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 5.0% 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 70 Fortinet FortiManager reviews

4,634 Views
695 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Plixer Scrutinizer

Read 15 Plixer Scrutinizer reviews

1,289 Views
451 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: October 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Network Management Applications

October 2025

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Helped 869,952 peers since 2012

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 (52nd), 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 5.0%, up 4.6% compared to last year.
Plixer Scrutinizer, on the other hand, focuses on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), holds 2.9% mindshare, up 2.1% since last year.

Network Management Applications Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiManager	5.0%
Cisco DNA Center	21.8%
Cisco Catalyst Center	9.9%
Other	63.3%

Network Management Applications

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Plixer Scrutinizer	2.9%
Darktrace	23.9%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics	14.6%
Other	58.6%

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…

Read full review

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

"Stability is good within the product."

"The solution is very stable."

"Fortinet FortiManager allows a full view of all the devices on the network from one location."

"Provides good and detailed log management."

"Technical support is great. When we have sent urgent tickets and they do reply back within fifteen minutes."

"For the whole security fabric from Fortinet, with a simple click you can see if some workstations or services are affected by an attack. You can really easily quarantine it, check the solution, and fix it."

"Without FortiManager, you cannot manage a complex environment across several sites with multiple firewalls."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiManager are the overall management it provides and its ease of use."

More Fortinet FortiManager pros

"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."

"One feature I found most valuable in Plixer Scrutinizer is the very extensive reporting. Reporting is very flexible, though sometimes you need a little bit of support from Plixer Scrutinizer to create custom-made reporting in a very short time. Reporting is a very strong feature of the product."

"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."

"Visualization of the network traffic is the most valuable feature. It allows you to drill into information quite quickly."

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

"We didn't experience any bugs."

"There are other tools out there that will do what Scrutinizer does. But what I have found with Scrutinizer is that it does it very quickly. I've taken 25 million individual data fragments from the different sensors, and it has graphed that and mapped it and presented a picture within 30 seconds. It has a very efficient database algorithm that I am really impressed with."

"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."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pros

Cons

"Configuring Fortinet without internet access is challenging."

"It's a difficult process to transfer one interface from one virtual domain to another."

"FortiManager would be improved by putting everything into a single console, including Microsoft O365 integration."

"The fabric for integrations or connections could be improved."

"The price is a bit too high."

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

"Having FortiManager work with all of the Fortinet products would be a good improvement."

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

More Fortinet FortiManager cons

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"In Plixer Scrutinizer, scalability is an area with minor concerns where improvements are required."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Plixer Scrutinizer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten with one being the highest price and ten being the lowest price, I would rate FortiManager's price at three."

"The licensing costs depend on how many devices you want to use."

"Fortinet FortiManager is a low-priced product."

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

"The price point is very good."

"Our organization pays a monthly license fee for the solution."

"The pricing model is affordable."

"For us, it is a little bit expensive."

More Fortinet FortiManager pricing and cost advice

"We pay our one-off cost for the licenses, per device, in blocks of 50. And then we pay an annual maintenance fee of about $15,000 Australian, which is, at this point in time, about $9,000 US, for those 250 devices. The upfront costs for the 250-license use, were about $50,000 Australian, which is about $32,000 US."

"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."

"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."

"There is a recurring maintenance fee after the initial purchase or if we want the license upgrade."

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

"Our entire solution, amortized over five years, is in the vicinity of $40,000 to $50,000 a year."

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

"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."

More Plixer Scrutinizer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
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 69% of the time

Cisco DNA Center vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiOS vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 6% of the time

AlgoSec vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiManager Competitors

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 27% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 27% of the time

Kentik vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 23% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Plixer Scrutinizer

Compared 22% of the time

More Plixer Scrutinizer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiManager

October 2025

Download Fortinet FortiManager product report

Buyer's Guide

Plixer Scrutinizer

September 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

October 2025

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