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Fortinet FortiGate-VM pros and cons

Vendor: Fortinet

4.2 out of 5

132 reviews
98% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Fortinet FortiGate-VM provides robust network security with IPS, IDS, antivirus, and spam filtering. Although competitively priced and user-friendly, it faces scalability issues fitting for smaller deployments. As a virtual appliance, it offers flexibility but lacks transparency in pricing. Technical support is effective, yet new versions may contain bugs, suggesting a need for thorough testing. Licensing could be more accommodating, and integration with products like Cisco SD-WAN needs enhancement.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Fortinet FortiGate-VM provides excellent network security features such as IPS, antivirus, and UTM, contributing to strong threat protection and comprehensive security management.

It offers high scalability and flexibility, allowing customization and efficient deployment across different environments, making it user-friendly and easy to deploy.

With fast and responsive technical support, Fortinet FortiGate-VM ensures timely resolutions and assistance, enhancing user satisfaction and reliability.

The pricing of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is competitive, providing a cost-effective solution that delivers high performance and security without compromising features.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM's integration capabilities within an environment, combined with strong centralized management and reporting features, make it a versatile choice for various network infrastructures.

CONS

Fortinet FortiGate-VM faces challenges with scalability, particularly in the IPSec Module, and experiences stability issues exacerbated by incorrect sizing or configuration errors.

The pricing structure of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is complex and often considered expensive, lacking transparency in terms of what packages include.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM encounters integration difficulties, particularly with other vendor products such as Cisco SD-WAN and SIEM tools like QRadar and LogRhythm.

Technical support for Fortinet FortiGate-VM requires improvement, with reports of inadequate response times and expertise.

The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is often challenging, with dependency on tools like FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer, complicating deployment.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM Pros review quotes

JJ

IT Security Analyst at a energy/utilities company with 51-200 employees

Nov 16, 2023

I appreciate FortiGate's flexibility, which allows for centralized management through FortiManager.

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PS

Owner / Principal Consultant at Stratus Concept LLC

Jan 19, 2022

I did like the ability to back up the configuration into the cloud, as opposed to having to store the configurations or just downloading them, the backups, to local devices.

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RD

Richard Domikis

Chief Technology Officer at cornerstone defense

Apr 1, 2021

It's a relatively simple product that is easy to use. It's not overly complex.

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Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Free Report: Fortinet FortiGate-VM Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiGate-VM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

William Nogueira

IT Security Specialist at a agriculture with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 11, 2023

The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well.

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reviewer1224273

Manager Information Technology at a media company with 51-200 employees

Jan 29, 2020

FortiGate is a nice and very good product.

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reviewer1641246

Senior Security Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 5, 2021

It's very easy to set up, even for more junior developers.

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EX

Director at Treasure Technology

Jun 15, 2020

While the stability maybe isn't quite to the level of Cisco, it is a very cost-effective solution. It's cheap compared to Cisco.

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TN

Network Administrator Team Lead at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

Feb 10, 2023

I like the visibility and monitoring features because they're easy to use to monitor traffic. Features like geo-blocking and more have AI, and we're currently using all of it. But for now, we're only using geo-blocking, and we're able to block traffic from different countries. I also like that it's highly responsive. VM04 is also very powerful.

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MA

Morad Abdelrahman

Network Engineer at MDS Arabia

Jan 16, 2024

Regarding specific features, I appreciate the option for external selection, where you can choose either to use a default or create a self-description. This simplifies the process compared to other vendors that require creating a test extension profile and then applying it to the installation. With FortiGate, there is a streamlined approach. From the benefits perspective, clients mainly see cost reduction, especially with FortiGate VM Firewall, as it eliminates the need for additional hardware.

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TP

General Manager at Vodafone Idea Ltd.

Feb 7, 2023

The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are its flexibility and scalability. This solution is available as a license, which allows us to activate it based on the specific needs of the customer. This gives us and the customer a great deal of versatility and customization options.

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Fortinet FortiGate-VM Cons review quotes

JJ

IT Security Analyst at a energy/utilities company with 51-200 employees

Nov 16, 2023

Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation.

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PS

Owner / Principal Consultant at Stratus Concept LLC

Jan 19, 2022

Now they do have the ability to pop up a command line, which is nice, however, the fact that you can't do everything within the GUI is probably a problem.

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RD

Richard Domikis

Chief Technology Officer at cornerstone defense

Apr 1, 2021

The product does not have a good graphical interface.

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Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Free Report: Fortinet FortiGate-VM Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiGate-VM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

William Nogueira

IT Security Specialist at a agriculture with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 11, 2023

The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement.

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reviewer1224273

Manager Information Technology at a media company with 51-200 employees

Jan 29, 2020

FortiGate should be more customer friendly and budgeted better.

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reviewer1641246

Senior Security Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 5, 2021

Their offering for MFA isn't the cleanest.

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EX

Director at Treasure Technology

Jun 15, 2020

The stability could be improved. I find Cisco to be more stable than Fortigate, which is I major differentiator between the two.

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TN

Network Administrator Team Lead at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

Feb 10, 2023

It would be better if it could provide you with options before completely blocking anything through the web filter. If you are doing a deep SSL inspection on the site if it says it's expired, it doesn't give you the option to continue at your own risk. I can't say that it's bad, but SSL internally isn't really a requirement. However, its security features can help. Right now, we have people going out and spending on purchasing the SSL certificates for internal sites.

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MA

Morad Abdelrahman

Network Engineer at MDS Arabia

Jan 16, 2024

The product is satisfactory. I haven't identified any features to improve, and based on the number of deployments I've handled with FortiGate-VM, there haven't been any complaints from the customer's side.

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TP

General Manager at Vodafone Idea Ltd.

Feb 7, 2023

There is always room for improvement in any solutions, including Fortinet's FortiGate-VM. Although the solution claims to have a superior throughput compared to other OEMs, upon closer examination and comparison, there is potential for significant improvement in this area. In today's rapidly evolving technology world, it is important to continuously strive for enhancement and development, and I believe Fortinet can make significant strides in this direction for the FortiGate-VM.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 124)

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