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Fortinet FortiOS vs IPFire 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 FortiOS
Ranking in Firewalls
20th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IPFire
Ranking in Firewalls
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiOS is 1.1%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IPFire is 1.0%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiOS1.1%
IPFire1.0%
Other97.9%
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.
AE
Chief Technology Officer at Agileware Limited
Firewall deployment has secured mission-critical public apps and simplifies Linux-based management
The best features IPFire offers include its very intuitive nature because, even though it has a Linux back-end, in terms of configuration, it has a very rich GUI interface. The GUI and configuration features of IPFire have made my work easier and more efficient because their positioning and the sequence with which I follow is easy. In terms of all the processes, what you need to do at first and the next thing that you need to do is clear. The GUI is well arranged in sequential order, so you can follow that from whatever you want to do until you get the target objective. IPFire includes features with a very robust and rich community that is very much valid in terms of content. IPFire has positively impacted my organization by giving us some mileage. At least, a lot of organizations now know that we have a solution that can deliver the same value.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Firewall and overall management are valuable features."
"The initial setup is straightforward, and it is very customer friendly."
"The most valuable features are the ease of use, and the overall simplicity, everyone can use it with a small introduction."
"The best solution in the category including the price in Thailand is Fortinet FortiOS."
"Compared to other firewalls like Palo Alto, FortiOS is easy to deploy and upgrade - for example, an upgrade of Palo Alto takes at least thirty minutes, but Fortigate can be done in around ten."
"It is user-friendly when it comes to turning on features, and it has been reliable and effective."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the granular control and their interoperability is good."
"Fortinet is very easy to use; I like its configuration and the various functions it offers."
"I would rate the stability as ten out of ten for IPFire."
"IPFire has prevented any kind of hacking and enables us to comply with customer requirements."
"Regarding IPFire's AI capabilities, I think they are quite focused; in all the deployments I have done, I have not had any incidents or breaches."
 

Cons

"Stability is a seven out of ten because during version migrations, and sometimes with new versions, Fortinet is not as good. Palo Alto is more stable than Fortinet, but this depends on the configuration."
"We are not very pleased with the support. It could be better."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the pricing could be lower. The price is very steep."
"Their first-level support is often poorly trained."
"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."
"The signature discs, compared to Palo Alto, aren't as good. It takes more time to get the signature updates."
"They're using a lot of application-specific IC, so that may be causing some performance issues. And whenever a Fortinet adds new features, it can affect performance."
"The reporting for this solution could be improved. It could also be more stable and offer better pricing."
"The graphical interface could be much better."
"Accessing the internet was a bit complicated."
"I would rate IPFire 8 out of 10 because I do not think there is any solution anywhere in the world that is 100 percent efficient."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FortiOS is affordable, but its price could be lower."
"Regarding the cost, the initial purchase is relatively cheap because it comes bundled. However, the subscription renewals can be quite expensive. The renewal costs are high, even though the initial purchase might include discounts."
"The price of Fortinet FortiOS has been reasonable."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiOS is good. However, central management is intuitive for the end-users. We had a lot of questions about central management, and sometimes they didn't use it and did their firewall management directly on FortiGate instead of using Fortinet FortiOS."
"The solution is cost effective. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The licensing for FortiOS is good, with a security license included when we update the main license."
"I am on a two-year contract and I pay annually for Fortinet FortiOS."
"Pricing depends on implementation and licensing choices and is usually not a practical budget choice for small businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
Government
8%
 

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...
What needs improvement with IPFire?
IPFire can be improved, but so far, there are no functionalities that have not been able to meet my needs. I wish IPFire could do more, but so far, I am happy with the solution. If there are other ...
What is your primary use case for IPFire?
My main use case for IPFire is usually for security, functioning as a firewall for organizations that run public-facing applications. I will give you a typical example: there is an agency of the fe...
What advice do you have for others considering IPFire?
I would rate IPFire 8 out of 10 because I do not think there is any solution anywhere in the world that is 100 percent efficient. In elementary physics, we are told that no machine can be 100 perce...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
1. Siemens 2. IBM 3. Cisco 4. Dell 5. HP 6. Intel 7. Oracle 8. Google 9. Microsoft 10. Amazon 11. Apple 12. Facebook 13. Twitter 14. Netflix 15. Adobe 16. SAP 17. VMware 18. Juniper Networks 19. Ericsson 20. Nokia 21. AT&T 22. Verizon 23. T-Mobile 24. Vodafone 25. Orange 26. Deutsche Telekom 27. British Telecom 28. Comcast 29. Time Warner 30. Sony 31. Samsung 32. LG
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiOS vs. IPFire and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.