's trends. It should be easy for SMBs to get the solution."

"There's a limitation wherein you can only have about 30 virtual or secondary IPs on a particular interface."

"The issue with Fortinet FortiGate is the many security CVEs around; I have read there are probably multiple critical CVEs above 9.0 in Fortinet FortiGate products."

"The solution needs to improve its support."

"The scalability could be better."

"One of the most important areas for improvement for Fortinet FortiGate is the limited resources for tests. I was limited to a few interfaces for one month, and it would be great if Fortinet could improve these features in their test versions."

"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."

"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"We have experience stability issues, when the product sizing is wrong or on configuration errors."

"The solution's web-filtering configuration could be better."

"Regarding the effectiveness of Fortinet FortiGate-VM in providing high-level security for high-level customers, we have some visibility issues, so it doesn't seem high level; there's definitely room for enhancement."

"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."

"The previous version 5.6 had integrated features for logging, monitoring, and management. Now, these features require separate products like FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, and a FortiCloud subscription for reporting."

"Support could be improved a little."

"In terms of room for improvement, logging could be improved."

"At this moment, we believe that Fortinet FortiGate should be improved by injecting more AI because the kind of threats we are seeing are more ransomware threats. Fortinet FortiGate is able to ensure these threats do not enter, but we would prefer to see more proactive alerting mechanisms come out."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM cons

"There should be a bit more customer care, with regular review meetings on it or regular reports. It would be nice to have a quarterly or biannual review of what ShieldX has blocked."

"I would like better reports and in-depth reporting."

"With any kind of tool like ShieldX, where you're in the cloud instead of a traditional firewall, you're using CPU resources in those environments to provide the protection. So there's a cost associated with CPU resources. I'm pressing upon them to make the product much more efficient and use less CPUs to do the same thing."

"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory. We can't seem to set it up."

"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so. As the vendor continues to evolve and add future functionality, we want to make sure that we are still keeping up with the integrations, etc. Time will be the key factor here. The proper support for some of the latest technologies, Docker containers, etc. They need to keep up with threat landscape, so we will see how the security get layered. This is what we are going to be keeping an eye on."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay $500 per year for the license."

"The pricing of the solution is very competitive."

"The cost of Fortinet FortiGate is competitive and not expensive compared to other enterprise- grade solutions. On average, the license cost per year is around seventy percent of the firewall's purchase price."

"The price is fair compared to the other competitors."

"It's an expensive solution"

"I had to pay for the license for the firewall, but it is guaranteed to have updates. I expect a good service for it. It was about €1000 for a year, and there was no additional cost."

"It is cheaper and more competitive compared to other options. For example, when comparing Palo Alto products to others, Palo Alto tends to be more expensive. If you compare Cisco's platform, including Cisco Meraki, with Fortinet products, you'll notice that Cisco's offerings are generally higher priced than Fortinet's firewall solutions."

"The license of Fortinet FortiGate should be reduced."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The solution could be better priced."

"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."

"The price is expensive compared with other vendors, like Cisco and Huawei."

"The price is fair for what we get with FortiGate."

"The price: It is a bit higher than the other competitors. This is why I started to look at other brands."

"The pricing is really good."

"It is an expensive solution."

"The price could be lower."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pricing and cost advice

"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX. It might not be the big name out there, but it does everything that you are looking for in microsegmentation at a very low price."

"We are actually expecting our costs to drop in the coming year, but it is just a matter of the licensing expiring. That is going to happen in the next six months or so. Then, we will start to see a decrease in overall spend."

"ShieldX also enables us to migrate to cloud environments faster. That is an important part of it for sure because it takes the exact same policies that we would apply to our on-premise environment and enables us to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"ShieldX ensures that we can have the separation needed for our environment to avoid drastically increasing the cost on the licensing side. From this perspective, it's been very positive and helpful."

"Security policies are now applied as applications are going up. Because it's automated, we don't have the three to four week delay. The insertion of applications in the cloud for us dropped from an average of three to four weeks to a couple of days."

"We are very happy with the pricing and licensing. It's about getting a site-wide license. One of the challenges that we've had with our previous vendor had been the cost of licensing."

"For a three-year deal we paid £55,000 plus tax... But, and this is a big "but," this was over two years ago. ShieldX had only just hit the market. We were the first company in Europe to buy ShieldX."

See which vendors are best for you

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

See recommendations

872,008 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	350
Midsize Enterprise	130
Large Enterprise	187

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	70
Midsize Enterprise	31
Large Enterprise	35

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

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 Fortigat...

See all answers

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured.

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 8% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiOS vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 23% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 5% of the time

Sophos XGS vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 4% of the time

KerioControl vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM Competitors

Illumio vs ShieldX

Compared 100% of the time

More ShieldX Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

October 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

October 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate-VM product report

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX

September 2025

Download ShieldX product report

Also Known As

No data available

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM

APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate excels in providing integrated VPN, firewalling, and Unified Threat Management (UTM) with centralized management and high availability. It supports remote access and comprehensive threat protection, making it a preferred choice for securing networks.

Fortinet FortiGate offers a robust security platform with features such as strong intrusion prevention, application control, and web filtering. Its integration with Active Directory and SD-WAN functionality provides scalable solutions for large networks. Users appreciate its ease of use through centralized management interfaces, ensuring robust security with flexible configurations. However, FortiGate could enhance its graphical interface and technical support responsiveness, address firmware bugs and costly licensing, improve logging, integrate better with third-party tools, and strengthen scalability and memory for log storage. Complexity in configuration and the need for intuitive features are noted challenges, and there's a demand for advanced security, zero-trust capabilities, and AI integration.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN: Secure remote access and connectivity.
Firewalling: Protects networks from unauthorized access and attacks.
UTM: Offers a comprehensive approach to threat management.
SD-WAN: Optimizes traffic routing for efficient network performance.
Web Filtering: Controls and monitors web access and ensures Internet security.

What benefits or ROI should be considered?

Centralized Management: Simplifies administration and monitoring.
High Availability: Ensures consistent security and network availability.
Scalability: Adapts to the needs of growing networks.
Comprehensive Threat Protection: Provides robust security measures.
Ease of Use: Minimizes the complexity of security management.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries like education, finance, and government. Companies use it for firewall protection, VPN, and SD-WAN capabilities, ensuring secure perimeter and data center security. It facilitates remote access management and traffic routing optimization, offering reliable security and connectivity solutions.

Fortinet

FortiGate Virtual Appliances allow you to mitigate blind spots by implementing critical security controls within your virtual infrastructure. They also allow you to rapidly provision security infrastructure whenever and wherever it is needed. FortiGate virtual appliances feature all of the security and networking services common to traditional hardware-based FortiGate appliances. With the addition of virtual appliances from Fortinet, you can deploy a mix of hardware and virtual appliances, operating together and managed from a common centralized management platform.

Fortinet

The ShieldX Elastic Security Platform dynamically scales to deliver comprehensive and consistent controls to protect data centers, cloud infrastructure, applications and data no matter where they are or where they go to make the cloud more secure than on-premise deployments. Our frictionless approach leverages agentless technology as well as the ShieldX Adaptive Intention Engine which autonomously translates and enforces intention into a set of comprehensive controls - microsegmentation, firewall, IPS and more - making security the easiest thing you do in the cloud.

Fortinet

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

Iowa State University

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. ShieldX

December 2024

Free Report: Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. ShieldX

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. ShieldX and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

DOWNLOAD NOW

872,008 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. ShieldX report.

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.