No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway comparison

 

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-VM
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
151
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (11th)
Zyxel Unified Security Gateway
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (12th)
 

Featured Reviews

Ehab Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2399337 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales and technical consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
User has benefited from stable performance and effective completion of security tasks
I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thinking about using a different solution based on open source because Zyxel Unified Security Gateway…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution seems to be very reliable."
"The dashboards are a good feature."
"Their support is very good, Fortinet has a good support base here who has been working closely with us, and whenever there is an issue that needs to be addressed to our end clients, we have received very good support."
"The product is quite flexible and there seems to be a lot of very useful feature sets."
"The product is easy to implement."
"We use Fortinet FortiGate-VM as a firewall to deliver high-performance network security solutions that protect our network and data from evolving threats."
"The web GUI is easy to use."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is time-saving and robust from a security perspective, so it brings positive benefits to the organization."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."
"The Zyxel Unified Security Gateway solution is stable and does its job effectively."
"The solution can scale well."
"The cost is very low."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
 

Cons

"To improve FortiGate-VM, Fortinet needs to harden it more."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM still lacks some more features and has room for improvement in user-friendly traffic inspection."
"We face some issues with the IPsec connection during replication."
"Once the sale happens, they just vanish, and then you're on your own."
"Their offering for MFA isn't the cleanest."
"The user interface could be improved, but as a firewall, it's the best product we have."
"In terms of room for improvement, logging could be improved."
"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."
"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."
"The product has some scalability and data management issues where improvements are required."
"The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved. The advanced UI allows me to do whatever I want, but this is where the issue of speed exists."
"I have never seen it in any company that I've worked with before, and I would advise other companies not to buy it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a benefit in terms of the cost of using this solution because the price is very good."
"It is an expensive solution if you are migrating from an open source solution."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is a very expensive solution."
"We don't have to pay for the licenses. But we might purchase licenses in the future."
"It would be nice to have the ability to extend FortiGuard subscriptions at a reasonable yearly cost versus a bulk three year pricing.​"
"The price of the solution could be less expensive. There are some features that have to be purchased separately that have their own license."
"​It is on par with what you receive. It can be expensive upfront."
"This solution is very expensive."
"The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market."
"This gateway is pretty cheap."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
909,647 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
19%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise43
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?
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...
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 comparisons with other solutions. When our license expires, we plan to explore ope...
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 looking for something new that is slightly simpler. Regarding user experience, the...
What is your primary use case for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions. When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thin...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Cisco and others in Firewalls. Updated: August 2026.
909,647 professionals have used our research since 2012.