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.

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.

Fortinet FortiClient protects endpoints such as PCs, laptops, tablets, and other devices within the local area network.

The flow between the endpoint and Fortinet firewall is increasing. If you configure VPN IPsec and site-to-site between two FortiGate or firewalls, the network interface between the endpoints and the firewall is not encrypted. We added analytics to increase the flow from the endpoint through the firewall and the server to the second firewall like Palo Alto, Azure, or another.

Integration capabilities are based on license. You can specify the number of endpoints to add.

The solution could add data to the endpoint.

I have used Fortinet FortiClient for an implementation.

The solution was integrated with Windows, Linux, or various web distributions. It's stability is great.

The solution is scalable. You can upgrade anytime.

Sometimes, we may not have anyone to contact for tech support because we've acquired much knowledge. We refer to a quick guide if we encounter issues, such as VPN IP settings or VPN assistance. When one person lacks the skills to master or understand the content, you can comprehend and implement it with the Fortinet cookbook. You can resolve some issues. However, you can email them if you encounter a very complicated problem or issue. Fortinet will understand and respond within two hours.

Positive

The initial setup is very easy. You can perform the initial setup as the user, installing the application on the endpoint and assigning it. Then, configure the firewall and set up your gateway. After that, you can add and monitor your endpoints through your firewall.

If you have the licensing and highly vulnerable documents, you can implement it quickly.

The pricing and licensing for Fortinet would vary. They had a bundle for FortiGate from Fortinet. They do not abandon the bundle between physical and virtual machines. With the license, the device is very useful.

You can maintain and work with your endpoint through the firewall.

FortiClient is very easy, useful, and practical. We can monitor the endpoints.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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 primarily use the solution as a VPN. It's to help our remote employees connect. We use it mainly for security reasons so that our staff has clean, secure, internet access.

The security is good. It helps us avoid attacks. The antivirus database is quite strong. 

It's helpful in that it allows us to create secure remote connections. 

The service is centralized.

We don't have matching infrastructure in our company for our customers as it is too expensive. It's difficult to see the licenses due to the cost. We don't find it too expensive as we do not have too much infrastructure, however, our customers have more infrastructure and need more and therefore it can get pricey.

Cloud services are very expensive for us. 

We'd like Fortinet to offer bundled options in the future. 

I've used the solution for seven to eight years so far. 

This is quite a stable solution. I'd rate it nine out of ten. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

We have around 20 people using the solution right now. Our engineers from the system department handle the solution. 

The product is quite scalable. I'd rate the ease of expansion at a nine out of ten. 

I've dealt with support in the past and they are helpful and responsive. Typically, items are dealt with by the next business day. They are very fast to respond. 

Positive

We did not previously use a different solution.

The initial setup is not very simple. 

The time it takes to deploy depends on the environment. If you are adding some rules in, it could take a few hours. If you have everything organized ahead of time and you have all of the rules decided beforehand, it is pretty easy. An implementation like that can go pretty fast. 

We handled the setup ourselves. 

The solution is expensive. We found the cloud to be very expensive. 

Licensing is usually paid yearly.

We are Fortinet partners. 

We're using the latest version of the solution. We renewed our hardware just last year. 

I'd recommend the solution to others. I'd rate the product nine out of ten. 

Our company deploys the solution for twenty customers who need ransomware protection and web application firewalls. 

The solution's TNA feature blocks devices from entering the network that do not meet compliance protocols such as the absence of antivirus protection. 

The TNA security feature allows integration with FortiClient, FortiGate, FortiAnalyzer, and FortiSandbox. 

The solution creates a security fabric with all devices connected and sharing the same log so it is easy to automatically quarantine any device.

The solution has some issues with stability on the user side. 

I have been using the solution for two years. 

The solution has some stability issues on the user side but is improving. 

New releases are more stable than past versions. 

The solution is scalable based on your license. 

Adding users that extend beyond your current license is simple because you just upgrade your license. 

Technical support is quite impressive and available 24/7. 

Support engages with us and provides relevant resolutions for issues.  

The initial setup on the server side is very easy. 

The setup steps include installing the solution on the server, configuring any ports or IPs, creating an installer to run on user systems, and then deploying the solution on the user side. 

Deployment on the user side can be done manually if there are few users. Our clients have thousands of users so we push the installer through ED by creating group profiles that contain specific policies. 

Users receive policy updates that administrators want to push to them. 

Our company implements the solution for customers. 

The solution is moving toward stability so I recommend it.

I rate the solution a six out of ten. 

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.

We've used the solution to remove legacy AV and replace it with a modern EP.

We worked with Symantec and Kaspersky previously, and they were very cumbersome and exhaustive on the endpoints and supporting teams.

We needed a revamp and we did a very lengthy study of several platforms. Fortinet came to discuss a holistic view and had the right architecture. We actually bought FortiClient in the hope of creating 365-degree connectivity to all-stack on the Fortinet suite, including EDR. We have not been disappointed so far.

It is easy to manage platforms and has intuitive reporting making it a breeze to administer and project future remediation.

We moved through these key phases:

• Study application signatures identification capabilities.
• Get to know the fabric connection to Fortigate/EMS
• Understanding the gain with FortiAnalyser.
• Using the SCCM in conjunction with patching
• Upgrade to Zero Trust with FortiEDR

The idea of a single plane of glass for all security products fits perfectly on our four-man team, and we have a collaborations team independent of Azure Cloud Services and both can easily study, interpret the reports and act on them within five minutes, to be precise.

The most valuable features include:

• Vulnerability Scan
• Integrated VPN
• Real-Time Signature Scan
• Central Intelligence (Fortigate with FortiAnalyser)

EMS central reporting with fabric connectivity to FortiGate and FortiAnalyser is great and has seamless integration which makes managing 3000 devices a breeze and remediation a Hollywood movie.

We can't wait for the ERD integration and get the FortiNAC onboard for a Zero-Trust platform, every day goes by and we rest assured of the decision we made three years ago. 

Thank you Fortinet, we do appreciate your R&D!

The solution could be improved in these areas:

1. Support (If you have the Advanced Support Services you are in heaven) if not you will be in hell for a long time.

2. Licensing Division (They are starting to understand the value of their product and slicing everything to make money)

3. EDR with EMS better integrate them on the same single plane of glass. We will be waiting for it.

4. Working with Distribution sometimes comes at a cost due to a lack of knowledge of the current status of your licensing and products.

5. Advertise needs to be better for the ELA.

We've used the solution for 36 months.

The solution was stable within 24 Months and is 100% stable. 

The product is scalable and adjusts to all needs.

Technical support has been a nightmare. We are about to get a ELA and pay for the Advance Care Support.

Positive

It is relative to your internal team competencies, and generally easier than other competitors.

We implemented it with our internal team.

ROI is almost 50% compared to old solutions.

If you have the chance to revamp, ask yourself what is your vision and start designing it on paper and understand what covers betters your needs, and move towards it.

Start with your internal competencies and build on them. 

We also looked into:

• Microsoft
• Checkpoint
• Palo Alto
• Cisco

The solution offers great 365 views, impressive reporting, and good product integration.

Our customers use the product for endpoint protection and VPN. Our clients are mainly focussed on logistics. They also use the tool for remote workforce security management.

Our customers do not have any complaints about the solution. The solution is effective in improving endpoint visibility. The product provides features like URL Filtering for endpoint protection. IPS is an effective feature. We use the VPN, too. We register our endpoints to the management server.

The product supports our client’s remote access needs. The integration capabilities are good. Our clients usually integrate the product with FortiGate. The integration has improved our client’s security posture. So far, we haven’t heard any complaints from users about VPN.

The quality and response time of the support team must be improved.

I have been using the solution for three years.

I rate the tool’s stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability an eight out of ten. Our clients are small and enterprise-level businesses.

I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten. The deployment takes two hours.

We are partners. I will recommend the tool to others. It is easy to integrate with FortiGate. We can use policies for endpoint protection. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use Fortinet FortiClient based on the end user's firewall structure. If my customer uses a FortiGate firewall, we usually use Fortinet FortiClient for the VPN instead of a WatchGuard.

Fortinet FortiClient's scalability is very good because it has no limitations.

Fortinet FortiClient should improve its visibility of the consumption of traffic and end-user action, which is very low.

I have been using Fortinet FortiClient for two years.

We didn't face any problems with Fortinet FortiClient's stability.

I previously used a solution called WatchGuard.

Fortinet FortiClient's initial setup is quite simple.

Fortinet FortiClient's deployment took around five to ten minutes. We manually set up the software while configuring the end-user device. We deployed the solution through an in-house team.

I would not recommend Fortinet FortiClient to other users because of its low visibility of end-user actions.

Overall, I rate Fortinet FortiClient a seven out of ten.