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Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
412
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Fortinet FortiGate-VM
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (9th)
Zyxel Unified Security Gateway
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (14th)
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Sitti Ridzma Salahuddin - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates seamlessly and helps with real-time threat response
Since the solution we offered was a complete suite with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, it was easier for them to manage because they have FortiManager as well. The main reason they wanted to position FortiGate in the cloud was so that they could easily deploy through FortiManager. That was the selling point we had for them. Especially for their multiple branches, where they had approximately 60 sites, and some assets were in AWS, it was really a good deployment opportunity. FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer were also part of that solution.
Alexander Azikov - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust appliance that is reasonably priced and straightforward to set up
Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved. There are two user interface options available, namely the basic and the advanced. The basic UI is not very good and doesn't have a lot of features, although it is fast. The advanced UI allows me to do whatever I want, but this is where the issue of speed exists. At one of our sites, the CPU utilization was very high, and for no reason. Technical support needs to be more responsive to requests.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I haven't configured or experienced any stability issues."
"Fortinet FortiGate is pretty robust. The updates and firmware releases are pretty timely. They have a good product revision and review system, so they are constantly reviewing their configuration and the different mechanisms that are used on Fortinet FortiGate."
"The combined license for the network, the next-generation firewall, and the integration with SD-WAN for all branches are what I consider to be the best features. It's effective for multi-branch customers."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"With Fortinet FortiGate, we improved security significantly."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"Fortinet FortiGate provides excellent security against ransomware attacks."
"The most valuable features are that it is very simple to configure and to manage."
"The most valuable features are the web proxy for protection and web gateway for deployment."
"Primarily, the VPN solution is most valuable. It allows you to have more flexibility in terms of what is there on the end-user device, and what is not there. You can check and make sure that they're current. It has more flexibility than just a straight VPN solution. It works really well. It has the features that 99% of people need."
"It's almost perfect. It's very stable. We don't have many hardware issues."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is one of the easiest and most user-friendly brands we use, with excellent threat intelligence and accessibility."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is that its IPsec works perfectly."
"The setup is simple."
"In terms of specific features, I like FortiGate's load balancing, interface, and priority on the network."
"The solution can scale well."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
 

Cons

"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"The Web-filter in this solution is not very good."
"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."
"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."
"At the moment, if you don't integrate any third-party solution with a simple Fortinet FortiGate box, the box would not function as expected for superb protection."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a very good device overall, though it can be improved in certain areas regarding the licenses, particularly the big one called unified threat management, which has many capabilities."
"In terms of improvement, there have been some problems with the bandwidth of the security layer."
"It is a very good product, and it is good at standing by itself. It can maybe have a little bit of integration with other products, but it is not that important for most use cases."
"It is difficult to size the VM in terms of machine resources, and for this reason, clients prefer the appliance."
"The product needs to focus on cloud-nativeness and pricing."
"We face some issues with the IPsec connection during replication."
"They could simplify the troubleshooting process."
"The product has issues with integration. I would like to see better integration in future releases of the product."
"There should be integration with an active directory — with Microsoft."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved."
"The product has some scalability and data management issues where improvements are required."
"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is high compared to some of the other solutions."
"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."
"The pricing is very reasonable."
"The pricing is justified. It's a little pricey, but what you pay for is what you get."
"Licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is on a yearly basis. Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"The price of FortiGate is average and I would say that based on the top five products available on the market, it is in the affordable range."
"It's expensive, but compared to the competition it's okay."
"It is not the cheapest one, but its price is very competitive."
"The price is expensive compared with other vendors, like Cisco and Huawei."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is a very expensive solution."
"We pay for a yearly license."
"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."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten."
"​It is on par with what you receive. It can be expensive upfront."
"The price is similar to Symantec Endpoint, but it's more expensive than Forcepoint solutions. Fortinet is better than Forcepoint."
"This solution is very expensive."
"This gateway is pretty cheap."
"The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Retailer
7%
Outsourcing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
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From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
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 ...
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...
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...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM?
An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured.
What do you like most about Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
I cannot definitively comment on whether Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is an affordable product as I haven't done co...
What needs improvement with Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden. I'm lo...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.