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Fortinet FortiWeb vs Symantec Web Application Firewall comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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 FortiWeb
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Web Application Fi...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
46th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiWeb is 8.4%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Web Application Firewall is 0.2%, down from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Kacem CHAMMALI - PeerSpot reviewer
Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb
The xFF, or X-Forwarded-For feature, IP reputation, and protected hostname. We can block access using the IP address, so no one can connect to our web server or website using the real IP. They need to use the FQDN instead. Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb and the option to protect the hostname. All traffic passes through FortiWeb. Machine learning capabilities in FortiWeb: I don't use machine learning all the time. In the initial phase of FortiWeb deployment, we use the learning process to detect the traffic passing through FortiGate to our website.
reviewer1231533 - PeerSpot reviewer
An excellent up-to-date data repository handling external threats successfully
We have multiple applications that we wanted to ensure were protected and we chose Symantec for that. I'm the head of IT infrastructure and we are partners with Symantec.  Symantec has specifically helped connect external users to our internal network. It has also enabled us to ensure that those…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The GUI is user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is ease of use."
"It allows specific IP whitelisting or even regional whitelisting, ensuring only whitelisted traffic from certain geographical regions can access the environment."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiWeb is the ease of integration and configuration."
"When it comes to blocking unknown threats and attacks, I would give it the highest score possible. We first started using AWS and its Web Application Firewalls. That was okay, but it was quite a manual process to keep it up to date, whereas Fortinet is always up to date, and the default rules or the modules that you can turn on are very easy to use."
"The anti-defacement feature is very useful because it looks for web changes over time to protect pages."
"The most valuable feature is that this product represents a whole solution, including a WAF, and even anti-defacements."
"The solution is easy to configure and deploy."
"The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"The setup was straightforward."
 

Cons

"They can introduce a scaled-down version for the SMB market. It would be very competitive in the environment."
"They could integrate some kind of machine learning and AI facilities to automate workflows."
"I would like to have an antivirus option."
"Their documentation is fairly complete, but it's sometimes a little bit difficult to search for exactly what you're looking for to resolve an issue. There have been times when we've gone to try to search for areas that we needed to get information on, and it has not always been extremely clear exactly how a particular thing needs to be set up."
"Centralized management of multiple devices, and GUI improvement, could reduce the learning curve."
"I know that we have run into some issues with an SSL certificate and how it functions. Sometimes this breaks connectivity or just limits certain websites that are whitelisted."
"The solution is rather complicated. If you know what to do, it's not bad, but it's complicated for a first time user to configure the solution. What I'd like to improve are the custom signatures."
"The false positives are annoying.​"
"I'm not convinced that it's necessary the best solution going forward in the future."
"Sometimes scanning slows down the endpoints."
"It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The maintenance fee for this product could be improved."
"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a ten out of ten."
"It should be somewhere about 36,000 Euros. That's the cost for three years. It's moderately priced."
"It's an expensive solution, although there are no additional costs."
"The solution is very inexpensive when compared to F5 Advanced WAF and Avi Networks but offers the same benefits."
"The price of Fortinet FortiWeb is expensive in our Ethiopian currency."
"The solution is a bit expensive when compared to other products."
"Its subscription prices are cheaper, and it is not very expensive. From a price perspective, Fortinet is a very well-known security vendor. Subscriptions are very simple. They have a couple of licenses on an appliance, and that's it. The cost is not that big. One license is 40K, which they give with all the products. Another one includes the subscriptions for threat prevention, IPS, sandboxing, etc, which is more than enough."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
Fortinet FortiWeb is cost-effective compared to solutions like F5. It offers strong performance for the price, providing substantial value for our customers.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
The cloud-based security service of Fortinet FortiWeb could be enhanced to match the level of providers like Cloudflare ( /products/cloudflare-reviews ). Right now, it is more focused on on-prem so...
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Also Known As

No data available
Symantec WAF, Blue Coat Protecting Web Applications
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiWeb vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.