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Fortinet FortiGuard vs VirusTotal 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)
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VirusTotal
Ranking in Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGuard is 1.7%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VirusTotal is 3.6%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VirusTotal3.6%
Fortinet FortiGuard1.7%
Other94.7%
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.
reviewer2588199 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Improves security alerts and analysis with comprehensive insights
I would like to see improvements in the score consistency and accuracy. VirusTotal should add more details like those from competitors such as URL Void or Symantec URL Checker, which show the category of websites. The addition of a file selection option to analyze files would also enhance the service.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its ease of use and efficiency."
"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."
"It can scan the dark web and find if an email ID has been compromised. This is another area that we have not explored yet."
"The feature I like the most is the ability to see the MD5 or SHA-256 signature of the file, and also the composition of the file according to its segments."
"With VirusTotal, I can check for any hash, malware, file, domain, IP URL, or malicious URL, and Kaspersky stays clean."
"VirusTotal provides 95% to 98% accurate information."
"I have never had any problems with stability or bugs while using VirusTotal."
"The product is easy to use with coding, such as Python or Java, via its API."
"It provides detailed insights into possible malicious behavior, dropped files, and TCP connections."
"The most valuable feature is the worldwide malware information database."
 

Cons

"The dashboard is an important and integral part of the product that could be improved."
"If the tool can be cheaper or less expensive, it can be good for users."
"I think that automated response could be improved if they can add automated response features into Fortinet FortiGuard."
"When creating a ticket for support with configuration features, the support is reluctant to provide that support."
"Currently, for our usage, the areas that have room for improvement are pricing and customization."
"I would like to see an improved user interface and some automation."
"VirusTotal is hard to understand because you need to know Google Docs to create queries, and it doesn't have documentation for that."
"There should be room for improvement, particularly in the API side of things."
"The platform could improve in the areas of endpoints and networks."
"VirusTotal has predefined reports, but there is a lot of manual effort involved."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in making some of the most useful features more accessible in the non-paid version."
"I would like to see improvements in the score consistency and accuracy."
"I would like to see improved correlation with other threat intelligence sources, not just reliant on its own database, to enhance the database of threat intelligence that VirusTotal offers."
 

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."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is very economical."
"We are using VirusTotal with free licenses, managing the license limits across three or four accounts, thus incurring no costs."
"VirusTotal is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
15%
Construction Company
10%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

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 VirusTotal?
I do not know about the pricing or licensing as our organization services VirusTotal for our clients.
What needs improvement with VirusTotal?
I would like to see improvements in the score consistency and accuracy. VirusTotal should add more details like those from competitors such as URL Void or Symantec URL Checker, which show the categ...
What is your primary use case for VirusTotal?
As I work in an incident response role, my daily task is to mitigate the security alert and perform the analysis part. When any alerts come, I check the IPs from where they originate and the locati...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGuard vs. VirusTotal and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.