Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs WatchGuard XTM [EOL] comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Fortinet and WatchGuard are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Additionally, 98% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of WatchGuard users who would recommend it.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Read 151 Fortinet FortiGate-VM reviews

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12,640 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

Read 34 WatchGuard XTM [EOL] reviews

90% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and WatchGuard XTM [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

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Firewalls

October 2026

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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)

WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

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.

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Generalm4545

General Manager- IT & Automation - Serum at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Protects from attack software and hacking but it doesn't provide the reports in a readable format

In my opinion, image clarity is very important, because I don't get the proper image product on reports. This means that functionality is not there. My engineer does not know how he can replace an order. We attach a log after any kind of keys using a utility instead. For the internet policies that we are implementing, the policy should be based on proper protocols. We use the default policies and there are a number of third-party protocols that appear here. Management with WatchGuard XTM means that out of policy is the problem from our side. In this way, we can not do effective services for people with this one. The policy definition with WatchGuard XTM is not proper for all use case requirements. I've got weekly business reports that I am expecting attachments with from WatchGuard XTM that display data for all kinds of consideration which should be required. Main User Functionality Level Order must adhere to using the admin functionality on the registry, or else our users publish their own name. Maybe these recommendations are irrelevant, but I say that the issue to improve most with WatchGuard XTM is the Main User Function.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Initial setup is very straightforward with a wizard, if needed."

"I observed a fifty to sixty percent reduction in operational costs after migrating to FortiGate VM."

"FortiGate-VM is easier to deploy than physical solutions that require you to have an RNE as then you need to wait a couple of days or months for another physical appliance to be delivered."

"The solution is very secure, and its technical support is on point."

"The configuration, graphical interface and command line are easy to use."

"This product surely will fit your basic needs at the very least."

"Fortinet FortiGate-VM releases are stable, so I don't need to frequently upgrade unless a critical vulnerability is identified, and the minimal number of bugs is positive, as this reduces work pressure involving critical integrations with other devices."

"The thing that I like the most is that they're very willing to work with us to resolve issues that they haven't taken care of before in their product."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pros

"There is a site-to-site VPN configuration between others people."

"It's a solid firewall option with new and useful features typically being added with each new firmware release."

"We use WatchGuard XTM as a privileged access management solution; I complained about another unstable product and we switched to WatchGuard, which has been good."

"It costs less than the SO works and others (like SonicWall, Cisco, and Barracuda) without increasing so much CPU use."

"We compared this solution to Juniper, and we find that WatchGuard is a much better product."

"I have found the GUI interface to be invaluable, as it is very intuitive and easy to manage."

"I would recommend this product, as it is a very flexible one with probably the most intuitive configuration."

"ROI was complete in less than a year."

More WatchGuard XTM [EOL] pros

Cons

"The GUI could be improved."

"The licensing needs to be improved. We need longer licensing periods, especially for POCs and trials. It should be for six months. Right now, it's too short of a timeframe."

"Overall experience is very good, but continuous CVEs require upgrading the firewall to overcome vulnerabilities."

"The tool does not have a good name in the market, consisting of enterprise-class businesses, making it an area where the product lacks and needs to improve."

"There should be more options to use lower-end models in a high availability configuration."

"Customer support for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is overall good, but there is room for improvement, particularly since you can't directly raise a Severity 1 ticket."

"Negatives are it could be the same as physical, because if the physical box has some defects, obviously it does not work."

"The product could be cheaper. When a company scales it, it can get pricey."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM cons

"VPN tunnel lost packet."

"I think the anti-Spam feature, and the real time log to inspect the bandwidth users both need improving."

"The support is poor and lazy."

"Using the SSL VPN remote feature is great, but we additionally needed two-factor authentication, and employed a third-party product."

"We still haven't got the Terminal Service agent to work in our Citrix environment Application Signature also doesn't work well especially in SSL traffic"

"We had some problems of instability with older versions of the software."

"Now, you need to replace the appliance."

"While the wireless capability is great for roaming and seamless hand-off, there have been intermittent issues with connection dropping on Apple devices."

More WatchGuard XTM [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a support fee that can be bought on a yearly or two-yearly basis. I don't think they do five years. The best benefit is that the same pricing is guaranteed for that duration. If you can afford it, I would recommend using the longest possible time span."

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

"We don't have to pay for the licenses. But we might purchase licenses in the future."

"The price is similar to Symantec Endpoint, but it's more expensive than Forcepoint solutions. Fortinet is better than Forcepoint."

"The basic pricing in Austria is OK, but asking for special offers, e.g., NPOs, NGOs, trade up, and/or trade in, is always useful."

"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is a very expensive solution."

"The license can be purchased at intervals of one, three, and five years."

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

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pricing and cost advice

"Like all other manufacturers, there are a lot of features and different pricing. The best is to talk to a representative."

"The licensing and renewal is very expensive."

"It costs less than the SO works and others (like SonicWall, Cisco, and Barracuda) without increasing so much CPU use."

"Get at least a maintenance contract for the updates and take a larger WatchGuard than you need. A WatchGuard creates new ways to secure your network."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Marketing Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	3

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...

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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...

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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...

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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

Sophos UTM vs WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

Compared 17% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

Compared 8% of the time

Hillstone X-Series Data Center Firewalls vs WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

Compared 4% of the time

More WatchGuard XTM [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

October 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate-VM product report

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

October 2026

Download WatchGuard XTM [EOL] product report

Also Known As

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM

No data available

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

Small businesses need big security, too, and the WatchGuard XTM Series firewall/VPN appliances deliver that strong protection, but without the hefty price tag. Enterprise-grade security includes full HTTPS content inspection, VoIP support, and optional security subscriptions like Application Control and Intrusion Prevention Service.

WatchGuard

Sample Customers

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE

AVG, Cyren, Kaspersky Lab, Lastline, NCP engineering, Trend Micro, Websense

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

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