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Fortinet FortiPortal vs VMware Aria Automation 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 FortiPortal
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Firewall Security Management (10th)
VMware Aria Automation
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
170
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (17th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Fortinet FortiPortal and VMware Aria Automation aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Fortinet FortiPortal is designed for Firewall Security Management and holds a mindshare of 1.0%, up 0.9% compared to last year.
VMware Aria Automation, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud Management, holds 11.1% mindshare, down 11.4% since last year.
Firewall Security Management
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Andriejus Artamonovas - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers reliable log retention and monitoring with prompt customer support
Fortinet FortiPortal ( /products/fortinet-fortiportal-reviews )'s most valuable feature as a free service is the log retention for at least seven days. It is useful for our service-providing company as I manage many clients and need reminders for UTM license expiries. The service comes bundled when buying licenses, providing these features for free. Fortinet cloud also allows for basic management such as monitoring expiries and storing logs from devices for a week if configured correctly.
Le Quang Long - PeerSpot reviewer
Significantly streamlined operations with good automation that helps with simplifying workflows
It helps me build a big catalog and provide it to my end users. It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method. I do not meet many people to operate it live beforehand. It operates for both of my products, but as a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I recommend Fortinet FortiPortal without any reservations, backed by my experience with its potent features and reporting capabilities."
"I like the tool's controller facility."
"The role-based access controls give us granular control over what features to present to a customer, and the integration into FortiAnalyzer is the most valuable feature."
"Everything works perfectly, and stability has not been an issue."
"From a scalability perspective, I found the solution to be completely fine...The solution's technical support is absolutely fine."
"The firewall and site-blocking features are valuable."
"I like the product's asset management which gives clear hardware details."
"It does a little bit better than some of the other products health-wise and updates-wise. It is really clear that a firewall is getting the signature updates in this timeframe. In some of the other products, usually, you have to go a couple of screens in to see that, but not so much in this product."
"It helps me build a big catalog and provide it to my end users."
"Having an enterprise service catalog and being able to automate various parts of our infrastructure are among the most important components."
"Currently, the primary feature we're using in VMware Aria Automation is its ability to execute tasks quickly. However, we haven't explored other features like workload management or the full stack yet. So it's hard to make comparisons or fully utilize its potential until we expand our usage."
"Our time to deliver a fully unified three-tier app, at the right version, is one-twentieth what it was before. There is no manual intervention. No IP management. It just dramatically simplifies all of our processes."
"The most valuable features for us are capacity planning as well as environment life management; putting in specific templates and workflows that we know are secure. That solidifies the environments that we're in or that are being provisioned. We also know that every environment being provisioned has a lifespan. It affects capacity, so it's great for budgeting, from my perspective, and good for my team."
"Today, if I want to provision one VM, it takes me five minutes. Earlier, it would take a minimum of 30 minutes to go and choose everything. Now, I can just do one click and it can provision my whole VM. We also integrated with our Alexa, so even through voice functionality, I can create a VM. One of the guys at VMware, along with our partner, deployed that in our environment. If I say, "Hey, Alexa, I need a VM with four gigs of RAM," it will go and start creating it."
"In terms of scalability, vRA has connections to a lot of different systems. It's very flexible and an impressive product."
"Instead of deploying a VM from a template and going through the process of configuring that VM, with vRA we're able to click once and it does everything: grabs an IP, joins it to the domain, loads whatever configuration agents are needed. It does all of that without manual intervention."
 

Cons

"Fingerprint access security would improve this solution."
"The tool should provide a 10-15 days extension for customers when their license expires."
"Fortinet FortiPortal could improve by providing a learning portal and better security."
"The product must have in-built SD-WAN connectivity."
"I find their logging a little bit trickier to manage. The logging of events is broken up into a lot of different categories. Instead of breaking up my logs into several different places, I personally like to have all the events in one spot and then filter them down. In particular, I find that troubleshooting on Fortinet takes a little bit longer just because of those functional breakups in the logs."
"The solution is more expensive than other products."
"There can be defects in Fortinet FortiPortal when functioning at high temperatures."
"It's useful for us but if it had more educational reporting, it would good. It's not necessarily lacking but it's an area that could get better."
"We would like them to improve the automation part. This is an upcoming area that we would like to focus on."
"I want to see HTML5. I want to get rid of JavaScript... we have a lot of issues with Java crashing when we're using vCenter. I obviously don't want that to happen with the vRealize Automation and Orchestrator side."
"It would be better if VMware would provide API documentation for developers and customers on the Internet."
"Normally, on the first call to technical support, you don't get the right person. The log analysis takes a long time. This is something which should be improved."
"Deploying and configuring the solution takes a lot of time."
"In terms of usability, It has had its challenges. It requires a lot of custom code to integrate into our environment. It can take a little while to get it to do what we want, takes some code instead of having built-in functionality. Part it is how we use it. It would be a lot easier to use in a greenfield scenario versus brownfield, which is the way we using it."
"Stability has gotten a lot better. However, the vRO aspect, when you have a multi vRA head, is a little bit finicky still. vRO still needs to stay on one appliance and be one application, because, when you have two, you can't see runs on the other one that are happening when you're not logged into that one."
"We have seen some issues with upgrades or installations. This means we have to raise a call every time with VMware."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On average, it tends to be cheaper than other enterprise solutions."
"I am satisfied with the pricing for this solution."
"The licensing costs attached to the solution make it an expensive product."
"Fortinet FortiPortal is not expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Fortinet FortiPortal is relatively expensive, but being an industry-leading firewall, it does come with a cost."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"Fortinet FortiPortal is expensive in Pakistan."
"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."
"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."
"Customers say this solution is costlier compared to its competitors."
"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
"I would rate it high because, compared to other solutions, VMware’s pricing is quite expensive. VMware products have become significantly more costly in recent years, leading to higher costs."
"The tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."
"This is an expensive product and the high price is starting to become an issue for us."
"Better pricing is always handy, but I feel it's at the right price point."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Media Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiPortal?
The firewall and site-blocking features are valuable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiPortal?
The cost of Fortinet FortiPortal is affordable, particularly for our subscription. Compared to other solutions like Cisco, it's significantly cheaper. I would rate the price as a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiPortal?
The only complaint about Fortinet FortiPortal is the need for frequent firmware upgrades, as it requires constant updating due to potential security vulnerabilities. With a proper license, the abil...
What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?
When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?
I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
 

Also Known As

FortiPortal
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
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