Fortinet FortiOS vs Menlo Secure comparison

Fortinet and Menlo Security are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Fortinet is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.4, while Menlo Security is ranked #52. Fortinet holds a 1.1% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Menlo Security’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Menlo Security users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Menlo Secure and Fortinet FortiOS compete in advanced cybersecurity solutions. Fortinet FortiOS has the upper hand due to its comprehensive feature set.

Features: Menlo Secure's efficient threat isolation, seamless cloud integration, and user-friendly interface are valuable. Fortinet FortiOS offers advanced firewall capabilities, robust network security controls, and extensive threat intelligence features.

Room for Improvement: Menlo Secure needs to enhance reporting capabilities, improve threat detection accuracy, and optimize user interface customization. Fortinet FortiOS could benefit from a more intuitive configuration process, better documentation, and streamlined software updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Menlo Secure provides a straightforward deployment process and responsive customer support. Fortinet FortiOS involves a more complex deployment but is supported by prompt customer service and comprehensive support resources.

Pricing and ROI: Menlo Secure is noted for competitive pricing and favorable ROI. Fortinet FortiOS, while more expensive, delivers strong ROI due to its extensive feature set and long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiOS vs. Menlo Secure Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiOS vs. Menlo Secure

June 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 FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiOS is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

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Harshama Silva

Senior Manager at ITX360 (Pvt) Ltd

We have improved network security with user-friendly controls and high threat intelligence

FortiOS is very user-friendly and easy to configure for L1, L2, and L3 personnel. Its web filtering, application control, and IPS features are very user-friendly, easy to manage, and deploy. The threat intelligence in FortiOS is very high, and the system is scalable without additional licensing costs. FortiOS allows us to expand the number of users and devices as our network needs grow.

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Olivier DALOY

Group Information Systems Security Director - CISO at Faurecia

Secures users wherever they are and enable us to inspect SSL traffic, but we encountered too many issues

The solution should have no impact but it does have a bit of impact on end-users. For example, we encountered some issues in the downloads that took longer than they did without using Menlo. That is clearly not transparent for users. We expected not to have any latency when downloading anything from the internet with Menlo compared to without Menlo. We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution. In other words, we hope to get the same level of protection, while reducing the number of visible bugs, issues, latencies, impacts on performance, et cetera, that we have today with Menlo. We already solved most of them, but we still have too many such instances of issues with Menlo, even though it is protecting us for sure. The weak point of the solution is that it has consumed far too much of my team's time, taking them away from operations and projects and design. It took far too much time to implement it and get rid of all of the live issues that we encountered when our users started using the solution. The good point is that I'm sure it is protecting us and it's probably protecting us more than any other solution, which is something I appreciate a lot as a CISO. But on the other hand, the number of issues reported by the users, and the amount of time that has been necessary for either my team or the infrastructure team to spend diagnosing, troubleshooting, and fixing the issues that we had with the solution was too much. And that doesn't include the need to still use our previous solution, Blue Coat, that we have kept active so that whatever is not compatible or doesn't work with Menlo, can be handled by that other solution. It is far too demanding in terms of effort and workload and even cost, at the end of the day. That is why we decided to transition to another solution. If we had known in the beginning that we would not be able to get rid of Blue Coat, we probably would not have chosen Menlo because we were planning to replace Blue Coat with something that was at least able to do the same and more. We discovered that it was able to do more but it was not able to replace it, which is an issue. It is not only a matter of cost but is also a matter of not being able to reduce the number of partners that you have to deal with. In addition, they could enhance the ability to troubleshoot. Whenever a connection going through Menlo fails for any reason, being able to troubleshoot what the configuration of Menlo should be to allow it through would help, as would knowing what level of additional risk we would be taking with that configuration.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate FortiGate's flexibility, which allows for centralized management through FortiManager."

"Fortinet FortiGate has very good support."

"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."

"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."

"The main benefits that Fortinet FortiGate brings to customers include that if you're going for a single fabric with core switches, access switches, and APs, compared to legacy Cisco or Aruba, the Fortinet FortiGate does not require a controller for the access points."

"Fortinet FortiGate is a very good next-generation firewall."

"It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."

"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The most valuable features are the intrusion prevention system and the anti-virus."

"The customer service and support team are excellent."

"Fortinet FortiOS's valuable features include intuitive policy creation and deployment, precise parameter settings to determine thresholds, and security profiles such as web filtering and remote application filtering, among others."

"In terms of benefits, it’s a standard solution used by many, and our customers and partners widely utilize the VPN features. It’s elementary to work with and implement because it is familiar across different infrastructures."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the granular control and their interoperability is good."

"Their classification inside of that database of the various threats is typically very, very good."

"The solution is very user friendly."

"It efficiently manages large-scale firewall deployments."

More Fortinet FortiOS pros

"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."

"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."

"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."

Cons

"I would like to have logs, monitoring, and reporting for a month without extra fees."

"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."

"The user interface of the Fortinet FortiGate management console could be more intuitive and user-friendly, and the log analysis and reporting features could be enhanced to provide more flexibility and customizable insights."

"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."

"They need to improve their technical support."

"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."

"For Fortinet FortiGate, their code development would definitely be something they need to improve on to reduce vulnerabilities that need to be patched."

"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"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."

"I would like to see the features of FortiAnalyzer included in Fortinet FortiOS. Right now, you're required to have an additional license and a different device for features such as processing the log, reporting, and analyzing traffic."

"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 solution's graphic interface could be a bit more responsive and include notations when changes are made."

"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 central management can improve in Fortinet FortiOS. It is sometimes difficult to manage all the devices."

"The pricing model makes this product far more expensive than similar solutions."

"There is some room for improvement in the support."

More Fortinet FortiOS cons

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet costs are 25% lower than the high-cost provider. There is an equipment cost and a recurring monthly cost for licenses and technical support."

"Its price is good."

"Licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is on a yearly basis. Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."

"The price is high compared to some of the other solutions."

"Fortinet is competitive price-wise."

"Here in Brazil, we're going through difficult economic times and the tax on the dollar is high. All the solutions from minor competitors are growing in the market. The prices have come more competitive."

"You need to pay a license for this solution. Our licensing is now done in our subsidiary."

"Licensing is usually on a three-year period."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The support contracts are usually about $100 - $200 a device."

"The Fortinet solutions can be a bit expensive."

"We pay $100,000. That covers the cost of the hardware that we run the VN's on. That also includes any SGNA costs for the internal support tech."

"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 licensing for FortiOS is good, with a security license included when we update the main license."

"The solution is cost effective. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"The software costs roughly half what the hardware costs. Overall, the product is expensive."

"The price of Fortinet FortiOS is less than $10,000 annually. The price of the support is reasonable compared to competitors."

More Fortinet FortiOS pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."

"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Educational Organization

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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What do you like most about Fortinet FortiOS?

The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive.

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I rate the pricing for FortiOS as eight or nine out of ten. It is an affordable solution for us.

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Comparisons

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Compared 20% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

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Fortinet FortiManager vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 11% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 8% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 8% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 4% of the time

Darktrace vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 4% of the time

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Cisco Umbrella vs Menlo Secure

Compared 18% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Menlo Secure

Compared 18% of the time

Prisma Access Browser vs Menlo Secure

Compared 14% of the time

Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway vs Menlo Secure

Compared 11% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Menlo Secure

Compared 10% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

June 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiOS

June 2025

Download Fortinet FortiOS product report

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

June 2025

Download Menlo Secure product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

No data available

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Fortinet FortiOS is a comprehensive security operating system that powers Fortinet's network security solutions. It provides advanced threat protection, network visibility, and centralized management for organizations of all sizes. With its robust features and intuitive interface, FortiOS enables businesses to secure their networks, applications, and data from cyber threats.

One of the key features of FortiOS is its advanced threat protection capabilities. It incorporates multiple security technologies, including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention system (IPS), and web filtering, to detect and block a wide range of threats. This ensures that organizations are protected against malware, ransomware, and other malicious activities. FortiOS also offers extensive network visibility, allowing organizations to monitor and analyze network traffic in real-time. This visibility enables businesses to identify potential security risks, detect anomalies, and take proactive measures to mitigate threats.

Additionally, FortiOS provides detailed reports and analytics, helping organizations gain insights into their network security posture. Centralized management is another crucial aspect of FortiOS. It allows businesses to manage and configure their security policies, devices, and users from a single console. This simplifies the management process and ensures consistent security across the entire network infrastructure.

Moreover, FortiOS supports integration with other Fortinet products, enabling seamless security orchestration and automation. FortiOS is designed to be scalable and flexible, making it suitable for organizations of all sizes. It offers a range of deployment options, including physical appliances, virtual machines, and cloud-based solutions. This flexibility allows businesses to choose the deployment model that best fits their requirements and easily scale their security infrastructure as their needs evolve.

Fortinet

Menlo Security Secure Application Access

Menlo Security Secure Application Access makes zero trust access easy, giving users secure connectivity to private applications, including web and legacy applications. At the core of Secure Application Access is the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser, which fetches, secures and delivers the content for users.

In addition to providing simple-to-deploy, clientless ZTA, Secure Application Access and the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser protect applications from attacks such as session hijacking, cookie manipulation, and other tactics that employ protocol manipulation.

Secure Application Access protects applications from Internet threats and provides granular controls for added protection of the application and associated data. These security controls include Read-only/Read-write, Upload/download, Copy/paste, AV scanning, Sandboxing, and Data Loss Prevention.

Last Mile Data Protection

Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection identifies and prevents sensitive data from leaving your company by meticulously inspecting all file uploads and user input across browsing sessions. Leveraging the Secure Cloud Browser, users are protected from the internet and you can protect your organization from data loss with comprehensive traffic monitoring and controls. This approach addresses the growing concerns surrounding data leakage in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT.

By identifying sensitive data through file types, regular expressions, or predefined libraries, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection empowers security teams to regulate data input into AI platforms and prevent unauthorized uploads. This capability provides crucial protection for intellectual property, PII, and other confidential information.

The solution leverages the Menlo Cloud Security Platform's visibility and control over traffic to reliably detect and prevent data leaks originating from both browser submission forms and non-browser traffic. With the ability to inspect encrypted web traffic, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection enforces DLP policies consistently across all users and devices, ensuring comprehensive data protection.

Menlo Security

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiOS vs. Menlo Secure

June 2025

Free Report: Fortinet FortiOS vs. Menlo Secure

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiOS vs. Menlo Secure and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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