Fortinet FortiClient Reviews

I'm a data network consultant, and some of my clients ask me to provide a remote access solution. In India, many people were working from home because of COVID, so they needed a reliable solution to connect to their network for work. For that reason, I suggested that they use FortiClient and Fortinet firewalls, which were already deployed. I just extended their connectivity and provided them with a remote access solution.

We're using the latest version, which is being updated by my IT team. My organization is also using FortiClient to provide remote access to the internal services. It's being managed by our IT policies and the governance team. For the clients that I'm managing, I recommend Fortinet firewalls to them.

We are using on-premises devices for US-based clients and clients in Europe. We're using on-premises devices 90% of the time.

More than 1,000 users in my organization are using Fortinet FortiClient software.

We are a team of eight to 10 people who manage our own network and our clients' network. We have junior consultants, consultants, and managers who are working together to provide the solution to our customers and organizations for managing the network.

It's easy to use, easy to deploy, and I have more visibility over my network to see which users are connected to the firewalls, which users are connected to the network, and what they're accessing.

The connectivity could be improved. It should be more user-friendly. For a layman user who doesn't have any information about VPNs, they won't know how it connects. 

There's an overhead when we use the solution and deploy users. You need to configure FortiClient for each individual user. Their systems need to be configured to connect to the VPN. It would be better if the process was automated.

Some configuration and VPN features could more user-friendly.

Now, I'm working on a solution from Palo Alto firewall. It's basically an endpoint firewall. When a user opens his laptop, the laptop is already connected to a VPN, so it's secure before the login feature. I would like to see that feature in Fortinet as well. The system connects to the VPN as soon as it starts, no matter if it's connected to a network.

I've used FortiClient for more than five years.

It's been stable for most of the time that I've used it. I spend nearly 8 to 12 hours on the VPN. It depends on the internet connection, but the VPN itself is stable enough.

It's scalable.

Technical support is helpful and responsive. Whenever we need any support, they are there to help us.

I would rate technical support as four out of five.

I've used Cisco AnyConnect and Cisco Meraki. I use this software to connect to the VPN.

Initial setup would be better if it was automated. It will take a couple of minutes to set up a VPN. If there are more than 100 or 1,000 users in an organization, you can multiply that number with the number of employees.

The number of people needed for maintenance depends on the deployment. For our organization, there are 10 people managing it. There are some projects that I'm single-handedly managing, so I am doing the Fortinet firewall's configuration, the VPN configuration, and site to site VPN for the client's VPN. There are some instances where I require more support from my team. It depends on the deployment and the project on which we're working.

The deployment was done by my own team.

We took some assistance from Fortinet support, but we did most of the configurations ourselves. There were some cases in which we required some expert assistance, so we contacted Fortinet support. They were super helpful and useful.

There was a return on investment, mainly in terms of security. After COVID, there were a lot of incidents in my country and in the banking sector. Some of our customers lost a lot of data, which was worth a lot for them. After investing in Fortinet, their network has been quite secure. They've been audited from multiple organizations and have achieved their mark.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten. 

If there was an automation feature and it was more secure, I would rate it as 10 out of 10. 

I would recommend this solution to others. We had some incidents and were asked to provide solutions to some of our commercial clients. We provided Fortinet. We shortlisted the firewall and gave them a technical solution.

There are two main use cases: the first is to deploy the security fabric environment from FortiGate to the endpoints so that there's only one policy in use. There's no need to deploy the policy in the firewall as well as the endpoint. So, if you deploy the policy in FortiGate, FortiClient can get that policy automatically.

The second is to control the endpoint, that is, to control the antiviral software and antispyware in general.

Telemetry has been valuable. Starting from FortiGate and from the EMS server, you have to begin at the endpoint, and that's the most useful thing about using FortiClient.

I haven't had to open a FortiClient support case yet with Fortinet because we have solved everything ourselves using the documentation provided. Information on deployment and that on how to solve many of the issues are well-documented in the Fortinet library.

The deployment status is not good in Mac devices and sometimes in Windows-based devices using GPO, like Active Directory, that are not on the local network. Deployment can be a painful task in these cases. 

You need to get a management console in the cloud because the EMS server must be deployed on-premises in order to connect to FortiGate. This is because the on-cloud server is not deployed well. It's not good enough yet for the customer to use. So, the deployment cases and the management console of the EMS server must be improved.

Development of a mail protection feature would be nice because there's not one present right now. Something that looks at the email that's getting into the PC or the possibility to use a monitor for the EMS server would be great.

I have been working with this solution for around one year.

Overall, the stability is okay. Ease of deployment, VPN access, and the policies are implemented well. I haven't had any need to restart the servers of the PC due to FortiClient.

The scalability is great, and you can scale it as the company grows.

In Windows 10 devices, the initial setup was okay. It is not really bad if you have access straight to the PC. Deploying unattended is a hard thing to do. Sometimes, it doesn't work using the GPO Active Directory.

Our deployment strategy is to install the solution in the lab using 10 devices, test all the policies, and after that deploy it to the whole company. The lab stage is really easy and is a nice experience. 

When you have a massive deployment, because most of the uses are not in the local area to be covered, deployment has to be done using remote access. That's a painful task. We have had to deploy 190 devices almost manually because they were not on the local network.

My clients evaluated Sophos and Intercept X. They liked the ease of deployment with Intercept X because the control comes from working in the cloud. Sophos also has the management console on the cloud. However, the clients were already using Fortigate, so they wanted to keep that level of protection.

It's a little harder to deploy on Mac devices. When I installed FortiClient, it didn't even work at the beginning. The user experience in Mac to check the antivirus and antispyware protection is not good.

In order to work with FortiClient very well, you need to deploy the VPNs through FortiGate. So those who would like to use Fortinet FortiClient would need to evaluate the bandwidth capacity and how they are going to use a feature that's called split tunneling. That's the main thing they have to consider in order to design their requirements for the person who is going to develop and implement it on the customer's side.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Fortinet FortiClient at eight.

Occasionally, the solution may provide a slow connection. In addition, there may be initialization and authorization issues that one may need to take care of while using the solution. As a network engineer, cybersecurity professional, and individual involved in the assessment process, it is necessary to monitor VPN connectivity regularly. This involves verifying whether the VPN connections are established or not and understanding any challenges that may be affecting users. These are the areas where I need to pinpoint and look into since I have been handed over the responsibility to do so.

The price to pay for the features is significant, in my opinion. However, I don't know much about the updates and packs since our company is not involved in that part. Our primary responsibility is to check the latency during slow periods of time. We must be aware of any slowness in the user's connection since they are connected to us. If users experience slow connections, we must address the issue promptly.

Assuming myself to be the subject and your database to be the object, whenever the subject requests access to the database, the authorization process needs to be done quickly to ensure that the database can be manipulated efficiently. However, sometimes data manipulation can still take time.This can be achieved fast through authorization, authentication, or a triple authentication system. I am from India, and I have to log in to the data center in the US. I wonder why it takes time despite us having leased lines and multiple connections. Therefore, these are important topics that we need to discuss further.

I have been using Fortinet FortiClient for one year.

It is a stable solution.

Scalability-wise, I rate this solution a seven and a half out of ten. There should be a proper solution for patch implementation and server hardening. I would like the solution's scalability to be improved. Also, I plan to increase the solution's usage. I have 13,000 people using Fortinet FortiClient and Cisco AnyConnect based on their work areas and connectivity requirements. Redundancy measures have been implemented to ensure connectivity for all users.

As per my observation, there are people who are supportive of Fortinet FortiClient. Their support can be crucial in making the solution scalable since they possess years of experience in this field.

The initial setup process for the solution is straightforward. The initial setup was done one year ago.

Several steps need to be followed to deploy the solution. Firstly, the software required for the solution needs to be installed. Once the software is installed, the server name needs to be provided where the software will be deployed. Additionally, the network needs to be configured by specifying the IP addresses and gateway addresses to establish connectivity.

As a technical team member, I am not responsible to look into the pricing matters. These aspects are typically handled by the management team, who have the authority to obtain the necessary licenses based on certain established principles. Also, I can only let the management team know when the license will expire. Ultimately, the decision-makers are the business consultants.

I used Fortinet FortiClient for cryptography, which is something one can achieve faster over the solution. An alternative solution to consider is Cisco OpenConnect. It's important to consider the requirements of its users because, ultimately, everyone goes for a different redundancy. Fortinet FortiClient and Cisco OpenConnect are VPN solutions that can establish secure connections with other individuals or networks. They are both available as open-source resources.

Since I am not from the procurement side, I cannot recommend the solution to anyone from my end. However, from a technical perspective, I will be in a position to comment. Overall, I rate this solution seven and a half out of ten.

We are using the solution completely for VPN purposes. We have infrastructure VPNs, and our clients are completely relying on FortiClient.

We are providing SSL VPNs with separate IDs for all the clients. With the FortiClient software, they can use our service even from home, with all kinds of solutions - like public VDA. They can access the VDA from their home with FortiClient. They just need to connect to the solution and be directly accessible to this local VDA service.

It's a completely user-friendly solution for any kind of platform, including Linux, Windows, Mac, et cetera. Our clients rely entirely on FortiClient.

It has a great split tunneling feature. The split tunneling feature is good in cases when we want to browse the internet through the ISP connection without going through our organization. It's for the client to browse the internet without going through our organization. The remaining traffic will go through a web firewall, and only the public features will go through their ISP.

The solution is stable.

You can scale the product.

The solution is easy to set up, deploys quickly, and doesn't take too many people in terms of handling the setup.

Technical support is good.

It works well with other Fortinet products.

FortiClient is not great in Linux. Our clients report issues from some of their Linux versions where FortiClient has some issues. In Windows, it is perfectly fine. In Mac OS also, it is excellent; however, in Linux, it is somewhat tough to handle.

We would like to see user-based authentication. It is already there. However, we are not able to save profiles completely in many of the releases. We will need to type these user-based things again and again on each connection fail. Therefore, once it gets connected, it is not completely up. We need to connect again after a session time-out.

I've been using the solution for eight to nine years.

It is a stable product. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable.

The solution scales well. It's not an issue at all.

We have between 4,000 and 5,000 users on the solution. Maybe 3,000 students will use it, and around 2,000 faculty.

We do have plans to increase usage.

The technical support has been good. We've found them to be helpful and responsive.

We have used other private VPN solutions. For example, OpenVPN. FortiClient, however, completely works well with FortiGate solutions which is why we moved on with FortiClient.

We required two people to handle the setup process. It's completely configurable. We were able to have everything up and running in two or three days. It's pretty straightforward and doesn't take a long time. Our network administrators handled the setup. We have two people handling maintenance.

We didn't need any outside assistance. We handled everything in-house.

We have seen an ROI as it allows our users to work from home, which saves in-office resources. It's helped us cut down on our budget.

We license FortiClient as a VPN and don't require any other licenses.

I'm a customer and end-user.

I can't say which version number we are on at this time. We're likely on the most up-to-date version.

We like that the solution provides us with a more secure feeling. Also, client connectivity is not that difficult to configure. With the DNA in FortiClient, we can directly use the server from home. It is completely user-friendly and less time-consuming. Users can improve their production time greatly.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for endpoint protection. 

Since there has been a lot of work from home, the product has given us more control over the users and what they are browsing. We can restrict their activity to our Fortinet cloud only. Having those controls in place - including what website they should browse, what data they should transfer or use, whose server is coming into their devices, how they're connected with geographical location, et cetera - keeps our company safer. Everything is helping us maintain the security of the devices that are not in the office.

With FortiClient we can control the devices which are not in the office. We are enforcing them to work with FortiClient only. If FortiClient is off, they cannot connect to the internet. They need FortiClient to be on. That one friction is what is making our life easier as system administrators and IT security support.

The initial setup is easy.

The solution scales well.

Sometimes there are issues when we are trying to connect. The error doesn't give us the proper feedback. Exactly what is wrong and how we can troubleshoot it is not clear.

We have approximately 500 users who are using FortiClient. They do not provide us a central point of how to deploy on all the users from one location. Manually, we have to go and install it on every user's system.

If we could have multiple VPN connections at the same time or a VPN channel to different VPNs, that would be ideal.

I used the solution for six or seven years. 

The solution is very stable and very reliable. Its performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

I'd rate the stability eight out of ten. 

It is easily scalable.

We have about 100 users. 

I've used support many times. 

There are two aspects. One is reaching them and the second is getting support. So reaching them is a pretty tedious process. That said, if we reach them, then our resolution is a hundred percent what we get. 

Positive

We were using Symantec. Then Symantec was overtaken by Broadcom. Once Broadcom took over, we were not getting the support that we used to get when it was really Symantec only.

We also tried to work with CrowdStrike and did not have a good experience with them. They wouldn't properly let us test the solution. They only let us test the basic antivirus and nothing else. 

Earlier, we were using SonicWall. That global VPN client was not that stable, so we moved to Fortinet.

FortiClient is much better than the global VPN client of SonicWall as SonicWall Client is very limited, and it doesn't have a feature set, that we can upgrade in future. Fortinet Client can be upgraded. We don't have to reinstall, only handle the feature enabling. The scalability is excellent. 

The solution is simple. It's not overly complex. 

It's just three clicks, and it is installed. It doesn't take long at all. 

We have about seven team members that can handle deployment and maintenance tasks. 

The solution is more on the expensive side. 

I'm a customer and end-user. 

We had the solution deployed on-premises and on the cloud. We have a cloud-based appliance and physical appliances in each of our offices too. When our office wants to connect to Azure's cloud, we use the Fortinet appliance on the cloud to get connected and have the VPN established.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I'd recommend it to others any day of the week. 

We primarily use the solution for security purposes. It’s an endpoint management server.

It's for endpoint management, especially for the laptops or maybe the virtual laptop that is working, virtual desktops, servers, mainly vulnerability scanning, and just for management.

It’s easy to use.

The deployment was fast.

It's migrated to the security service. On the firewall, we can see if you are a client or not, so it's good for visibility.

It offers vulnerability scanning and is good at picking stuff up.

The solution offers useful malware protection.

The sandbox is okay also.

It’s good when using the VPN and remote access.

The patch management is pretty good.

We opened a ticket in Forti for a virtual desktop environment client to see if we could use it in the cloned desktop. We're using it in a virtual environment and need to sort that out so it also will work for cloned environments. They're working on that. However, it's not perfect right now.

I don't really want to add new features. However, I would like to add the zero-day protection that they offer in the FortiXDR solution to this product. Right now, it's another product. They are clever guys. They make you buy more than one solution instead of putting everything together.

While we like patch management, it would be nice if it could handle patch management for other solutions, like Microsoft.

We’ve used it for around a year and a half. We started using it around 2020 or thereabouts.

For the most part, the solution is stable. It depends. We always need to test the new versions. However, it seems stable even on the client side.

We are licensing to about 200 endpoints on the solution right now.

Everyone in the company uses the solution. Here, in Hungary, we're using a sync client and virtual desktops.

We are a small company, so scalability is not the issue. We don't need to worry about having 20,000 users and then suddenly getting another 50,000. That's really a scalability issue. However, right now, it's not an issue for 200 users. There’s not a question anyway in regards to scalability.

I previously used Ivanti. We moved to a virtual desktop environment and to Forti Fabric and it seemed better to move to FortiClient. It was cheaper as well. That said, Ivanti is a bigger solution, especially focused on physical desktops. We have no physical desktops, so we did not need them.

The initial setup is easy to use, which makes the deployment very quick.

The deployment was deployed by a partner.

It was easy to set up. The whole process maybe took one day.

The pricing was okay. They recently changed it. I just purchased it, and they doubled the price. It was not a very friendly move.

The problem is that the marketing guy is always working with forecasting, and they're crazy about their forecast. The vendor is crazy about the forecast, yet they doubled the price without warning me. It's very hard to make a budget that way.

It's paid every year. This year, when I saw the price, I thought, "oh my God, it's double what was in the last year." For 200 users, that was not very, very painful. However, you need to explain to everyone why you spent more.

Overall, it’s a good product. I'd rate it a nine out of ten. 

It’s great if you have other Fortigate products.

FortiClient is for the VPN. FortiClient is used with FortiGate. We have 100 users across both North America and Europe. We created a rule with the firewall to authorize the countries we are in, and we have rules to authorize specific IPs. We have to link to the internet.

The incidents in the log have been very useful. Some projects are really a pain to investigate. This helps.

The solution is user-friendly. It’s really easy to use. It is not like Cisco where GUI is really bad.

I don't have really issues with them. In terms of features, everything is easier.

When you want to find any information, you have documentation on hand that is easy to use.

You have good support and the price is good.

The solution is very easy to set up.

I’m not sure what exactly can be improved.

It would be interesting if the solution offered a way to try to investigate and create a use case to trace vectors.

I’ve used the solution for more than two years.

We don’t have any issues with stability. It’s been fine. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn’t crash or freeze. We don’t have any issues with the internet or power supplies.

We have about 100 users on the solution currently. We don’t really scale it.

Technical support has been excellent. They are fantastic.

Positive

I used a different solution. However, it does not cover the same responsibilities.

Sometimes, for SOCs, I’ve looked at WatchGuard, Palo Alto, Cisco, and Check Point.

The initial setup was simple and straightforward. It wasn’t difficult at all.

I wasn’t a part of the initial setup and we tried to switch since the first time the person deployed it. In FortiGate, he used the wrong setting and the wrong methodology. We had to try to make some changes without creating any issues with the production.

It is very easy when you start at the beginning. It is not long to deploy.

We handled the setup ourselves in-house. However, when I leave the company, likely they will try working with a third party as they don’t have the time and have a contract with other clients.

I don’t deal with anything related to pricing or costs or ROI.

I don’t know the exact pricing of the solution. It’s not an aspect I worry about.

To compare every project on FortiClient you have and compare it with Palo Alto. Palo Alto offers a few more powerful new features. You can automate the use case. You have internet analysis and endpoint analysis. I would like to see the same options in FortiClient.

I administrate FortiGate.

Within my new job, I am trying to be a partner with FortiGate and FortiClient to sell it to other clients. I have to get my certification just to be expert

I’d advise users to just look into best practices. Maybe try to join a training session. You can also simply go on the internet and try to find the best practices that make sense for you.

I’d rate the solution eight out of ten.

Fortinet FortiClient supports SSL VPN.

Not too many releases have been made. The latest concerned version seven. The one before it, six, was around for a long time. From the client's perspective, there has not been released anything which fully stacks up against Cisco. There should be more frequent releases or updates.

The solution can initially be a pain for new users and may take around two weeks for one to properly familiarize himself with it. 

The stability is pretty good. 

The scalability is pretty good. 

I cannot comment on tech support as I have not had dealings with it. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward, since even Cisco can use a called SDM when it comes to FortiGate supporting a web interface. However, FortiGate is more convenient in some cases. 

In certain scenarios we would simply deploy FortiGate VPN, which we find to be comparatively more convenient, simple and stable than Cisco. I am talking about the FortiClient.

The solution may take new engineers some time to familiarize themselves with it, but it is, fortunately, close to Cisco in its concept. This means that if one has a background with Cisco, he can easily adopt all the functions and configuration procedures to the solution, including the command line from the FortiGate scenario.

The solution can initially be a pain for new users and may take around two weeks for one to properly familiarize himself with it. At this point, one can quickly understand the entire procedure.

The solution is more cost efficient than Cisco, as FortiGate tends not to charge for the client license, which allows one to make free use of whatever is supported on the device.

Not too many releases have been made. The latest involved version seven and the one before it, six, was around for a long time. From the client's perspective, there has not been released anything which fully stacks up against Cisco. There should be more frequent releases or updates.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward, since even Cisco can use a called SDM when it comes to FortiGate supporting a web interface. However, FortiGate is more convenient in some cases.

In certain scenarios we would simply deploy FortiGate VPN, which we find to be comparatively more convenient, simple and stable than Cisco. I am talking about the FortiClient. It is also more cost efficient, as FortiGate tends not to charge for the client license, which allows one to make free use of whatever is supported on the device. 

The solution may take new engineers some time to familiarize themselves with it, but it is, fortunately, close to Cisco in its concept. This means that if one has a background with Cisco, he can easily adopt all the functions and configuration procedures to the solution, including the command line from the FortiGate scenario. 

I would recommend the solution to others, even when it comes to my friend, who has a small business, for which FortiGate compares more favorably than that of Cisco. If having a fancy system is not important to the person, but he is simply looking for a workable and stable solution, then FortiGate is the way to go.

I would recommend the solution to others, even when it comes to my friend, who has a small business, for which FortiGate compares more favorably than that of Cisco. If having a fancy system is not important to the person, but he is simply looking for a workable and stable solution, then FortiGate is the way to go. 

I rate Fortinet FortiClient as a nine out of ten.