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Fortinet FortiOS vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway comparison

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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 FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
581
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Fortinet FortiOS
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (21st)
Zyxel Unified Security Gateway
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.
reviewer2399337 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales and technical consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
User has benefited from stable performance and effective completion of security tasks
I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thinking about using a different solution based on open source because Zyxel Unified Security Gateway…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) 's most valuable features are reporting and filtering."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall has a very high ROI"
"The VPN is the most valuable feature."
"I would rate FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) as a solution a 10 out of 10."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"The most helpful features of FortiGate include its firewall policy, specifically the user-based policy, which I find to be quite beneficial in managing our network security effectively."
"Fortinet FortiGate positively provides my clients' organizations with a high return on investment."
"FortiOS is very user-friendly and easy to configure for L1, L2, and L3 personnel."
"Overall, I rate FortiOS a nine out of ten."
"It is user-friendly when it comes to turning on features, and it has been reliable and effective."
"I find filtering traffic, filtering web traffic, session traffic, and managing the network as valuable features."
"I personally think the site-to-site VPN is the most useful feature. A lot of firewalls have that, but to me, that's one of the features that's essential."
"For ten to 12 years it has been quite secure."
"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."
"It efficiently manages large-scale firewall deployments."
"The Zyxel Unified Security Gateway solution is stable and does its job effectively."
"The solution can scale well."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the licensing aspect improved because there is a feature we were yearning to use, the bandwidth monitoring feature, but it's licensed separately."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"The only challenge with Fortinet FortiGate is the pricing model."
"The room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"There is an area for improvement in vulnerability management."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. However, my issue is the performance only. When I use all the profiles, this affects the performance. From the beginning, I should have had a better sizing of the box."
"I prefer Palo Alto over Fortinet FortiGate. Its IPS engine is not better than the Palo Alto version. The monitoring tool needs improvement, and the syslog configuration needs enhancement."
"FortiOS could provide a more detailed analysis of the network and connected devices."
"The threat time interval lags a little, especially if there's a heavy load on the firewall."
"There is some room for improvement in the support."
"Right now, we have to contend with CLI. We'd like it to be easier. We need the features to be in a UI."
"They need to integrate more with the SD-WAN."
"It could more scalable for the lower end users."
"We had assistance from one person from our local vendor for the implementation."
"A switch should be introduced."
"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."
"The product has some scalability and data management issues where improvements are required."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an inexpensive solution."
"We just pay a flat monthly fee to the vendor for the support."
"Compared to other firewall products, it's a little cheaper in terms of pricing."
"Fortinet FortiGate SWG is an affordable solution."
"The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
"It is quite affordable for our customers. There is a separate cost for IPS, antivirus, web filtering, and other features. They have a great choice of licenses. You can go for the license that you want, which is quite useful."
"It is a good product from a price perspective versus functionality."
"It is an expensive solution."
"FortiOS is affordable, but its price could be lower."
"The Fortinet solutions can be a bit expensive."
"The price of Fortinet FortiOS has been reasonable."
"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."
"It is not cheap; it is also not expensive. It is somewhere in the middle."
"The licensing for FortiOS is good, with a security license included when we update the main license."
"The price of Fortinet FortiOS is reasonable and it is paid annually. You are able to select the features that you want."
"The solution could have a better licensing model. It's a bit more expensive than other solutions. The annual subscription is very pricy in Fortinet. The cost could be reduced."
"The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market."
"This gateway is pretty cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Wholesaler/Distributor
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business357
Midsize Enterprise133
Large Enterprise189
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise23
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
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...
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 ...
What do you like most about Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
I cannot definitively comment on whether Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is an affordable product as I haven't done co...
What needs improvement with Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden. I'm lo...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
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Overview

 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiOS vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,515 professionals have used our research since 2012.