Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

I use the solution primarily for the VPN connections in local area. In some cases, I use it at universities in order to secure the local network in the university, such as servers and backup devices.

I have also used the solution as a load balancer and the EMS functionality, which I use as a controller for wireless devices.

The PPPoE server protocol with a connection to a Radius server is used a lot by ISPs and not so much by the end user. I think it would be great to see this solution with the protocol developed for ISPs.

I have been using the solution for more than two or three years.

The solution is scalable.

There are some problems that support cannot give you a logical reason as to why it happened. For example, I had a case where I was dealing with a WhatsApp application that was giving issues. Technical support gave more than one reason it could be giving issues, but none of them solved the problem. Eventually I solved the problem, but it was far from the solutions that support had given.

Before choosing Fortigate, I was using Cisco and pfSense.

The initial setup was very easy and straightforward.

The time it takes to setup the solution depends on the case. It may take less than a day or more than two months, it depends on the technology that is being used. For example, a hospital I am working with has 20 switches with two firewalls, but there are issues in the physical place and not in Fortinet. In this case, the environment limits the speed of setup.

I would rate FortiGate a nine out of ten.

• Security
• Monitoring and controlling
• VPN
• Active Directory integration
• Servers
• All components related to an enterprise environment.

We replaced Sophos with FortiGate and found it better than the Sophos product. It has better control, insights, and prevention from crypto malware and other threats.

The most valuable features are centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances so we can have control over public and private Infrastructure.

Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products are future proof and offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability.

IT is continuously evolving, and every few days or months, there is something new. Whoever evolves first will take the lead over the competition. Adopting and evolving is the key to success.

These products are solid and stable.

We have not had any issues with scalability.

Our experience with support has been fine. No trouble or hassle.

Sophos: It was good for small businesses, who are evolving and improving. Though, I found Cisco Meraki to be much better.

Part of the setup was straightforward and other parts were complex. They need to work on feature placements and menus.

We did the implementation through a vendor, who had good experience.

Two to three years, depending on usage type, number of users, and organizational size.

Yes, we did, Palo Alto and other solutions, but we found FortiGate to be the best solution at that point in time.

I enjoy the combination of an intuitive graphical interface and also a traditional shell command line environment for more advanced administration. The option to configure policies in a graphical environment is very easy to understand and also simple to teach someone else unfamiliar with the product.

It’s much easier to share administration tasks with more people. Due to the flexibility and ease of certain features, I can delegate more simple and routine tasks to other administrators and I don’t have to be the “Firewall” guy all the time.

I think the graphical interface always has room for improvement. I would like to see more attention put towards the logging functions as well.

I worked with this solution daily for over 12 months.

I encountered several strange issues in v5.0 (and earlier) OS versions. Strange anomalies like random reloads, VPN instability and unexplained policy changes. However, all of these issues were resolved in v5.2.

I always had great experiences with Fortinet. I worked with them several times to resolve configuration issues and process RMA’s on failed equipment, which was rare.

I’ve personally used Cisco ASA and PIX architecture and after using Fortinet, I always prefer FortiGate products in terms of functionality and ease of use. I recommend these to clients looking for a firewall solution.

Usually always simple and straight forward. I can get a client up and running with most standard policies and inbound/outbound control in a single day and make adjustments as needed. I can usually preconfigure Fortinet products and send them out for install.

I always implemented via in-house. I think the most important advice is to always test new configurations in the lab especially, when upgrading firmware.

From my experience, FortiGate products are affordable and worth the investment.

I think for almost any small to mid-size business this is a great solution. Fortigate should definitely be considered before choosing a more expensive and complicated product.

• High Availability clustering
• SNAT/DNAT
• Policies section view
• Virtual Domains
• Logging and Reporting
• IPS

It has made our daily operations easier, as well as adding security, and stability to them. Adding or removing security policies is simplified through its web interface, or CLI. Additionally, troubleshooting is fast and effective, as everything is organized in a very understandable way.

Its web interface needs to be more stable, and more functional, through the variety of browsers. Additionally a nice add-on would be a “diagnostic sniffer” capability in the web interface.

I've used it for six years.

With different browsers, the web interface crashes. On newer versions of Fortios the problem has been minimized.

Not at all, it is as stable as it should be.

I believe that it is a little complex adding new firewalls in an existing cluster.

8/10.

9/10.

We are using different firewall solutions, in parallel with the Fortigate ones.

It was straightforward. Taking control of the device for first time is easy, and the cookbook manual is very helpful.

A vendor team offered five day training but the implementation was in-house.

We evaluated other solutions, but I was not responsible for taking the final decision.

Throughout the last six years we have been using Fortigate firewalls, and the experience we gained is only positive. These devices are easy to manage, operate and troubleshoot any issues that might rise. The use of virtual domains has added more security presence by only having one physical device, and it’s easy to create them. Also, by enabling other security features on the VDoms, the physical performance will not be affected.

We primarily use the solution for security - for the firewall.

The solution has a variety of excellent features.

The cloud base that they have on offer is great.

Overall, the solution is very good and we've been very happy with it.

The solution is very user friendly. The user interface in particular is quite nice.

The integration is great.

The customization could be improved. Cisco, for example, is much better at this. They need to work to be at least as good as they are.

I've been using the solution for one year so far.

So far, the stability has been very good. We haven't had any issues at all. I haven't had issues with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's great.

I haven't run into any issues when it comes to scaling. If a company needs to scale it should be able to do so without much of a problem.

I haven't really dealt directly with technical support. Once, when I ran into an issue, I spoke with my local partner. Other than that, you can find the answers you need via the help navigation.

Therefore, I can't speak to the helpfulness of technical support. I can't speak to whether or not they are responsive or knowledgable.

I have been satisfied with the help I've received from my local partner, however. They've been quite good.

We do use other solutions as well, such as Cisco. We find this solution to be better in general, and more user-friendly. That said, Cisco does do customization better.

The initial setup is not complex. It's pretty straightforward. We found it to be quite simple.

When I bought it, I found that the user interface made everything pretty easy from the start. They also have very good help features that can assist you if you get stuck. It was pretty easy to configure the items I needed to.

The price is pretty much standard with the competition. It's not overly expensive.

That said, if you want to have a good security VPN or firewall, then you should invest more than money and pay interest in local devices. If you want a better network structure and better security, then you need more local devices.

I use FortiGate quite a bit. I'm just a customer and end-user. I don't have a business relationship with the company.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate the solution at an eight. I've been pretty happy with it so far.

We use this solution for our company firewall.

This solution has many good features. The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere.

I really like the fact that I am able to generate FortiCloud reports.

FortiWAN was supposed to help in doing intersite linking, but we've realized that most of the ISPs use BGP. FortiWAN supports OSPF but does not support the BGP protocol. This is a problem for us because without BGP they are not doing anything, and we've had to pack them up. I would like to see the BGP protocol supported on FortiWAN.

Technical support for this solution can be improved.

The stability is very good.

The scalability of this solution is fantastic.

I've been in contact with technical support a few times and it is good. It might be better, but as far as I'm concerned, it's good.

The challenge for the initial setup was at the ISP level. We have the Fortinet firewall running, but between the various sites, we wanted to implement FortiWAN. It didn't work because of the BGP issue.

The pricing for this solution is good.

This is a product that I recommend.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case is for our company firewall. We use it for intrusion prevention and anti-virus.

The internet filtering feature has really benefited my organization because we have a lot of things that go on illegal sites like auto torrents sites and a lot of streaming and downloads. We've been able to minimize the impact of bandwidth by filtering out media sites. This solution has also benefited us by bringing security into compliance with our policies.

I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good. 

Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area.

There is a feature that Palo Alto has called Traps. It helps to prevent attacks on the system. A feature similar to this would be worth adding.

It's very much stable.

It is very scalable. We have around 200 users. 

The initial setup was not complex. 

We have had experience with enterprise firewalls and notably, we had experience with Fortinet, so the deployment was done in-house. We require four people for deployment and maintenance. 

Compared to Palo Alto, which we have used in the past, pricing and licensing are okay.

I would advise someone considering this solution to learn the product. You have to get to know the product, don't just look at it from outside. Get to know the product, the ins and outs and see how you can actually use it for your scenario.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.

My primary use case of this solution is as a data center. It performs very well.

It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration.

I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future.

I think the product is stable. It is amazing.

It is amazing, but sometimes there are issues with Fortinet Integrations. But, I know they are now trying to rectify the problem.

We have good technical support from the vendor.

It was very straightforward. An easy installation process.

I think when you look at this product, you must realize that the box hardware and software are vary stable. And, the pricing is perfect.