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Fortra's Tripwire Enterprise vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 5, 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 FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
411
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Fortra's Tripwire Enterprise
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (17th)
WatchGuard Firebox
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (11th), Firewalls (14th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (8th), Anti-Malware Tools (12th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (20th), Application Control (7th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2093205 - PeerSpot reviewer
It has excellent scalability and allows you to execute custom COCR rules, letting you fine-tune agent monitoring
I'm using Tripwire Enterprise version 9.0. In my company, thirty to forty people use Tripwire Enterprise, mainly different types of engineers, governance, risk, compliance, and cybersecurity personnel. I advise people planning to use Tripwire Enterprise to take the training because the solution has a fairly complex interface. You can do a lot of work with it, but it isn't very easy. Tripwire Enterprise is a sophisticated tool. I rate the tool an eight on a scale of one to ten because it does an excellent job of handling the unique challenges of maintaining NERC CIP compliance and monitoring industrial controls.
Rajesh  Makwana - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient bandwidth management and secure network access with a strong firewall
The primary use case of the Firebox mainly revolves around bandwidth management, unnecessary web blocking, application control, and protection against brute force attacks. It is also implemented for load balancing, SD-WAN, and branch-to-branch connectivity from one location to another. We also use…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"Their proxy-based inspection is responsive and secure."
"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."
"The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"The best feature of Fortinet FortiGate is SD-WAN."
"The primary feature I appreciate about Fortinet FortiGate is the ease of setup."
"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."
"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature is the integrity."
"The product supports different platforms."
"We use Tripwire Enterprise as a tool to test the vulnerability of a network. That is the most valuable feature of the product for us."
"The most valuable feature is integrity management. I had some discussions with service providers, and they also agreed."
"Even if you change a single word in Notepad, it will let you know whether it was added, removed, or modified."
"File monitoring is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"Its reporting features are great. It gives you an in-depth report. Its customization is also great, and it is working fine."
"What's most valuable in Tripwire Enterprise is the ability to execute custom COCR rules that lets me fine-tune how I monitor Linux and Windows agents."
"The most valuable features of this solution are live logging, rule setup and maintenance, and VPN creation."
"I recommend Firebox since this device will not let anyone down."
"The throughput is great. It's perfect. We have no issues whatsoever. The management features are very powerful..."
"Zero-trust and threat-hunting services are most valuable."
"The product's usability is good. It is straightforward and simple. One of the benefits is that it is easy to navigate and intuitive."
"It does the job of what it says it does. We set it to what we want it to block and then it blocks it."
"Cloud integration is one of the best features."
"Firebox operates effectively in the background, blocking potential threats without a need for constant monitoring."
 

Cons

"Fortinet FortiGate should improve the VPN tokens."
"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."
"The area that Fortinet may improve is customer support. When you have an incident, situation, or open a case, the support is not as good as Cisco or other platforms I have tested."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"The solution could be improved by addressing limited local reporting. It requires obtaining the FortiAnalyzer for proper visibility because you can't do much from a reporting perspective with just the firewall alone."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"The technical support that Fortinet provides is not satisfactory. When we call Fortinet technical support, it takes too much time to connect with them."
"It needs more local support from the OEM side. It would be great if this can be improved."
"An area for improvement in Tripwire Enterprise is stability, as my company had stability issues with the last few versions of the solution. Tripwire Enterprise has been a bit buggy."
"The deployment with certain systems can be difficult and it needs to be simplified."
"The main way that it can be improved is through better reporting."
"A lot of network devices need a custom integration."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The Windows online integration license needs to be improved."
"Cloud monitoring could be better. It would also be better if the company followed a pay-as-you-use model."
"I would like to have a little more control over access points and the ability to see the bandwidth that is passing through a specific access point. We are not able to see that. We can see what traffic is passing through the Firebox itself, but we can't identify if it is coming from a particular access point or not."
"The solution can improve by adding a feature to tag a MAC address of a computer system in the policy and more IP configuration settings."
"We would like to see granular notification settings and more advanced filtering in traffic monitoring."
"There is room for improvement on the education side, regarding what does what, rather than just throwing it at a person and assuming they know everything about it. A lot of times, you have to call WatchGuard support to get the solution that will work, rather than their just having it published so that you can fix the problem on your own."
"The time they take to classify an application once they find that it is unknown can be better."
"One area for improvement is the limitation in the product portfolio compared to competitors like Fortinet, which offers a broader portfolio including Authentication, VPNs, FortiMail, Sandbox, and Email Security."
"It's very difficult to find a reseller of WatchGuard Firebox to purchase a license"
"I would like to see more tutorials on setting up the Firebox."
 

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."
"The pricing is flexible."
"The pricing or licensing of Fortinet FortiGate is quite effective as it offers different bundles that aggregate most required features, while also allowing clients the option to select specific components alone."
"It has a competitive price."
"The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
"Fortinet Secure SD-WAN delivered the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) per Mbps among all other vendors."
"Its pricing is fine. It is on a yearly basis. Other than the licensing fee, there is no extra fee."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate could improve, it is expensive."
"Cloud monitoring could be better. It could also be cheaper. It would be better if the company followed a pay-as-you-use model."
"Tripwire is more expensive than Netwrix."
"The licensing depends on the equipment, how many devices and the types of devices."
"It's fair pricing, but it could always be reduced."
"WatchGuard had a very competitive price. It was only 10 to 20 percent more than a single instance device but with that extra cost it provided a second load balancing device... unlike other brands whose method of hardware and software licensing would have doubled our cost."
"There is an additional cost for support on top of licensing. When I bought my new unit, I received additional time added to my support."
"For what we use, the tool's price has been reasonable, but it is not the cheapest. The tool has been quite reasonable."
"They license it. When we buy it, we buy it with a three-year license. That's the most cost-effective way to do it. So, if you're going to buy it, then buy it with the three-year licensing."
"The solution is not expensive and customers pay for a yearly license."
"It has a very good price. It is not the most expensive one, and it is also not the cheapest one. It is just spot-on in terms of price."
"The licensing contract we have is on a three-year basis. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees—usually, every three years, we just purchase or renew the same license and we are okay. Every six years, we completely change the firewall, but that's the usual schema. So after three years, we just renew the licenses for another three years, and then after that particular period of time, we just purchase another firewall equivalent to the ones that we currently use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
University
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Retailer
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
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 ...
What do you like most about Tripwire Enterprise?
The product supports different platforms.
What needs improvement with Tripwire Enterprise?
The solution has some limitations in OT, IoT, and AIX. The product must provide whitelisting services.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response, WatchGuard Application Control, WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention, WatchGuard Gateway AntiVirus, WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service
 

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
1. Aetna 2. Adobe 3. ADP 4. Airbus 5. Amazon 6. American Express 7. Aon 8. ATT 9. Bank of America 10. Barclays 11. Baxter International 12. Bechtel 13. Boeing 14. Cisco Systems 15. CocaCola 16. Comcast 17. Dell 18. ETRADE 19. ExxonMobil 20. Ford Motor Company 21. General Electric 22. General Motors 23. Google 24. JPMorgan Chase 25. Kraft Foods 26. Lockheed Martin 27. McDonald's 28. Merck 29. Microsoft 30. Morgan Stanley 31. Nike 32. Oracle
Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
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