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Fortinet FortiOS vs Hillstone T-Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

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 FortiOS
Ranking in Firewalls
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Hillstone T-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
42nd
Average Rating
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiOS is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone T-Series is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiOS1.1%
Hillstone T-Series0.5%
Other98.4%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

MS
Associate Director IT Operations at Procento
Single-pane management has simplified firewall control and has improved risk mitigation
I would not say that Fortinet FortiOS is not very scalable. Generally, what happens is that for enterprises, we hire consultants who do the capacity planning and sizing to determine what kind of firewalls to put in place. At the same time, it is not only the number of users; it also depends on the number of WAN links coming in and everything, because we have been using Fortinet for bandwidth shaping and many other bandwidth-related functions. They should improve their machine learning AI capabilities of Fortinet FortiOS because there is too much competition. Other players are also improving and making a lot of changes in their UI and overall operating system.
TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Is stable and has a user-friendly dashboard and a good interface
We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good We cannot secure a specific IP class with this firewall. Another loophole with Hillstone T-Series is that when we connect through WiFi and turn our hot spot on, all who connect through the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For ten to 12 years it has been quite secure."
"There are a lot of features that we like within the solution. The resources or performance of the firewall is very good. However, the real selling point is the fact that the solution offers so many features, it gives our clients a lot of extras that they can work with. There's a lot on offer."
"The solution is extremely scalable."
"Anytime I have thought of a possible feature I'd like added to the solution, it seems the developers are on the same page and it is available within a few months."
"It has a lot of scalability abilities which makes it easy to scale."
"I am satisfied with Fortinet FortiOS. It's a cool product and has a lot of UTM features. It has application control, web filtering, antivirus, IPS/IDS, DNS filtering, and many things in that firewall. It also has a web application firewall WAF feature. On the feature side, it's a good firewall."
"The technical support has been very helpful and they have local language support for Taiwan."
"There are many useful features, such as web security and advanced threat detection."
"It has been stable so far."
"Hillstone supports IOT setup and detecting intrusions from IOT or CCTV connectivity, and with this solution, we can also detect unauthorized devices plugged into the CCTV network and sound the alarm to the administrator."
"We found some limitations with Fortinet FortiGate, and we are satisfied with Hillstone T-Series right now."
"We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good."
"The only firewall able to monitor traffic from a CCTV network. Can detect unauthorized devices plugged into the network, which standard firewalls can't do."
 

Cons

"In the future I would like to see more user-friendly dashboards and a drop in the price."
"I would like to see fewer bugs. If you use the box with its basic features, the solution is straightforward and stable, but you can run into bugs when using newer features or in more complex use cases. They included a DNS filter as a new feature, and I had issues that required raising a ticket with customer support."
"The complexity of the VPNs should be improved."
"Having used the FortiOS for a period, the improvement of functions and additions have been both "Great" and "Poor," as one gets used to using a product, menu and layout changes can be a bit confusing at first, however you slowly start to get more familiar over time."
"Right now, it's very trendy to integrate everything into the cloud. This solution would be more effective if they did more integration in that regard."
"We are not very pleased with the support. It could be better."
"The solution could improve the log retention and reports."
"There should be more documentation on how to use the CLI or how to perform CLI versions of tasks that can be done through the GUI."
"Another loophole with Hillstone T-Series is that when we connect through WiFi and turn our hot spot on, all who connect through the hotspot get all the functions, and the security does not work."
"They have a very good technical support team, but I think there are some communication issues due to language differences."
"Licensing is not cheap."
"Licensing is not cheap, but there are customers who will buy because they understand that this has a cost involved and they will cater their budget for that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Fortinet FortiOS has been reasonable."
"A yearly subscription might be around $20,000 to $30,000."
"The best solution in the category including the price in Thailand is Fortinet FortiOS."
"The cost is around $40,000."
"It would be better if it were cheaper. We have the firewall in our office, and the license is expiring in 20 to 25 days. We got a quote for almost 80,000 Pakistani Rupees, which is a little costly."
"The price of Fortinet FortiOS is less than $10,000 annually. The price of the support is reasonable compared to competitors."
"A medium 100 or 200 Series box costs around $3000, and the software cost is around 55% of the hardware cost."
"There is a license required for the solution and the price is fair."
"On a scale from one to ten, with one being low and ten being high price, I would rate the price of Hillstone T-Series at three. There are no additional costs other than renewal costs."
"We got a much cheaper price than that provided by Fortinet right now."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise23
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it kind of depends what you value most. PA is good at app control, web filtering a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiOS?
I rate the pricing for FortiOS as eight or nine out of ten. It is an affordable solution for us.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiOS?
I would not say that Fortinet FortiOS is not very scalable. Generally, what happens is that for enterprises, we hire consultants who do the capacity planning and sizing to determine what kind of fi...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

No data available
Hillstone T-Series Intelligent Next-Generation Firewalls, Hillstone iNGFW
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
University of Córdoba
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiOS vs. Hillstone T-Series and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.