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Fortinet FortiGate vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 1, 2024
 

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 (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
WatchGuard Firebox
Ranking in Firewalls
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (4th)
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Apr 04, 2022
 

Featured Reviews

Luke_Smith - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 10, 2024
Easy to use and provides good visibility of network traffic
It is just for firewalls and network security It's mostly compliance, like just meeting our security requirements to keep our data secure. We don't make money out of it. It just keeps our data safe. I have FortiGate for SD-WAN and all access points here, which has helped with traffic shaping…
IP
Feb 14, 2024
Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features
The distribution and channel strategy, particularly in regions like Pakistan and Afghanistan, may hinder their visibility and adoption. Due to their lack of investment in marketing, channel development, and certifications, WatchGuard faces challenges in gaining visibility and market share, especially in regions like Pakistan. Unlike competitors such as Cisco and Fortinet, who offer extensive training and certifications for their partners, WatchGuard's limited focus in this area hinders their ability to attract technical talent and expand their customer base. To address this issue and improve its presence in the market, WatchGuard could consider offering free or low-cost certification programs to educate potential partners and customers on their technology. By empowering individuals with the necessary skills and knowledge, WatchGuard can create a network of brand ambassadors who can advocate for their solutions and drive adoption.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"The web filtering feature and the intrusion protection system are the most valuable. It is a resilient appliance. I never had an issue with it in terms of any security breaches."
"In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"Fortinet FortiGate protects against internet-based threats, both internal and external. It is scalable, stable, easy to use, and easy to install."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"The most valuable feature for small and medium businesses is the support for various protocol proxies."
"After conducting several tests I found the antivirus is working very well. Additionally, they have a very interesting feature, DNS WatchGuard, which is checking DNS requests for phishing, among other things, and it has caught a lot of unwanted attempts and attacks."
"Their centralized console simplifies management for organizations with multiple Fireboxes."
"Firebox operates effectively in the background, blocking potential threats without a need for constant monitoring."
"WatchGuard has a very easy VPN and branch office VPN setup, so we use those pretty extensively."
"The solution has a useful traffic monitor."
"The most valuable are the VPN and proxy features."
"Their support is excellent, and the stability is very good."
 

Cons

"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
"Some of the configuration options are somewhat confusing."
"The product can improve in terms of layout to provide easier access and viewing to users, especially for the reports."
"Its documentation could be improved. Sometimes, you need to search a bit longer to find what you are looking for."
"I would like to see more training become available for us."
"The user interface for WatchGuard Firebox has room for improvement. Right now, it's a bit complex to work with and could be easier."
"The usability could be better, but it is definitely manageable. If we have to go to a backup internet connection, that could be a little bit easier."
"One other shortcoming is that there is no backup for it. We really haven't figured out how we might solve that problem. We may want to put a duplicate in... With WatchGuard, we just have the one box. If that were to fail, we'd probably be really hurting."
"I would like to see more tutorials on setting up the Firebox."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay for the solution annually."
"The beauty is the price performance ratio is great with FortiGate. It provides all the features we needed and the price is comparable with others' firewalls. The price is quite competitive with the firewalls with similar features."
"The price is okay."
"It is expensive. You need to pay for the subscription every year, which is very expensive. The subscription includes technical support and hardware exchange in case of failure."
"The price is really low. It's cheap in comparison to the cost of Cisco or CheckPoint, for example."
"Other firewalls are more expensive than Fortinet FortiGate, such as the Azure firewall."
"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."
"It is not a very costly product if you compare it with other products. The return on investment is also good. If you compare the return of investment and money that you are spending on this product with Palo Alto, Cisco, Check Point, and other solutions, the investment is very less. We are happy with this solution. The optional licenses are there, and you can choose which one you want and which one to avoid."
"The price of the WatchGuard Firebox is reasonable."
"I would rate the pricing at seven out of ten. As for the licensing costs, we typically have yearly licenses for our clients, but there are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"The price is so small that I don't pay attention to it anymore. I think we pay a few thousand dollars for two to three years, so about $100 per month. That's for all of our users. There is an additional cost if we want to go with a deeper licensing model, but we just pay for antivirus, IPS, and main product support."
"It's an affordable tool"
"Very competitive pricing regarding throughput compared to other alternatives."
"We pay about $3,500 every three years."
"The cost three years ago was about $800."
"I think we might be subscribed to one or two of the premium features."
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Answers from the Community

NC
Apr 4, 2022
Apr 4, 2022
In my organization, we use Fortinet’s Fortigate. We find it to be very powerful, cost-efficient, and reliable. The user interface is friendly, and it is easy to create policies and set rules. As an NGFW, you can upgrade the firewall cluster firmware without disturbing the user. The graphic interface is very intuitive. The endpoint and email protection are on point, and you don’t have to worry a...
2 out of 3 answers
FD
Oct 25, 2021
Looking at the latest reports from Gartner, at least in the SDN part, I think there is no comparison. Fortinet is leading a large part of the network virtualization market and above all it is positioning itself as the option to have value-added services on the base layer of SDN and I mean security features that today, according to the consumption of the branch are more demanded by bringing the secure perimeter to each point of the network, consuming public services and direct navigation is already a fact.
Oct 28, 2021
In my organization, we use Fortinet’s Fortigate. We find it to be very powerful, cost-efficient, and reliable. The user interface is friendly, and it is easy to create policies and set rules. As an NGFW, you can upgrade the firewall cluster firmware without disturbing the user. The graphic interface is very intuitive. The endpoint and email protection are on point, and you don’t have to worry about downtime. FortiGate offers malware and spyware protection, with advanced capabilities like proxy-based antivirus. It has advanced network protection features and a powerful intrusion prevention system with anti-spam and web filtering capabilities. For all the capabilities it offers, the price is reasonable. FortiGate has downsides though: the technical support is not great, and there is not a lot of documentation available. It is also kind of hard to configure. We reviewed WatchGuard before choosing FortiGate. WatchGuard offers a comprehensive advanced network security platform with enterprise-grade security. The router is rich in security features like antivirus, APT blocker, and spam blocker. It is simple to use and applicable for various use cases. It offers web filtering, application control, and monitoring. We liked that the GUI interface seemed intuitive and easy to use. It integrates with Active Directory, so it is a good fit for MS enterprise users. You can also schedule backups with ease. WatchGuard is, however, lacking in features for application control and we found the DNS server functionality to be poor. The firewall policies don’t point to a domain, only to IP addresses. While it is excellent that it integrates with Active Directory, the single-sign-on sometimes doesn’t refresh users’ permissions when they log on and off. Conclusion Fortinet Fortigate is undoubtedly a powerful and established next-generation firewall, and with all the features and capabilities, it is a better and more cost-effective solution than WatchGuard. WatchGuard would be better for organizations that use MS products.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
6%
 

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...
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...
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...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of our employees.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.
800,905 professionals have used our research since 2012.