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Fortinet FortiGuard vs MetaDefender comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 FortiGuard
Ranking in Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MetaDefender
Ranking in Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (12th), Anti-Malware Tools (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGuard is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MetaDefender is 2.0%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MetaDefender2.0%
Fortinet FortiGuard1.6%
Other96.4%
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
 

Featured Reviews

Yaw Agyare - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at Volta River Authority
Threat intelligence has consistently minimized downtime and safeguarded revenue
Fortinet FortiGuard's machine learning capabilities contribute to our cybersecurity by performing numerous predictions and assessing possibilities, enabling us to prepare ahead for potential incidents. I have benefited from automated threat response, which is absolutely brilliant because if we have to go through logs to see what is going on, we would never finish. Automating these things allows alerts to be given so we can concentrate effort on critical areas, helping us to optimize our resources effectively. We are also looking at automating the response, where response can be automated, and then we can focus on forensic investigations to understand what happened and see whether we need to tweak the automation to make it work better. The benefits I gain from using Fortinet FortiGuard include peace of mind. It has contributed to ensuring that we are always available and can meet our availability targets. This means that productivity is maintained, and revenues will rake in as planned. The moment something gets through and causes a breach, likely causing downtime, it means you're losing money.
RS
Senior Associate at a educational organization with 11-50 employees
File protection has improved and now keeps millions of daily transfers secure and compliant
In my organization, while using this tool, we found that there were a few files flagged as suspicious; however, those were not suspicious and it was a false positive, so that can be improved. False positive results were an issue, and it took time to scan files if the file size was greater than 1 GB. For larger files greater than 1 GB, it needs to be improved. In some cases, the reconstruction of the file led to a failure of code deployment and it flagged a valid file as malicious, which was not effective; however, in other types of files, it was very effective and could scan files properly. We have already covered all the main suggestions; however, it can be improved to reduce false positive results, and scanning could be faster to process more files in a day.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The content filtering feature helps protect data by filtering potentially dangerous websites and brings significant benefit to the organization."
"The best features in Fortinet FortiGuard that I appreciate are the nice interface, ease of use, and straightforward administration and setup."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its ease of use and efficiency."
"The benefits I gain from using Fortinet FortiGuard include peace of mind; it has contributed to ensuring that we are always available and can meet our availability targets, which means that productivity is maintained and revenues will rake in as planned."
"The main benefits Fortinet FortiGuard provides are that it secures the network from external threats, it provides security, and it has a very perfect graphical user interface that is very easy to use."
"My advice to others looking into using MetaDefender is that if you are looking ahead at a solution which can be implemented quickly and at a lesser cost, go ahead with it."
"I assess the effectiveness of MetaDefender in blocking or sanitizing content based on policy as very good."
"I like the simplicity, the way it works out of the box. It's pretty easy to run and configure. The integration of the network devices with the ICAP server was easily done."
"Since implementing MetaDefender, I have seen a 90% reduction in file-related security incidents and false positives reaching my analysts."
"The best features of MetaDefender include its ability to detect malware and vulnerabilities, which I also use at server levels, including production and testing servers, helping me identify and address vulnerabilities by applying patch updates."
"The effectiveness of the solution in blocking or sanitizing any content based on our policies is excellent."
"MetaDefender is 100% stable, making it one of the best cybersecurity solutions we offer, which provides confidence in promoting and recommending it to others."
"MetaDefender is a useful tool for scanning all incoming and outgoing files and keeping our applications and servers in compliance, and I found it useful because we can integrate it with multiple file transfer tools such as Globalscape EFT, GoAnywhere, or Sterling, which is the best feature as it integrates with multiple tools."
 

Cons

"If the tool can be cheaper or less expensive, it can be good for users."
"The dashboard is an important and integral part of the product that could be improved."
"I think that automated response could be improved if they can add automated response features into Fortinet FortiGuard."
"Currently, for our usage, the areas that have room for improvement are pricing and customization."
"When creating a ticket for support with configuration features, the support is reluctant to provide that support."
"Most of the time, in our experience at Danet Communications, we work with government offices, and they need the CDR. However, because CDR is affecting files such as MSI and EXE files, they are always creating new passes of scanning."
"I would rate it an eight because its interface can be improved and it can improve their integrations as well, so there is room for improvement."
"I did not manage to enroll my IoT devices, including my child's device running on iOS and some Amazon products."
"The UI can be more user-friendly, and initial steps and policy tuning take some time."
"From the last year that we integrated OPSWAT in our company, I have not seen any improvements."
"In some cases, the reconstruction of the file led to a failure of code deployment and it flagged a valid file as malicious, which was not effective; however, in other types of files, it was very effective and could scan files properly."
"In some cases, the reconstruction of the file led to a failure of code deployment and it flagged a valid file as malicious, which was not effective."
"The main improvement needed is pricing because, as an enterprise solution, smaller partners do not often receive the attention they deserve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as a six to seven."
"We bought a three-year license, and that was pretty expensive. We agreed that it was really worth buying. It could be cheaper, but we understand that quality comes at a price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
13%
Construction Company
11%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiGuard?
Regarding pricing, I must say it is quite pricey, but if you look at the value it gives you, I think the value justifies the cost.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiGuard?
When going for support and asking for support for features, the support team asks to go for professional services, which are not covered in the support agreement. This is the reason exploration of ...
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiGuard?
Fortinet FortiGuard is used to filter emails coming to the email server. Fortinet FortiGuard threat intelligence is utilized, but not dedicatedly or specifically for threat intelligence purposes. F...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MetaDefender?
MetaDefender is generally considered a premium price compared to a standard antivirus solution, and since it has multiple engine scanning, deep Content Disarm and Reconstruct, and sandboxing capabi...
What needs improvement with MetaDefender?
I would like to see improvements in the tool's automation capabilities. It would be beneficial if it could automatically create tickets and notify responsible teams about any identified vulnerabili...
What is your primary use case for MetaDefender?
The major use cases of MetaDefender in my work environment involve preventing malware updates, data breaches, and compliance violations through scanning files for malware, vulnerabilities, and sens...
 

Also Known As

No data available
OPSWAT MetaDefender, MetaDefender Core
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGuard vs. MetaDefender and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.