Fortinet FortiGate vs ShieldX comparison

The compared Fortinet FortiGate and ShieldX solutions aren't in the same category. Fortinet FortiGate is ranked #1 in Firewalls , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 18.7% mindshare in the category. ShieldX is ranked #11 in MS , and holds a 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Fortinet FortiGate users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ShieldX users who would recommend it.

Fortinet FortiGate

Read 580 Fortinet FortiGate reviews

67,415 Views
53,258 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

ShieldX

Read 4 ShieldX reviews

370 Views
144 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiGate

ShieldX

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Fortinet FortiGate and ShieldX both compete in the network security category. ShieldX appears to have the upper hand with its advanced features, justifying its higher price.

Features: Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive threat management capabilities, robust performance, and extensive firewall features. ShieldX has advanced micro-segmentation, automation, and ease of integration with cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiGate could improve its reporting features, VPN configuration simplicity, and address basic usability concerns. ShieldX should enhance scalability options, add more automation features, and work on expanding its scalability potential.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiGate is noted for its straightforward deployment process and efficient customer service. ShieldX has a more complex setup but provides detailed support documentation and effective customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiGate is known for lower initial setup costs and better return on investment for small to mid-sized businesses. ShieldX, while more expensive, is seen as worth the investment due to its advanced features and longer-term benefits.

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

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate vs. ShieldX

December 2024

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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

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

580

Ranking in other categories

Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)

ShieldX

Average Rating

9.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Microsegmentation Software (11th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. Fortinet FortiGate is designed for Firewalls and holds a mindshare of 18.7%, down 20.5% compared to last year.
ShieldX, on the other hand, focuses on Microsegmentation Software, holds 1.0% mindshare, up 0.2% since last year.

Firewalls Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate	18.7%
OPNsense	11.2%
Netgate pfSense	9.8%
Other	60.3%

Firewalls

Microsegmentation Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ShieldX	1.0%
Illumio	27.5%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation	24.8%
Other	46.7%

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.

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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.

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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

"The product is scalable."

"The solution is stable."

"The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."

"The most valuable features of the FortiGate firewall include SSL inspection, VPN functionality, and threat intelligence features for preventing threats."

"It does not require a lot of maintenance."

"It is complemented by other equipment, such as the Fortinet switch, and it is integrated with other tools that help to prevent cyberattacks, including a web filter, IPS, and application control."

"FortiGate protects and secures our clients' networks. The security is solid, and it performs well. I think they use some artificial intelligence, so I think it's excellent equipment."

"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."

More Fortinet FortiGate 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."

"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."

"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."

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

Cons

"Support could be improved."

"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."

"The solution could be more user friendly."

"Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers."

"Its pricing can be better."

"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."

"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."

"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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

"The price is really low. It's cheap in comparison to the cost of Cisco or CheckPoint, for example."

"My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is quite good. I don't have a public site, such as in Azure, where I can see the pricing. I always have to go through the distributor, and that could take some time to get the real price for each appliance."

"Currently, we are paying about $1,500 a month for three sites."

"Its licenses cost the same for different subscription plans."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is the lowest in the market."

"There is a need to pay for a license for the product."

"It is more expensive than Sophos. Fortinet is overall more expensive than Sophos. The small range of Fortinet, such as 60F and 80F, is more expensive than the small range of Sophos. Sophos is cheaper. In addition, if you jump from 80F Series to 100F Series, the price doubles."

"The price could be lower."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

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	357
Midsize Enterprise	133
Large Enterprise	188

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 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...

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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...

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 19% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 6% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Illumio vs ShieldX

Compared 60% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs ShieldX

Compared 40% of the time

More ShieldX Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX

December 2025

Download ShieldX product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

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

Iowa State University

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate vs. ShieldX

December 2024

Free Report: Fortinet FortiGate vs. ShieldX

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