Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

We are using Fortinet FortiGate for enterprises. We are a partner of Fortinet.

Its features are very good for the price. Their support is also very good. A lot of expertise is available in the market in terms of engineers. 

The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are its simplicity, ease of installation, and ease of functionality. It is very easy to learn and implement, and everything is clear. The deployment of Fortinet FortiGate is very straightforward. 

I would like to see improvements in Fortinet FortiGate regarding the active-active scenario. The active-active scenario is supported but not recommended, whereas other vendors are implementing active-active without issues. Perhaps in the future, we could effectively use both firewalls to increase the throughput. If there are two boxes, they both should be able to work.

Other than that, I don't have anything. I'm very happy with the features.

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate regularly for a few months only, though I have previously encountered one or two installations.

Fortinet FortiGate is very stable.

There are multiple options available for small, mid-sized, and large-scale deployments.

My experience with the technical support for Fortinet FortiGate is very good. I only had one bad experience. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

It is very straightforward to deploy.

In terms of maintenance, many features are automated, including antivirus updates that happen regularly without intervention. Simply connecting the firewall to the internet enables automatic downloads of everything.

It was recently implemented, so it is too early for that assessment.

It is very cost-effective. You get features similar to other firewalls, such as Palo Alto, but at a lower price.

I have not worked extensively with Palo Alto, but from various comparisons, Fortinet FortiGate is understood to be a cost-effective version of Palo Alto. While Palo Alto has more features, Fortinet FortiGate offers similar functionality.

Currently, we are not using SD-WAN, but we will implement it as it is a very impressive built-in feature. We will implement it for one of our customers in the near future.

Fortinet FortiGate is a very good next-generation firewall. It is not very expensive and offers plenty of models to suit various needs. The licensing options are extensive. The day-zero protection is very good. FortiCloud is also excellent. The geo-protection is effective and serves its purpose. 

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.

The main use cases for Fortinet FortiGate are for small, medium to large enterprises, and they also have products for SOHO (small office/home office). That is where they stand out.

The main benefits that Fortinet FortiGate brings to the table include the ease of configuration, stability of the product, and excellent support. When a customer is using Fortinet FortiGate, they will not look at any other products for expansion or upgrades. In terms of price and performance, it gives a very good, balanced product.

One of Fortinet FortiGate's best features is in terms of the configuration; it is one of the easiest to configure. It is very easy and based on ASICs. In terms of performance under scalability and stability, I would rate it amongst the best. I have not come across a product that I have had to replace or generate an R&D for to date.

There has not been any impact in terms of performance for customers because Fortinet FortiGate is dependent on the architecture, which is totally different. They have security processors, network processors, and they work on a different architecture compared to other products. To be very frank, we have not had any performance issues when deploying SD-WAN and a next-generation firewall together.

Regarding improvements for Fortinet FortiGate, there is always room for improvement in any product. In information technology, things fade away quickly, and new technologies come in. It is how quickly each of these companies adapts to that and brings in more value to the customer.

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate for over fifteen years.

For scaling Fortinet FortiGate, I am not sure about scaling down as we have not had any instances, but scaling up has presented no challenges.

I would rate the Fortinet FortiGate technical support as extremely good so far. I have not had any issues, and I would rate it the same as Cisco.

Positive

One pro for the Fortinet FortiGate compared to Palo Alto, Cisco products, and WatchGuard is that the architecture is different because they use specific processors to handle different types of traffic, both security traffic and routing traffic. They keep enhancing the processors as they improve the capabilities of the product. As for cons, I do not see anything at this point in time.

The initial setup for Fortinet FortiGate is extremely simple. It takes about five minutes to get it up and running. It is that easy. Nothing beyond that.

The deployment process for Fortinet FortiGate is generally very simple. We give the prerequisites to the customer in terms of a number of man links they want to connect and what the LAN subnet and number of subnets are. These initial details are gathered from the customer. Once the appliances are in place, we begin with the contribution to the content management interface. Most of the time, we start with the LAN configuration and the LAN network configuration. Then we move to firewall policies based on the organization's requirements, licensing the product on the cloud, and subscription licenses. In some cases, we configure VPNs and site-to-site VPNs. That is about it, and there are certain features that need to be enabled, which we will enable.

One thing I would definitely state about Fortinet FortiGate is that, in terms of performance, if compared with a product of the same price point, Fortinet FortiGate will outperform it. This way, the customer has a better ROI because they do not have to look at changing it or looking at an upgrade frequently.

I find the pricing setup cost and licensing for Fortinet FortiGate reasonable.

I work with Fortinet FortiGate SD-WAN extensively. My experience in integrating SD-WAN capabilities with Fortinet FortiGate in the network is that it is very easy.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate as a highly mature product. I have been working with them for quite a long time and have multiple implementations across India. I have not come across any instance where I had to replace the product.

My advice for others looking into implementing Fortinet FortiGate is to plan the capacity properly and right-size the product for the specific customer, which is most important. When choosing the wrong model, some run into issues where it is not supporting that procedure, the system going under load, and similar issues. It is primarily important to spend more time on the design and finalize what is required in terms of the appliances.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution 10 out of 10.

I used it as an IT provider, and our main firewall was the Fortinet series FortiGate. Currently, I am just a user on the end user side of the fence.

The Fortinet gear is really easy to use, intuitive, and pretty powerful. It has been great because we haven't had to change it out very much. The operational return on investment has been great as we don't have to keep replacing it.

I really liked the interface because it was extremely user-friendly. Unlike Cisco, where you didn't need to be certified to use the interface effectively. The consistency across all models has also been beneficial as it simplifies learning and usage. They put in a thing called the FortiCookbook, which is very easy to read with real-life scenarios that make networking tasks like joining networks very straightforward.

I just don't like giving products ten out of ten. There's always something new that can be added or fixed.

I have been working with the Fortinet FortiGate overall since 2006, which is quite a few years now.

We haven't had to change it out very much. It has been stable and reliable for us.

I would rate its scalability as a nine out of ten. They scale up really well from smaller models like the FortiGate 40 and 50 to bigger sites with the FortiGate 100 for more throughput - up to enterprise datacenters.

Customer support is quite good. We purchased the 24/7 support, and they usually respond within an hour, even in the middle of the night.

I haven't switched from FortiGate. We still use the Fortinet solution as our firewall.

The initial setup is very straightforward and easy, with wizards helping to configure the device efficiently.

The ROI has been very good because it's operationally efficient, and we haven't needed to replace the equipment frequently.

I would definitely recommend it to other businesses with similar security needs. For smaller businesses with just a couple of computers, the standard ISP-supplied modems are fine.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Fortinet FortiGate is a perimeter firewall which we are using for protecting our network and for defining policies so that only restricted access is given from outside to serve this purpose.

Fortinet FortiGate serves as our perimeter firewall which we utilize for protecting our network and defining policies to ensure only restricted access is given from outside.

A disadvantage exists when we are collecting the logs, as it sometimes becomes very difficult to interpret the logs that are generated from the firewall. The main challenge is finding out which IP is generating what kind of traffic.

We have been using Fortinet FortiGate for more than 10 years. We started with FGT 60, then moved on to 100, then 300, and currently we are using 501E.

It went smoothly and we have found it very useful because we have a redundant internet lease line. It takes care of all our requirements.

We have been informed by Fortinet FortiGate that it has already reached the end of service. It will be supported until next year, so we might procure a new solution. It cannot be scaled, so we will have to replace the box itself.

We have been using Fortinet FortiGate for quite a long time. As mentioned, we have used the last four series, and we found the product to be very stable. We regularly update it when updates are available, and the support has been good so far.

Positive

We are not using any previous solutions.

The system integrator performed the installation and it went smoothly. My team mentioned it is very easy to do the setup. Since it is software-based rather than hardware-based, and our people are very familiar with the software, the implementation proceeded smoothly.

The system integrator performed the installation.

We have received a very good ROI. It has provided significant time savings of almost 20-25%.

The solution is affordable.

My team has indicated that Fortinet FortiGate is more simple and secure compared to alternatives.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.

I work in presales exclusively. I work in the public sector, focusing on presales of architecture. I usually work with enterprise businesses rather than SMB businesses.

Fortinet FortiGate is a simple solution, and the integration with other solutions in the Fortinet portfolio, such as the Security Fabric integration, is competitive. It is simple for deployment, design, and integration with other Fortinet solutions. The SD-WAN capabilities are simple because the license includes this function, making deployment straightforward for Fortinet FortiGate clients.

The impact of the SD-WAN on network performance includes cost efficiency and automation. For performance, the solution is focused on the user experience with optimal path selection. Unified SASE secures remote connections for many use cases. We use AI and machine learning enhanced FortiGuard services and FortiAnalyzer to protect data centers through deep inspection and other functionalities.

Fortinet FortiGate is stable in the data center environment and in its functionality. It is scalable. The price is competitive in the market, especially when integrated with other Fortinet solutions. It has a return on investment without the need for additional licenses for products such as FortiSwitches and FortiAP.

I have 12 years of experience in total with Fortinet FortiGate.

Fortinet FortiGate is stable in the data center environment, and it is stable in its functionality.

The solution is scalable.

Their customer service is great because the TAC service in Latin America is available 24/7 in English and Spanish. I am happy with the service. In Latin America, when I call at night, the response is in English, and during the day, it is in Spanish. The only challenge is the language availability at night, but I rate it a 10.

The setup is simple and easy, with no difficult configuration required for the devices.

Fortinet provides a return on investment. When using FortiSwitches and FortiAP, additional licenses are not required.

I worked with the implementation and presales of Fortinet FortiGate in the past. In the past two years, I haven't worked with deployment, but I have experience with presales in the last year. I am familiar with the SD-WAN capabilities. The solution focuses on user experience because the path selection is optimized for the user or application.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate a 10 out of 10 as it is a great product.

We mainly use the Fortinet FortiGate for perimeter wall protection and internet usage, protecting our network from internet threats and our endpoints, so we've set it at a perimeter level.

The main benefit I have seen from using Fortinet FortiGate is the protection it offers because I can see threats that come through in real-time, and if they are blocked, I can see that. We are able to customize those features, and it's so customizable that I can tweak it to fit our environment; it has really been helpful.

The hardware-assisted DDoS protection in FortiGate has helped us. We are able to monitor traffic in real-time and block it as needed. We have enabled this feature in every policy we created, so it consistently checks for any threats.

What I appreciate about the Fortinet FortiGate is the throughput and the management aspect; it's easy to manage. Unlike what we used before, initially, we had Microsoft Forefront, so moving from that application-based to a firewall which is appliance-based was really helpful. 

I would like to see the licensing aspect improved because there is a feature we were yearning to use, the bandwidth monitoring feature, but it's licensed separately. It's not bundled with the enterprise bundle, and since we normally buy the advanced hardware support annually, we found out that the license is licensed separately. If they could bundle it together, it could really be helpful to us.

We've been using it for the last seven years, and it has been helpful. We are looking forward to upgrading as the one we are having is at the end of life already. We are planning to upgrade to the latest one, and we are looking forward to the features it will offer.

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate for seven years.

I haven't faced any downtimes, crashes, or issues with it; it's very stable.

It is scalable.

My experience with technical support for Fortinet FortiGate has been excellent. I would rate them nine out of ten; they've been really good.

I decided to move from Microsoft to Fortinet FortiGate. Fortinet and Cisco were rated highly worldwide. We compared those two and settled for FortiGate because of its manageability. The Microsoft firewall used to fail frequently, so we didn't want to go to another Microsoft product.

The experience with the initial setup and deployment process of the Fortinet FortiGate was complex, especially in terms of linking users. In our environment, we normally use the feature for Active Directory, and we don't give everyone internet access. We've enabled this feature called SSO linked to our Active Directory, and we create groups there. Setting that up initially was really tricky, so we had to engage the support team to sort us out. However, moving forward, it has been very good.

There are no challenges with updates and upgrades. They are straightforward. We have support from Fortinet and the local partner. 

We had a local partner here helping us with the initial setup.

It has worked and surpassed our expectations. We've really benefited from that.

It's pretty average compared to our environment.

My advice for other users looking into Fortinet FortiGate for their environment is to choose one that will serve them based on their needs, whether that's throughput or the number of users. That's really important to ensure they don't do an overkill, as we initially thought we went for a big firewall, only to realize later that it was the right choice. For our upgrade, we'll just go for a bit higher, but generally, it really serves us. 

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.

We integrate SD-WAN capabilities with Fortinet FortiGate frequently. Integrating SD-WAN is very easy and almost plug and play. In many cases, it's accomplished by using the built-in features. For more advanced SD-WAN configuration, it's very well documented and described in the Fortinet documents, which helps significantly. It works flawlessly most of the time and is very easy to administer.

I haven't worked extensively with Fortinet Unified SASE yet. We will probably work more with it, but since Norway is quite a small country, we don't have the same use cases as America has, which has many branches of their customers. Our big clients are usually what the US refers to as a small business. We have many smaller locations, which have fewer security needs in a SASE way, as of yet. We are starting to see that the thinking about SASE is changing and more companies are actually starting to open up for the idea of having SASE. I still haven't actually implemented it. I've done several labs with Fortinet and workshops with them. I don't have the experience to actually say how it works because I haven't implemented it with a working customer yet.

I have used Fortinet FortiGate's data center solution. In some cases, we use the high-end data center Fortinet FortiGate. We currently don't utilize machine learning in our data center solutions. We have not implemented any AI capabilities in our production environments due to security concerns. We prefer to avoid using newer and potentially untested technologies in critical environments. Our focus is on maintaining security, and we believe in having a hands-on approach to fully understand the processes involved. Although we’re not using AI, we have had a lot of success with FortiGate for data centers. They are very effective, and I personally enjoy using them. One of the advantages of FortiGate for data centers is that it operates exactly the same way as a regular FortiGate. This means you don't have to relearn everything just because you’re using a higher-end product; it's extremely powerful without requiring a significant adjustment. Overall, we appreciate the ease of transitioning to these systems.

We’re not necessarily a bigger part of the development as a partner, but I feel we’re more informed and more welcomed into the process of actually building the Fortinet FortiGate features because we can easily create a feature request and they will actually take it seriously if it’s something that they see a use case for, and they will publish it. I feel we have a great say in what could be improved feature-wise. I also feel they are very attentive when we’re giving them constructive criticism and they actually take it seriously, which not all vendors are. Being that we’re a small country, it speaks volumes that they care what we say because we’re not that big of a deal in the global picture of Fortinet sales, but they still care what we mean and what we say. It’s very nice to feel that.

The best features of Fortinet FortiGate would be the throughput for the value for money in regards to throughput and security. Many companies have security, many companies have throughput, but very few have throughput and security bundled together in the same price range. It's very easy to use compared to competitors, easy to understand, and the training material is readily available and not hidden behind paywalls as much as many competitors have chosen to do. It's easier to get knowledge, easier to get understanding, and it's a wide portfolio of training material, which is easy to access, which is very good for new technicians. It's also very good for the customer if they want to get a deeper understanding of the product they are actually buying, which they often do.

There's not much to improve except getting rid of more bugs earlier in the software versions so you don't have to be one and a half years behind on software because you're afraid of bugs in the newer releases. I do understand why they have feature releases, which are the newer software releases, but when Fortinet themselves say, don't use feature releases if you don't need the features in production environments, I would really prefer to have more stable software releases, so you don't have to be scared when upgrading.

I have worked on and off with Fortinet FortiGate for about seven years. My main focus has been Fortinet FortiGate for around four years now. It was a part of my work day earlier and now it's one of my main responsibilities to develop our Fortinet FortiGate use for customer cases in our company.

Considering the last three years, I would put Fortinet FortiGate at a seven out of ten because there have been many bugs and vulnerabilities, which forces us to do updates very hastily. I do understand that other competitors also have vulnerabilities. I just feel that Fortinet FortiGate has had many vulnerabilities in the last three years, which forces us to do unscheduled downtime for upgrades. Most of the time in large data center installations, you don’t really notice the downtime because it’s high availability, so the other one takes over. We have many customers that don’t have high availability, so it really sends a message that we are using a product that’s maybe not the most secure regarding vulnerabilities, which is unfortunate. Most customers understand it, but it’s still a nuisance to have unscheduled downtime because of a vulnerability.

The scalability of Fortinet FortiGate rates a perfect ten out of ten. Scalability is one of the biggest upsides of it. It doesn’t create a problem if the customer wants to upscale or extend or do anything to scale the solution. Even downscaling works very well.

We're taking the large customers in Norway. In the last eight months, we had the two biggest Fortinet sales in Norway's history, so we're focusing on high-end customers.

Most of the time, vendor support for Fortinet FortiGate rates a ten out of ten. They’re very helpful and sincere. They really try their best to help us with our problems and challenges, and they never back down from wanting to help. Sometimes it’s an eight out of ten because we sometimes get in the same cases as a competitor of ours, not a competitor of Fortinet, and they tend to say that they’re treating us equally, while we know they are not. I know they’re trying their best to be equal, but there are many levels of why it’s hard. Most of the time, it would be a ten out of ten with no issues at all.

Positive

As a company, we've gone from only selling Fortinet FortiGate as an accessory to creating an entire department in our business dedicated to selling Fortinet products in the span of three years.

I find that with the proper experience using Fortinet FortiGate, the deployment process is quite straightforward. However, it does take some time to become familiar with the deployment tools like FortiManager. While FortiManager is highly beneficial, mastering it requires considerable time and effort since it operates differently than FortiGate. Therefore, you need to learn a new product in order to use it effectively. Also, a lot of technicians use that as an excuse to not learn it that well and continue to use Fortinet FortiGate, which kind of eliminates the purpose of FortiManager. The skill requirements for using FortiManager are somewhat high. This perspective is based on our Norwegian segment, where most of our customers have fewer than ten Fortinet FortiGate. In many cases, they likely don't need FortiManager at all.

The initial deployment takes days. There’s tuning and everything, but the initial deployment and getting it up in production is usually completed in days. Most of the time we actually do it in one day. After hours on a weekday, we usually deploy big Fortinet FortiGate for the biggest customers. We usually finish that before the next work day. The initial setup takes days, not weeks. Completing the setup completely is a continual thing, so that’s never really done because we’re fine-tuning everything all the time. It’s not something I can put a time estimate on.

It's easy to maintain, but it does require upkeep, as all security products do. You can't just deploy and forget about it. This is especially true for security systems, since new vulnerabilities and methods of exploitation arise every day. However, this is not unique to Fortinet; it's a reality across the entire industry. Keeping that in mind, maintaining a Fortinet FortiGate is still quite straightforward, and there are no significant issues in doing so.

Implementation is usually done internally with highly trained staff in our department dedicated to Fortinet FortiGate, without extensive use of external consultants.

We're starting a new division, a group of FortiGate and Fortinet specialists. Right now, I'm focused on creating and launching this group. Currently, we have ten experts on board, with four or five who are very familiar with the product. I would categorize five to six of them as high-level experts. The remaining team members are also knowledgeable; they may not all be classified as experts by Fortinet, but I consider them to be. These individuals are well-versed in FortiGate and are capable of handling complete installations for large customers independently. I would estimate that there are about seven of them with this level of expertise.

I don't have many insights on numbers, but we’ve gone from only selling Fortinet FortiGate as an accessory to creating an entire department in our business dedicated to selling Fortinet products in the span of three years. That’s very quick in our business, which signals it’s a very good return on investment. We have a very big focus internally on getting more people on board with Fortinet, even moving people from other vendors to Fortinet to create a better understanding of the entire Fortinet portfolio to be able to take those cases because we see the customers really want Fortinet FortiGate and we want to deliver it. That’s one of the main focuses we have now, getting more people on board.

There are levels to it, but the newer FortiGate models offer a very good value for money. It's not too cheap but also not too expensive. I find it to be fairly priced and almost the standard of what the competitors should offer as well.

Regarding how I compare Fortinet FortiGate to other solutions on the market or other vendors, I feel we’re not necessarily a bigger part of the development as a partner, but I feel we’re more informed and more welcomed into the process of actually building the Fortinet FortiGate features because we can easily create a feature request and they will actually take it seriously if it’s something that they see a use case for, and they will publish it.

I would absolutely recommend Fortinet FortiGate. It makes a complex area easy to understand and easy to administer. It’s a very complex world protecting from the scary outside internet, but Fortinet FortiGate makes it very easy and they do have easy to use guidance built into the Fortinet FortiGate itself that helps you make good choices. You can also use the built-in features to scan your deployment to see if anything is done out of the norm. If you’ve misclicked something and done anything wrong, you would get a message if you just use the tools in the gate. It’s a quick and easy way to deal with something very complex.

My overall rating for Fortinet FortiGate would be a nine out of ten.

We deal with messaging, specifically A2P, P2P, and RCS, a rich communication service.

We use Fortinet FortiGate 500, 600, and 900E, which are mainly used for data center activities.

Fortinet FortiGate has helped us significantly in many ways. Previously, we had multiple data centers interconnected over IPsec tunnels. Each IPsec tunnel was individual, and if that tunnel went down, manual intervention was needed to reroute the traffic to the available path. To avoid such cases, I introduced the SD-WAN concept using ADVPN (auto-discovery VPN). With this solution, I have almost four sites where critical traffic flows, avoiding many impacts. The reason we prefer Fortinet FortiGate SD-WAN is that it enables automatic establishment of the next available VPN if any connectivity goes down, ensuring all hub and spoke connectivity flows through the hub. Using ADVPN, spoke-to-spoke communication is established so that hub bandwidth or hub firewall does not get overloaded.

The best features in Fortinet FortiGate are the SD-WAN, IPsec tunnel, and the SSL VPN. It is very user friendly, and we can integrate multiple underlay links to the firewall. From there, you can manage it, and by using this SD-WAN concept, the device itself will make decisions about which path to take to reach the destination. If there are any issues on the desired path, it will automatically select the best path based on the configuration defined in the SLAs. This feature is particularly impressive. Before introducing SD-WAN, I had perimeter devices such as independent routers where intelligent routing across the underlay links was not possible.

It is very informative and easy to implement. The GUI is very user friendly. Using this solution, we can easily integrate security profiles based on needs and requirements of internal stakeholders to avoid malicious traffic or security-related issues.

When onboarding any Fortinet FortiGate to your production platform with active internet connectivity, the device connects to FortiGuard to fetch all signatures and behavioral patterns based on your security policy. It detects anomalous traffic and packets undergo deep inspection. If there are any anonymous or malicious activities, it immediately blocks them based on defined policy actions and alerts the end user and network administrator via FortiManager or via the cloud.

I don't have any areas for improvement in terms of features. With the introduction of AI/ML, they are performing behavioral pattern checks in terms of security. They have removed the SSL web-based and tunnel-based features, and they are improving in many aspects including the UI. However, throughout this year, their support has been very poor.

We have been using Fortinet FortiGate for more than 10 years.

It's stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

It's scalable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability. 

We have clients with more than 2,000 users.

Their support needs improvement. When raising a service request on the portal, it normally takes two to three days for a response. Even for production issues, they do not initiate contact. The customer has to call the TAC before they schedule calls, which is problematic.

Neutral

The deployment is very easy. People who are familiar with Fortinet FortiGate can implement it through CLI and GUI. It is very user-friendly for deploying complex configurations. There is also a tool called FortiExporter, which can convert all configurations from any OEM to Fortinet FortiGate.

It doesn’t require much maintenance. The only maintenance activity required is firmware updates.

We have approximately 84 devices in production, demonstrating our investment in Fortinet FortiGate and its usefulness in many ways.

We have invested almost 60% to 70% in Fortinet FortiGate as we don't have any other firewall apart from it. In some cases where we had Palo Alto, we removed it and purchased Fortinet FortiGate. We are using Fortinet FortiGate as our production firewalls in our organizations, corporate offices, and all locations.

It's economical.

In terms of cost, features, and security, everything is top-notch. I would recommend everyone to use Fortinet FortiGate instead of purchasing expensive firewalls such as Palo Alto and other OEMs. It is more economical and provides more flexibility and granularity in terms of access.

Fortinet is a market leader. It is phenomenal in terms of price and kind of services.

I would recommend Fortinet FortiGate to others. I would rate it a ten out of ten.