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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
580
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 (20th)
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

"I find the ease of configuring specific policies to be the most valuable feature of the Fortinet FortiGate firewall."
"The detection is great."
"Fortinet FortiGate provides combined features that other firewalls do not offer, offering a full package cost-effective manager with all integration supported."
"The user interface is intuitive. Anyone can configure the firewall with little knowledge of the product. The back-end is robust with good security."
"The GUI is very simple, and what is very good is that every product, regardless of size, has the same interface."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"The solution provides good threat intelligence feeds."
"It is stable and easy to use. There are a lot of good resources available on the web."
"I like that the firewall gives me a lot of control in terms of outgoing and inbound traffic, and it scores better in deep packet inspections when compared with the Azure Firewall."
"The customer service and support team are excellent."
"Performance-wise, I think FortiOS is much better than its Juniper counterpart. Based on our actual experience and performance metrics, FortiOS-based products are much better than Juniper."
"The main features I find useful are intrusion prevention and web filtering. Additionally, the solution is easy to manage."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the ease of use and user-friendly interface."
"I have found the most valuable features to be the policies, cache, and the SD-WAN."
"The most valuable features are the ease of use, and the overall simplicity, everyone can use it with a small introduction."
"Their classification inside of that database of the various threats is typically very, very good."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."
"The Zyxel Unified Security Gateway solution is stable and does its job effectively."
"The solution can scale well."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
 

Cons

"The monitor and the visibility, in this proxy, is very weak."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"It is complicated to manage different kinds of on-premise boxes."
"One point against them is that their solution lacks a unified approach."
"We would like to see an improvement in the consistency of the product's performance levels."
"The solution has many heightened points which we cannot get to without working on CLI."
"To improve Fortinet FortiGate, I think they need to improve the software and make updates more quickly, rather than taking a long time to update the software or firmware."
"There's a limitation wherein you can only have about 30 virtual or secondary IPs on a particular interface."
"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."
"I can only compare it with SonicWall, and it is missing many advanced features that SonicWall has."
"They need to integrate more with the SD-WAN."
"There is room for improvement in the reporting part. The reporting is only for logging data, and it's just a tabulation of the log in the report. I would like to be able to take down more information in the event of an incident."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the pricing could be lower. The price is very steep."
"Fortinet FortiOS is stable. However, last month we had an issue with a released patch. We had to receive another update to fix the firewall issue consuming all of the resources. The patches should be tested more before going into circulation."
"The solution could improve by making the dashboard easier to use."
"The threat time interval lags a little, especially if there's a heavy load on the firewall."
"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

"Fortinet is reasonable in pricing and licensing. Overall, FortiGate is affordable. The licensing fee can be a little high, depending on the budget for your project."
"Easy to understand licensing requirements."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is the lowest in the market."
"I'll rate FortiGate's pricing a five out of ten since it is moderately priced."
"The price of FortiGate is comparable to that of most other firewall solutions and is more affordable than Cisco."
"I rate the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG a seven and a half out of ten since it is not a cheap solution, though I feel it is a good product for the money one pays."
"Fortinet FortiGate IPS' licensing is quite simple to understand."
"The setup cost was good. The Egyptian pound is declining, and upgrading Fortinet FortiGate yearly costs about $2000 USD, which equals one hundred Egyptian pounds. I maintain a business relationship with the vendor and receive support from them."
"The solution is cost effective. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The cost is around $40,000."
"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 licensing for FortiOS is good, with a security license included when we update the main license."
"Pricing for the tool can vary. Sometimes, aggressive pricing is offered at the start, but later, as subscriptions and expansions are needed, the costs can increase, and customers may have to pay whatever is required."
"The best solution in the category including the price in Thailand is Fortinet FortiOS."
"It is not cheap."
"The solution is quite affordable and I rate the cost a four out of ten."
"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
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Wholesaler/Distributor
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business357
Midsize Enterprise133
Large Enterprise188
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise23
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
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 do you like most about Fortinet FortiOS?
The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive.
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 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: December 2025.
880,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.