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Fortinet FortiGate vs Trend Micro Web Security [EOL] comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 26, 2026

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

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Fortinet FortiGate
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
594
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)
Trend Micro Web Security [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
VR
Practice Head at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Unified security has protected diverse environments and supports consistent policies everywhere
I would say 8 out of 10 regarding the stability of Fortinet FortiGate. It requires a lot of bug fixing and what I understand, Fortinet is fast enough to provide bug fixes and patches, but usually I suggest Fortinet should do thorough testing of their releases and software releases and once probably they can reduce the frequency of new releases but make it stable. That's what my recommendation is. As far as the core objective of Fortinet FortiGate is concerned, I think they are meeting the targets but I guess for rolling out new features and new updates, they are doing a bit of hurry just to cope with the market dynamics. But possibly, I understand that they are compromising on the quality of the software and stability. So over there they have to improve. Rest of the aspects, I guess they are doing pretty good. We are happy. Regarding my experience with Fortinet FortiGate in comparison to maybe some other vendors such as CyberArk, Fortinet is in the top three and they give a lot of competition to their nearest peers in the market. But I guess Fortinet is really struggling in software-defined LAN, Wi-Fi, and FortiSwitches space. So they have to make their products more affordable in Forti-switching and Forti-WiFi space. They are not able to compete effectively with the nearest competitor HP Enterprise and HP Aruba.
Vladimir Alexandrov - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Chorus
Consistent web protection has prevented incidents and supports flexible hybrid security models
I would rate Trend Micro Web Security a nine, but not because I have some issues in mind. I have only seen a bit better product. I was also a McAfee partner some time ago, when there was still McAfee. Some features definitely in McAfee were better than what I see in Trend Micro. I cannot tell what Trend Micro could learn from web security products of their competitors because this product has not existed for at least eight years now for McAfee, and I have no experience with other competitors. But relative to my experience and expertise, I should rate it a ten, but still I am a bit cautious because other products also have great features and these features are not covered 100% by Trend Micro. I cannot tell what additional features I would like to see in the next release, but when I see such a feature, it is very compelling. When you get into a new car and this car has something new and great, adaptive suspension, whatever, you just feel a nice feeling and you want this car. That is how I feel. I have not complained that something is missing from Trend Micro product, but I have seen in specific examples some great ideas in competition.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution is easy to use and checks the access control as a firewall."
"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate include its easy configuration and user interface."
"The product is stable and strong."
"The main benefit I have seen from using Fortinet FortiGate is the protection it offers because I can see threats that come through in real-time, and if they are blocked, I can see that."
"The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
"Routing and reporting are two areas where the product has an added advantage compared to any other product."
"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate include good functionality, though the licensing cost is a bit higher; their response time and throughput are very good advantages."
"The solution is pretty expensive, but it provides great value to our organization."
"It's secure and useful from an administrative point of view, with controllable login monitoring and so on."
"Trend Micro effectively supports our remote workforce by securing our web servers from external threats, particularly browser security."
"It's a stable solution."
"The security of Trend Micro Web Security is good."
"Trend Micro Web Security is used for web filtering and protects the environment from web threats and malicious sites."
"It prevents phishing attacks, ransomware attacks, and other threats that can compromise data."
"The solution's scalability is good and we have more than 90 users for it."
"Threat protection solution with good stability and scalability. Installation is straightforward. Support for this product is good."
 

Cons

"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"I appreciate that iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard, allowing us to quickly investigate incidents and monitor policy violations without switching between multiple tools, improving operational efficiency; however, the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible."
"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"I'm happy with the product, however the licensing fees could be lower."
"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"From a support perspective, I had more issues that I didn't think the person on my case handled the way I was expecting. We called them for a geolocation issue and we didn't get any proper assistance."
"The solution's real-time connection with the cloud could be improved."
"To stay ahead of the competition Fortinet FortiGate IPS needs to think about how to adjust pricing."
"The costs are a bit high in terms of licensing."
"The system should generate reports when an attack has been stopped, contained, or removed."
"The product's scalability is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The interface could be improved; we need it to be more user-friendly."
"Trend Micro products are quite expensive compared to Kaspersky, Sophos, and McAfee."
"The product should be more secure and stable. It is also not flexible."
"The licensing is paid annually. It is a little bit expensive when you compare it to the competition."
"I would rate the technical support by Trend Micro a three. The response time is poor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"We pay for the license of Fortinet FortiGate IPS annually. There are not any extra costs."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"I do not have first-hand experience with the rice of Fortinet FortiGate, but I have heard the price was reasonable."
"I would say that all things considered, the pricing is pretty good."
"The Fortinet FortiGate security features cost approximately $1,500 a year. The firewall itself doesn't have a recurring cost. It's the security features on top of that that you pay for."
"Pricing is good. They offer a lot of things, the most important is the support. Every time you upgrade your license, you also get insurance for the equipment. If you have any problem with equipment, they send in new equipment."
"The pricing is perfect."
"The licensing costs are very low."
"It is pricey. Trend Micro has been in the field for 30 years, so you have to pay a premium amount for that."
"The license is yearly and user based."
"There's annual and monthly options for the license. When you're on the managed services option, it's monthly. They're also setting up an option via AWS where there will be a monthly option via the AWS shopfront."
"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"I rate the product price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"I don't remember the exact pricing, but I think that it is approximately $10.00 per user."
"The solution is expensive in terms of deployment."
"We have found this product to be very cost effective. The endpoint product costs roughly $20, and when purchasing the endpoint product, there are multiple other features included."
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
No data available
Performing Arts
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business372
Midsize Enterprise138
Large Enterprise195
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
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 a...
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...
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 ...
Do you recommend Trend Micro Web Security?
I would recommend Trend Micro Web Security to organizations looking for an end-to-end security solution. Trend Micro ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Trend Micro Web Security?
It is pricey. Trend Micro has been in the field for 30 years, so you have to pay a premium amount for that. SentinelO...
What needs improvement with Trend Micro Web Security?
I would rate Trend Micro Web Security a nine, but not because I have some issues in mind. I have only seen a bit bett...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
Virus Wall, VirusWall, Trend Micro VirusWall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
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
Landwirtschaftskammer Nordrhein-Westfalen, Mosaic Medical, Okinawa Prefectural Education Center, RAK Investment Authority
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Zscaler and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: August 2026.
911,473 professionals have used our research since 2012.