We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Fortinet Fortigate VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

Ease of Deployment: Most reviewers of both solutions say that their initial setup is straightforward.

Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability.

Fortinet Fortigate users say that it is flexible and secure with very good threat and content filtering switches. Several users note that they would like better integration options with third-party tools.

Fortinet Fortigate VM reviewers say that it provides them with good visibility and it has good monitoring features and an intuitive UI. Some users mention that it needs better automation.

Pricing: Most users of both solutions say that they are fairly priced.

ROI: Reviewers of both solutions report seeing an ROI.

Service and Support: Fortinet Fortigate reviewers report being satisfied with the level of support they receive. In contrast, Fortinet Fortigate VM reviewers say that the support needs to improve.

Comparison Results: Fortinet Fortigate is the winner in this comparison. According to reviews, it has better support than Fortinet Fortigate VM.

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

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM

July 2024

Download the complete report

Helped 793,295 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Ranking in Firewalls

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

314

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (2nd), WAN Edge (1st)

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Ranking in Firewalls

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

114

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 22.6%, up from 18.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Unique Categories:

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

19.7%

WAN Edge

21.4%

No other categories found

Q&A Highlights

Rose Taherzadeh

Works at Sapra

Jun 14, 2021

How is FortiGate-VM different from the physical FortiGate firewall?

The root of all is VM. A virtual environment is software running on someone else machine/s. Welcome to the the cloud. Sadly, no one stops to think but with the excuse of "lower costs" many fall for it. Performance is the key word. Avoid VMware and the likes. What appears cheap may have a big price in the end. There is no way performance on your own physical machine will be close to the cloud, and there are heaps more things in the equation. Fortinet appliances have their own semiconductors chips to handle in hardware traffic and other duties. Harry Potter does not exist. Costs or prices, are figures in invoices, but the coefficient of elasticity with time may be a surprise. Needless to say the networking traffic handling and the security implication in multi tenancy instances. Yes, in some things could work, but I personally avoid them as much as I can.

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Featured Reviews

Leo_Wong

Consultant at Resolve Technology Limited

Dec 31, 2020

Good next-generation firewall features with good pricing and stability

We mostly use the solution for our internet-facing firewall The next-generation firewall features are the solution's most valuable aspect. The implementation and deployment are pretty simple. The pricing is very good. We've found the solution to be pretty stable. The solution isn't really…

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Raphael Haroun Ikyagh

Network Administrator at Letshego

Feb 2, 2024

Efficiently protects my internet network but storage configuration is volatile

It's crucial for protecting my internet network. It works well internally Fortinet FortiGate-VM improved security within our virtualized environment. However, I would rate the ease of management a seven out of ten, with ten being the best. The policies are very valuable. They allow me to secure…

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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

"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."

"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."

"The solution is stable."

"We purchased Fortinet because of the pricing, its functionality, because it met our requirements, and the total cost of ownership over five years was quite reasonable. In the market, Fortinet is rated quite well."

"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."

"The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."

"We can detect any attack of viruses or malware at the first point of contact."

"We use a lot of function on the IPS and it works well for us."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Its performance is adequate. We are quite satisfied with its performance. The fact that it is a complete ecosystem with all kinds of integrations is valuable. It did take us a couple of months to get a grip on the new software, but all in all, it replaced our on-premise and single-point solution environment."

"Fortinet is user-friendly."

"The most valuable features are the web proxy for protection and web gateway for deployment."

"We use it to ensure that our network is properly protected from viruses and malware."

"The technical support is very good."

"Use of this product does not require daily interactions."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its ability to deploy it on live physical hardware. Specifically, when providing firewall services for clients, we can leverage such hardware appliances to support multiple customers on the same hardware."

"The solution is stable."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pros

Cons

"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."

"We would like to see better pricing."

"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."

"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."

"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."

"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."

"There can be more security in hybrid implementations. When a customer has a hybrid environment where some parts are in the cloud, we need a consistent security solution for such scenarios."

"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"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."

"In the first two releases of FortiOS 5.6, we had some trouble with the SSL VPN service. Sometimes it stopped working, and the IPS daemon too."

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

"If I could add one feature, it would be free security profiles."

"We'd like to have more customization and easier customization of policies."

"It would be useful to have integration with different reporting tools. This is something we are sorely missing. It would be a plus to have reporting integrations. It would be good to have more integration with the identity suites, such as Office 365 and Azure Active Directory, of different providers that we use. Integrations are already available, but it would be nice to have some more advanced options."

"Technical support could be better."

"We haven't attempted to scale the solution just yet. If we want to scale this solution we may have to look at other models. With certain requirements, we probably wouldn't be able to scale it so well as it is right now."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet bundles FortiGate with other products and because of this, the price is a little expensive to some SMB enterprises."

"No comment."

"Its pricing is good. It's average or normal as compared to Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls."

"The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."

"Each feature costs money, so it is important to study your needs."

"Its price is reasonable. They have a clear pricing policy. It is not complicated by the number of VPN users at a time. We know what the price is. The yearly subscription for the security license is rather high, but it is all included for whatever number of users you have and the kind of functions you need."

"We have the full version of Fortinet FortiGate and we are on a three-year contract with a commitment of five years."

"The pricing is justified. It's a little pricey, but what you pay for is what you get."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"At present, the SD-WAN licenses are on an annual basis."

"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."

"It's a mid-ranged product."

"The pricing is really good."

"The price of the solution could be less expensive. There are some features that have to be purchased separately that have their own license."

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

"It is more expensive than its competitor, e.g. Sophos."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard fee."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user216600

Senior Technical Consultant with 51-200 employees

Jan 3, 2016

Sophos UTM vs. Fortinet FortiGate

I have used both Sophos and Fortinet products in production and I have found the Sophos UTM appliances (hardware and virtual) to be a better fit most of the time -- with a few caveats which I will touch on below. In both instances, the transition from TMG will be mostly straightforward. The main…

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Answers from the Community

Rose Taherzadeh

Works at Sapra

Jun 14, 2021

How is FortiGate-VM different from the physical FortiGate firewall?

Purpose-built appliances offer tested performance measures and provide proven results for the specified traffic and service configuration. VM can only provide vCPUs, RAM, and hard disk resources. However, in some cloud environments, you only have the VM option, no appliances accepted. We have several Fortigate VM firewalls operating for 3 years now in the cloud and appliances in our center...

2 out of 4 answers

William Yragui

President at infobond

Jun 11, 2021

Fortigate appliance is purpose built with NPU and SPUs designed to increase throughput while maximizing the ability to decrypt packets in search of malware. VM deployments are software only and do not include the NPU and SPUs.

Read full answer

ABHILASH TH

Managing Director at FOX DATA

Jun 13, 2021

FortiGate VM FortiGate-VM delivers the same FortiOS and FortiGuard real-time threat intelligence as the hardware models, in a virtual form factor. FortiGate-VM offers flexible licensing and provisioning for virtual network deployments. Support for multiple virtualizations and cloud platforms. Full support for Forti Hypervisor deployments enabling line-speed security in vCPE requirement. The architecture of a VM is a little more complex than that of Hardware. Virtual machines are less efficient than real machines because they access the hardware indirectly. FortiGate Hardware The hardware firewall is an ASIC-based device. It has hardware limitation, for example, Memory, CPU, etc Easy deployment in the network No complexity

Read full answer

See all 4 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 at large. In my opinion, Fortinet would be the best option and l use Fortinet too...

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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 the firewalls change every 5 to 7 years as stated but you really do need to upg...

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 good. The most valuable features for me are their web and email filtering. I wou...

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 kind of depends what you value most. PA is good at app control, web filtering a...

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 Fortigate VM integrates well and has excellent centralized reporting. It is very easy to...

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What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

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

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 7% of the time

Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 36% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiOS vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 5% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

July 2024

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

July 2024

Download Fortinet FortiGate-VM product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM

Learn More

Fortinet

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

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.

Sample Customers

1. Amazon Web Services 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Cisco 5. Dell 6. HP 7. Oracle 8. Verizon 9. AT&T 10. T-Mobile 11. Sprint 12. Vodafone 13. Orange 14. BT Group 15. Telstra 16. Deutsche Telekom 17. Comcast 18. Time Warner Cable 19. CenturyLink 20. NTT Communications 21. Tata Communications 22. SoftBank 23. China Mobile 24. Singtel 25. Telus 26. Rogers Communications 27. Bell Canada 28. Telkom Indonesia 29. Telkom South Africa 30. Telmex 31. Telia Company 32. Telkom Kenya

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM

July 2024

Free Report: Fortinet FortiGate vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM

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

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