Hillstone E-Series vs Menlo Secure comparison

Hillstone Networks and Menlo Security are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Hillstone Networks is ranked #36 with an average rating of 8.0, while Menlo Security is ranked #52. Hillstone Networks holds a 0.3% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Menlo Security’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Hillstone Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Menlo Security users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Menlo Secure and Hillstone E-Series are two competitive products in the cybersecurity category. Hillstone E-Series seems to have the upper hand with its advanced features, making it a preferred choice despite higher costs.

Features: Menlo Secure is praised for its strong threat detection capabilities, ease of use, and responsive customer support. Hillstone E-Series is recognized for its comprehensive security features, detailed reporting, and advanced threat management. Users feel Hillstone E-Series offers more robust security features compared to Menlo Secure.

Room for Improvement: Menlo Secure should improve its integration with other security tools, reporting functionalities, and overall system performance. Hillstone E-Series receives feedback about its complex configuration, high learning curve, and occasionally slow customer support response time.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Menlo Secure is highlighted for its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. Hillstone E-Series, while rich in features, has a more complex deployment process but also comes with strong customer support. Menlo Secure has the edge in deployment simplicity, whereas both offer commendable customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Menlo Secure is considered cost-effective with a favorable ROI due to lower setup costs. Hillstone E-Series, despite higher initial costs, provides substantial ROI through its extensive security functionalities. Users ultimately find Hillstone E-Series worth the investment for its comprehensive features.

To learn more, read our detailed Hillstone E-Series vs. Menlo Secure Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Hillstone E-Series vs. Menlo Secure

April 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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TahirMahmood

IT Manager at Zubair Feeds

Offers good features like URL filtering, IPS, and IDS to users

We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. When we updated the tool's features, everything became okay. The tool only had some memory-related problems. It took the tool a month to fix the issues.

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Olivier DALOY

Group Information Systems Security Director - CISO at Faurecia

Secures users wherever they are and enable us to inspect SSL traffic, but we encountered too many issues

The solution should have no impact but it does have a bit of impact on end-users. For example, we encountered some issues in the downloads that took longer than they did without using Menlo. That is clearly not transparent for users. We expected not to have any latency when downloading anything from the internet with Menlo compared to without Menlo. We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution. In other words, we hope to get the same level of protection, while reducing the number of visible bugs, issues, latencies, impacts on performance, et cetera, that we have today with Menlo. We already solved most of them, but we still have too many such instances of issues with Menlo, even though it is protecting us for sure. The weak point of the solution is that it has consumed far too much of my team's time, taking them away from operations and projects and design. It took far too much time to implement it and get rid of all of the live issues that we encountered when our users started using the solution. The good point is that I'm sure it is protecting us and it's probably protecting us more than any other solution, which is something I appreciate a lot as a CISO. But on the other hand, the number of issues reported by the users, and the amount of time that has been necessary for either my team or the infrastructure team to spend diagnosing, troubleshooting, and fixing the issues that we had with the solution was too much. And that doesn't include the need to still use our previous solution, Blue Coat, that we have kept active so that whatever is not compatible or doesn't work with Menlo, can be handled by that other solution. It is far too demanding in terms of effort and workload and even cost, at the end of the day. That is why we decided to transition to another solution. If we had known in the beginning that we would not be able to get rid of Blue Coat, we probably would not have chosen Menlo because we were planning to replace Blue Coat with something that was at least able to do the same and more. We discovered that it was able to do more but it was not able to replace it, which is an issue. It is not only a matter of cost but is also a matter of not being able to reduce the number of partners that you have to deal with. In addition, they could enhance the ability to troubleshoot. Whenever a connection going through Menlo fails for any reason, being able to troubleshoot what the configuration of Menlo should be to allow it through would help, as would knowing what level of additional risk we would be taking with that configuration.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the FortiGate Sandbox to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, such as anomalies or malware, that are unknown and have not yet been discovered."

"We are using the FortiGate 100D series. VPN, firewall, anti-malware, OTM, and intrusion prevention are useful features."

"It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall."

"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."

"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."

"Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good."

"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."

"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."

"This solution has two main features that we find very valuable; a threat-intelligence option, and a web/application filtering option. The technical support team are very good and very quick."

"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."

"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients a secure connectivity."

"The initial setup was straightforward. It only took a few hours to deploy."

"Five out of five ROI."

More Hillstone E-Series pros

"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."

"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."

"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."

Cons

"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."

"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."

"Fortinet technical support is lacking, as OEM support is slightly better."

"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."

"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."

"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."

"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."

"If I had any criticism that I would give FortiGate, it would be that they need to stop changing their logging format. Every time we do a firmware upgrade, it is a massive issue on the SIM. Parsers have to be rebuilt. Even the FortiGate guys came in and said that they don't play well in the sandbox."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The tool only had some memory-related problems."

"The tool needs to improve its price."

"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."

"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."

"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."

"The current usage reporting is very basic."

"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."

"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."

More Hillstone E-Series cons

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is on a yearly basis. Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."

"It is an inexpensive solution."

"The price is fine."

"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."

"When you look at these end security systems and firewalls, these firewalls even five years ago were $50,000 or perhaps $25,000 to implement in some types of customer sites. Now we're talking about tools that are $1,000. In this case, it might have been $500 or something like that."

"It is too expensive for us. My organization is very small, and we have a total of ten users. We have three internal users and seven external users. The FortiGate 100D series is too expensive for renewing the licenses."

"They need to be competitive with other solutions."

"It was worth the money overall. It's good value."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."

"The tool's pricing is reasonable. It depends on the model. The product's pricing is around 600 USD. You need to buy a software license to activate the features. You need to pay around 150 USD for that."

"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."

"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."

"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Hillstone E-Series?

The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hillstone E-Series?

Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Hillstone E-Series?

We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the fire...

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

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Hillstone A-Series vs Hillstone E-Series

Compared 15% of the time

OpenVPN Access Server vs Hillstone E-Series

Compared 9% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Hillstone E-Series

Compared 9% of the time

Sophos XG vs Hillstone E-Series

Compared 6% of the time

Sangfor SSL VPN vs Hillstone E-Series

Compared 5% of the time

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Cisco Umbrella vs Menlo Secure

Compared 22% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Menlo Secure

Compared 16% of the time

Prisma Access Browser vs Menlo Secure

Compared 14% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Menlo Secure

Compared 13% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Menlo Secure

Compared 11% of the time

More Menlo Secure Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

April 2025

Download Hillstone E-Series product report

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

April 2025

Download Menlo Secure product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

No data available

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Hillstone E-Series is a comprehensive network security solution designed to protect organizations from advanced threats. It offers a range of features including a firewall, intrusion prevention system (IPS), virtual private network (VPN), and application control.

With its advanced threat intelligence capabilities, E-Series can detect and prevent sophisticated attacks, ensuring the security of critical data and systems. It also provides granular control over applications, allowing organizations to enforce policies and optimize network performance.

E-Series is easy to deploy and manage, with a user-friendly interface and centralized management console. It offers high-performance throughput and scalability, making it suitable for small businesses to large enterprises. With its robust security features and ease of use, Hillstone E-Series is an ideal choice for organizations looking to enhance their network security posture.

Hillstone Networks

Menlo Security Secure Application Access

Menlo Security Secure Application Access makes zero trust access easy, giving users secure connectivity to private applications, including web and legacy applications. At the core of Secure Application Access is the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser, which fetches, secures and delivers the content for users.

In addition to providing simple-to-deploy, clientless ZTA, Secure Application Access and the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser protect applications from attacks such as session hijacking, cookie manipulation, and other tactics that employ protocol manipulation.

Secure Application Access protects applications from Internet threats and provides granular controls for added protection of the application and associated data. These security controls include Read-only/Read-write, Upload/download, Copy/paste, AV scanning, Sandboxing, and Data Loss Prevention.

Last Mile Data Protection

Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection identifies and prevents sensitive data from leaving your company by meticulously inspecting all file uploads and user input across browsing sessions. Leveraging the Secure Cloud Browser, users are protected from the internet and you can protect your organization from data loss with comprehensive traffic monitoring and controls. This approach addresses the growing concerns surrounding data leakage in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT.

By identifying sensitive data through file types, regular expressions, or predefined libraries, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection empowers security teams to regulate data input into AI platforms and prevent unauthorized uploads. This capability provides crucial protection for intellectual property, PII, and other confidential information.

The solution leverages the Menlo Cloud Security Platform's visibility and control over traffic to reliably detect and prevent data leaks originating from both browser submission forms and non-browser traffic. With the ability to inspect encrypted web traffic, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection enforces DLP policies consistently across all users and devices, ensuring comprehensive data protection.

Menlo Security

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

Bank of China Macao, Instituto Tecnológico Bolivariano, Ministry of Labor in San Salvador, FEDCO

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Hillstone E-Series vs. Menlo Secure

April 2025

Free Report: Hillstone E-Series vs. Menlo Secure

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