Fortinet FortiManager vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

The compared Fortinet and Plixer solutions aren't in the same category. Fortinet is ranked #4 in NMA , with an average rating of 8.2, and holds a 5.2% mindshare in the category. Plixer is ranked #11 in NTA , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Plixer users who would recommend it.

Fortinet FortiManager

Read 69 Fortinet FortiManager reviews

4,867 Views
779 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

1,336 Views
468 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiManager

Plixer Scrutinizer

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiManager and Plixer Scrutinizer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Management Applications.

To learn more, read our detailed Network Management Applications Report (Updated: August 2025).

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Network Management Applications

August 2025

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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 FortiManager

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Management Applications (4th)

Plixer Scrutinizer

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (53rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (11th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Fortinet FortiManager is designed for Network Management Applications and holds a mindshare of 5.2%, up 4.6% compared to last year.
Plixer Scrutinizer, on the other hand, focuses on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), holds 2.9% mindshare, up 1.9% since last year.

Network Management Applications Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiManager	5.2%
Cisco DNA Center	22.1%
Cisco Catalyst Center	9.5%
Other	63.2%

Network Management Applications

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Plixer Scrutinizer	2.9%
Darktrace	24.4%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics	15.3%
Other	57.400000000000006%

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

Featured Reviews

Damitha Anuradha

Head of Presales at AcSys Networks Private Limited

Manage multiple devices with ease but experience complexity in deployment and limited AI features

I use Fortinet FortiManager to manage multiple devices in a single location. Although it does not provide a security posture itself, it depends on the firewall policies and settings in their respective firewalls. Fortinet FortiManager is primarily meant for the management of devices Fortinet…

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Ira Mulyanti

Sales Director at ARGA SOLUSI

An affordable product with great integration capabilities

Plixer Core Platform is a valuable feature and a good software. Plixer Scrutinizer uses NetFlow analysis to monitor whatever is there in a network. Price-wise, Plixer Scrutinizer is not an expensive product. Basically, Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that can integrate with any other brand or product in the market, so it is not an area of concern.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Centralized configuration is the most helpful feature. I like the ability to create templates and push them to all the devices at the same time. I also like that I can see the the logs with one device to provide zero touch on all other products."

"The most valuable feature is the central configuration for firewall policies."

"The firmware version upgrades are the most valuable feature."

"The SD-WAN deployment environment, and the SD-WAN templates are particularly useful. Managing the solution is very intuitive. The initial setup of the solution was very straightforward."

"The solution is very stable."

"It would normally take us a handful of days to install one FortiGate instance on one site. But with this technology, zero-touch deployment, we need just one hour or maybe as little as 30 minutes to install one site. It is much more efficient."

"I appreciate the ability to connect via SSH through Fortinet FortiManager to the FortiGates I manage. This feature allows me to gather information about the interfaces without having to physically connect to the device. This is a convenient aspect that I find valuable."

"This solution enables you to centralize the rules and the configuration of all the equipment."

More Fortinet FortiManager pros

"The ability to view the status of the top-10 at a glance is helpful. We immediately know which link is over-utilized or heavily used... and it's all in real-time."

"The solution helps to enrich the data context of our network traffic. It allows me to see what applications are most in use on a slightly historical basis, going back a day or week at tops. It allows me to tune QoS or traffic shaping around what's being used. It saves me from having to unnecessarily upgrade, if I don't need to."

"As a network engineer, the ability to identify what traffic on the link is consuming all the bandwidth at any given time, and provide immediate feedback to the business, is the most valuable feature."

"It helps us determine what is going on with our Internet and who is hogging it all up. If we get a real high throughput or a throughput that's going over and getting dropped fairly quickly, we can tell who (or what device) is consuming that traffic."

"The reporting and generating troubleshooting reports would be the best feature; our host-to-host conversation reporting."

"Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features."

"We have had many requests to understand in the network which devices are connected to others. Most people don't have this information or are able to establish a map of data flow everywhere around the network. Scrutinizer can really help with this. We are using it to understand who is talking to what, how, and which protocols can help us to improve security and analyze flow."

"One of the most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer is the reporting, particularly how easy it is to drill down into the reports. Another valuable feature of the solution is its overall visibility. It's great. I also liked Plixer Scrutinizer in terms of deployment time and that it's very simple to set up. Once you get the appliance set up and connected, the customer starts to see results immediately, versus other solutions where that could take a while."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

Cons

"The user interface can feel clunky, especially for more complex tasks such as managing large-scale policy packages or custom scripts."

"The graphical user interface could use improvement as it appears complex and not user-friendly."

"There may be a communication issue. However, other items may be the culprit, such as network connectivity. It depends on the customer's network."

"When we have a specific configuration pushed it does take some time to be deployed on the actual firewall."

"Setting up FortiManager can be complex because it involves changes from other devices and a lot of configuration."

"The interface could be improved. It is split up into different areas, which makes it more difficult to navigate and get the right section of the correct file. The solution is quite expensive, so it would not be suitable for small to medium sized organizations."

"The CLI could be enhanced."

"The price always has room for improvement."

More Fortinet FortiManager cons

"From what I understand it is that the solution is not very scalable in a high volume traffic environment with a large number of flows."

"Though Plixer Scrutinizer has network detection and response, it's an area that needs just a little more rounding out. Another room for improvement in the solution is its lack of SaaS offering which some customers were looking for. My company deals in small to medium businesses, mid-market, and some customers wanted the SaaS feature which Plixer Scrutinizer doesn't offer. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is for it to have a SaaS offering because my company also deals with educational spaces and smaller businesses that just don't have the staff that can implement this. If there's either a managed service or SaaS-based offering to just make it a little easier for those types of customers, it would be a great addition to Plixer Scrutinizer."

"The reporting structure, the front-end GUI, also needs some work. It needs some getting used to. It works fairly well, but it's a technical tool rather than a user tool. You have to understand the structure of the databases before you can really use it."

"Data retention needs improvement. Data retention is a thing where we are looking for a better way to collect flow data for a longer time to do forensic research on security incidents. By default, data retention is quite low. We need detailed data in safe storage for a longer time, e.g., for a couple of months. An improvement would be a way to export data into a secure long-term storage."

"There was a price lift because previously the product was privately owned, and now there is some external capital in the organization, so pricing could be lower, though, for Plixer Scrutinizer, there is almost no competition at this price point."

"The solution creates a visual map of a particular location and how the network flows. You need to spend time to generate all those maps. If they could figure out a way to reduce the time needed to generate the maps, that would be great."

"We couldn't get it set up properly."

"I wish the reporting side was easier to work with, but it does a decent job. I also wish the reporting side was a little more intuitive or they offered more reporting examples."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is based on a licensing model by feature."

"The license model they use depends on the size and is not limited to the users."

"The pricing model is affordable."

"FortiManager is reasonably priced - I pay around US$40,0000 per year, which covers fifty locations."

"Fortinet is a high-end product and the cost is high. They should consider reducing the price, especially for existing customers."

"FortiManager isn't expensive, but its cost is dependent on which services are required."

"Fortinet FortiManager is not expensive at all if you compare it with other vendors like Check Point and Cisco. Fortinet products are the least expensive on the market in the category of firewalls."

"I hope that the prices will become more competitive in subsequent releases, as the current pricing is perceived as somewhat elevated."

More Fortinet FortiManager pricing and cost advice

"We recently bought a license upgrade, so we will integrate more exporters. We upgraded from a 25 exporter license to a 50 exporter license. Therefore, there will be more flows, and this will be an extension. I don't know when we will purchase a faster server, because the server that we have is quite new."

"We just renewed. The pricing is 5,000 euro per year. This is the final price. All tax (20 percent) is included."

"It's about €10,000 a year for initial license and yearly maintenance costs. In addition, the hardware costs are about €10,000 once every five years."

"There are no extra costs. It's about $8,000 a year. The bang for the buck (cost) is definitely a plus."

"We have increased the license over time. We have added more licenses as the network has grown."

"Currently, the license for Plixer Scrutinizer is subscription-based and at a yearly fee. The price would depend on the amount of traffic you pull in. For example, there are several blocks from a 10K flow, a 40K flow, and a 100K flow, and based on the number of devices that you receive the flows from, that's the license, and it is not a per-interface pricing model, so that is a very strong, very competitive pricing feature of Plixer Scrutinizer. Licensing for the product is also not based on the number of storage, compared to some competing products that are priced based on the amount of storage you need, particularly based on the retention and the amount of data. Plixer Scrutinizer licensing is based on the device, and it's more in the direction of $10,000 because, with just $1,000, you don't have anything."

"The licensing cost for Plixer Scrutinizer is in the middle. It's not the cheapest, but it's not the most expensive. Its licensing model is based on how many exporters, how many devices export information to the system. Plixer Scrutinizer has different modules you could add such as the security module which would cost extra."

"Compared to some of the other tools we have, it's incredibly reasonably priced."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	8

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiManager?

The most valuable feature is the centralized management console.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiManager?

The pricing for Fortinet FortiManager is good and not expensive. It is competitively priced.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiManager?

There are some aspects that Fortinet FortiManager could improve upon. The user interface can feel clunky, especially for more complex tasks such as managing large-scale policy packages or custom sc...

See all answers

What do you like most about Plixer Scrutinizer?

Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Plixer Scrutinizer?

I rate Plixer Scrutinizer's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price or affordable, and ten is high price or expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Plixer Scrutinizer?

I don't have deep enough knowledge to comment on what requires improvements in Plixer Scrutinizer. In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required.

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 70% of the time

Fortinet FortiOS vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco DNA Center vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 7% of the time

AlgoSec vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 4% of the time

Zabbix vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiManager Competitors

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 28% of the time

Kentik vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 21% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 20% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) for IT Operations vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 11% of the time

More Plixer Scrutinizer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiManager

September 2025

Download Fortinet FortiManager product report

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

August 2025

Download Plixer Scrutinizer product report

Overview

Fortinet FortiManager is used for centralized management of FortiGate firewalls, utilizing zero-touch deployment techniques to optimize configuration and deployment, reducing installation time and errors while improving network security and efficiency.

By centralizing policy management and monitoring across devices and locations, Fortinet FortiManager enhances security and operational efficiency. Automation tools simplify management, control, and consistent configuration across environments. It offers scalability for managing large numbers of devices, beneficial for organizations seeking unified threat protection and streamlined administration from one console. The platform integrates effortlessly with Fortinet products, supporting zero-touch provisioning, SD-WAN, and traffic analysis. Although intuitive, the graphical interface and overall performance require refinement, alongside enhanced support and documentation for troubleshooting and configuration.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiManager?

Centralized Management: Streamlines device configuration across multiple systems.
Automation Tools: Simplifies implementation and maintenance of configurations.
Zero-Touch Provisioning: Reduces setup time and minimizes errors.
SD-WAN Support: Enhances wide-area network efficiency and effectiveness.
Traffic Analysis: Monitors network traffic for improved security insights.
Policy Pushing: Facilitates efficient deployment of security rules.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Operational Efficiency: Reduces installation time and configuration errors.
Scalability: Supports management of numerous devices.
Improved Security: Centralized management enhances threat protection.
Time Savings: Automation reduces manual intervention needs.
Cost-Effectiveness: Simplified administration can lower management costs.

Fortinet FortiManager is implemented across diverse industries like telecommunications, finance, and healthcare, where centralized management and enhanced security are crucial. Its ability to streamline processes and integrate with existing Fortinet products makes it ideal for organizations looking to maintain robust network security standards.

Fortinet

The Scrutinizer incident response system leverages network traffic analytics to provide active monitoring, visualization, and reporting of network and security incidents. The system quickly delivers the rich forensic data needed by IT professionals to support fast and efficient incident response.

Plixer

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

Oxford Networks, Squaw Valley Ski Holdings, UltiSat, Wipro, West Aurora School District 129, SUNY Geneseo College, Bloomington Public Schools, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Kitsap Credit Union, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County Houston Texas, Carilion Clinic, Banner Health, IDEXX Laboratories, Phibro Animal Health Corporation, Goodwill Industries, Parmalat, Armstrong Coal Company, Flybe, James Walker

Buyer's Guide

Network Management Applications

August 2025

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