We compared Fortinet FortiGate and VMWare SD-WAN based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate is highly regarded for its ease of use, extensive features, and affordability. However, it could benefit from enhancements in SSL VPN, multi-factor authentication, and filtering. VMware SD-WAN is praised for its efficient multipath optimization and robust cloud web security, but it needs improvements in customization, Broadcom routing support, firewall capabilities, and inter-cloud connectivity. The customer service and support for both products have received varied feedback.
"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"The pipe filter application is an outstanding feature."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"Initially, we had a scattered environment, but VMware SD-WAN helped us achieve centralization, which was beneficial."
"I find the application-aware routing feature to be the most valuable."
"VMware is the only SD-WAN solution that integrates with Azure Virtual WAN."
"When extra capacity is needed, we can get it very quickly."
"It can be used for load balancing and load sharing. It's easy to use and customizable."
"It's scalable."
"I have found the dynamic multipoint protocol(DNPO) most useful because it can tell you which is the best circuit to use for different types of traffic."
"The product’s most valuable feature is DMPO."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"The logging details need to be improved."
"VMware SD-WAN could improve by having more partnerships with other vendors."
"The only thing that I'm having issues with is on one of the sites, I can't see the location on the map."
"VMware SD-WAN is complicated to configure."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing."
"Security is a challenge. I would like to see VMware add things like IPS, IDS, and web filtering. These features are the future of security, and most competing firewalls have them."
"I would like to see more features added to increase visibility."
"There is one feature that would set VMware SD-WAN apart from others solutions, and that is what I call inter-cloud connectivity. All the solutions regarding VMware are good because for example, If I go from my workplace to a retail office and I want to use my applications in the Cloud, that is possible. Perhaps we have customers who have their IT partial environments hosted in different cloud locations, such as Amazon and Azure, and the interconnection between the clouds, this is not possible. If it was possible it would be a market game-changer. Having the SD-WAN solution that is good at optimizing and facilitating traffic between different cloud providers would be great."
"Better price model would be appreciated."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 1st in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 113 reviews while VMware SD-WAN is ranked 3rd in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 25 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while VMware SD-WAN is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware SD-WAN writes "To fully utilize cloud vendors' hardware networking, Microsoft and VMware support everything". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Check Point NGFW, whereas VMware SD-WAN is most compared with Cisco SD-WAN, Meraki SD-WAN, Cato Networks, Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform and Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. VMware SD-WAN report.
See our list of best Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions vendors and best WAN Edge vendors.
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One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. It is a very stable, reliable, and consistent solution. We like that we can manage the entire network from one interface; there is no going back and forth as some other solutions force you to do. Fortinet Fortigate firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system; there is no need for additional devices. This solution offers great built-in features for web filtering and the VPN is an extremely valuable feature.
The reporting with Fortinet Fortigate needs some degree of customization so that more usable reports can be created. If you want extra features, you need to buy extra licenses, which can get expensive quickly. We would have liked to get more features with the general license. We would also like to see better cloud management.
We like VMware SD-WAN for our clients that want a very easy-to-use solution. VMware SD-WAN offers simple troubleshooting and great cybersecurity. One amazing feature it has is DMPO (Dynamic MultiPath Optimization), which helps ensure data integrity. VMware SD-WAN comes loaded with several defined applications so that you don’t have to create them yourself - this is a huge time-saver.
Reporting and security with VMware SD-WAN could be improved, though. There really needs to be some failover capabilities, especially with their own devices. We would also like to see a mobile application. Many other solutions are already offering this as a basic feature. It would help make this solution easier to manage.
Conclusion
We felt the biggest difference between Fortinet Fortigate and VMware SD-WAN was the ease of use. The zero-touch provisioning offered with VMware SD-WAN makes it very easy to set up and the DMPO makes it easy to manage. We also felt the SD-WAN on VMware SD-WAN was better.