Fortinet FortiManager Reviews

I primarily use FortiManager to manage FortiGate firewalls. I started working with Fortinet in 2016, managing configurations to be pushed from FortiManager to firewalls and centralizing configurations to minimize errors.

It has simplified our work by allowing centralized configurations and minimizing errors, providing visibility into configurations, and scheduling configuration deployments.

FortiManager helps automate configuration deployment, allowing us to plan and schedule configurations. It works with proper encrypted protocols, ensuring security. FortiManager's documentation and diagrams are user-friendly, making it easy to understand the configuration process.

FortiManager needs to handle different firewall versions more efficiently. If FortiGate devices have different versions, managing them is challenging. There's also a need to upgrade firewalls or change chassis to adapt to FortiManager's version requirements.

I have used the solution since 2016, which totals approximately nine years of experience.

FortiGate is very stable. Currently, Fortinet's configuration and operation are stable, and I rarely experience problems.

FortiManager is scalable, but after several years, it may become limited due to versioning issues. This requires chassis updates to support newer versions.

In the past, I worked with Alcatel Lucent and had partnerships involving FortiGate.

It is easy to set up on-premises or on a virtual machine. Be cautious about versions to avoid compatibility problems.

The return on investment is high. It saves time, money, and resources, providing visibility into configurations.

FortiGate offers the same features as Palo Alto yet at a more reasonable price. The ROI justifies the investment.

I have experience with FortiAnalyzer and other components but have not explored other firewall solutions like Palo Alto.

I rate the overall solution eight out of ten. 

One should be cautious about hardware and version compatibility. FortiManager is an efficient and cost-effective firewall management solution.

I use this solution to manage my VDOMs and FortiGate policies.

It's very easy to install, and it's easy to discover and communicate with your device. 

We can manage VDOM, backup and restore configurations, and FortiGate. We have ten FortiGate firewalls.

It requires a lot of resources. This is the main challenge.

I've been using this solution for more than ten years.

It's stable. I didn't have any issues with its stability or availability. It's good.

It's scalable. I'd rate it a nine out of ten in terms of scalability.

Fortinet's support is very good. Sometimes, Fortinet's support is better than Cisco's support. They are more talented. I'd rate their support a nine out of ten.

Positive

We had Panorama from Palo Alto. We switched because most of our devices are from Fortinet. FortiManager is also easy to install and set up.

It's very easy to install. This is the main reason why we are using it. It's easy to set up and manage. The only thing I am not happy with is the sizing of the RAM and hardware. The implementation took about two months because we have a big network.

It was implemented in-house. We have a team of three engineers dedicated to installation and maintenance.

If you compare Fortinet and Palo Alto, Fortinet is cheaper, but if you compare Cisco and Fortinet, sometimes Cisco is cheaper because Cisco gives us more discounts because of the size. Cisco isn't cheap, but sometimes, we get a big discount from them. 

Its licensing is monthly. I'd rate it a seven out of ten in terms of pricing.

I'd recommend having a demo of FortiManager before deciding on it. I had a demo to understand how this device will match my profile and my requirements. The demo answered all my questions. 

Overall, I'd rate Fortinet FortiManager a nine out of ten.

We use FortiManager to manage the roles and policies for all of our edge firewalls.

FortiManager enables us to set unified firewall policies from one centralized dashboard,  reducing human error. If you do not have a central dashboard, there's a chance you might set a policy on one firewall and forget to do it for another. 

The SD-WAN solution is difficult to manage on FortiManager because you need to share some configurations on the firewall side. Sometimes you lose all connectivity with the firewall, so it is challenging to apply the default configuration to the SD-WAN solution.

I have used FortiManager for around two years.

I rate FortiManager nine out of 10 for stability. 

I rate FortiManager eight out of 10 for scalability. It's easy to scale, but you may run into some issues. We have around 4,000 users at my company.

I rate Fortinet support six out of 10. The response time could be better. 

Neutral

Deploying FortiManager is easy, but you may need to reconfigure and restart the appliance during the setup if it loses the connection. This happened once, but it has been working fine since then. 

I rate FortiManager eight out of 10 for affordability. All of the features are included with the basic license. It isn't like other solutions where you need to pay for SD-WAN or additional bandwidth. 

I rate Fortinet FortiManager eight out of 10. 

We primarily use the solution for management and analysis. We use it for the management of two or three firewalls and the deployment of policies. 

This is quite a convenient solution. We can manage a number of items. The wireless management is easy. 

The VPN is easy. I have the ability to do the proper configuration of each of the firewalls. 

It is easy to deploy to licenses. 

The initial setup is very simple. 

The product is stable.

It is scalable. 

The functionality is very high.

We have found the pricing reasonable.

I'm still exploring the solution. I have not come across any missing features. 

The documentation could be better. Sometimes information seems lacking, however, maybe I'm not sure where to look for the information I need.

I've been using the solution for about six months now. 

The solution is stable and reliable. I'd rate it ten out of ten. It is extremely reliable with no bugs or glitches. 

It is a scalable solution. I'd rate it eight out of ten. I haven't tried to scale to any great extent.

We have around five users that are administrating the solution at the moment.

We have never dealt with technical support yet.

We did use the Cisco FTD Manager. Fortinet is easy to use and deploy. It's also easy to manage. It's a full-fledged integrated solution, unlike Cisco. Cisco also took longer in terms of committing policies. 

The setup process is simple and straightforward. It is not complex. 

We handled the setup in-house ourselves without any outside help. 

The pricing is pretty good. I'd rate the affordability nine out of ten. Compared to Cisco and Palo Alto, it's reasonable. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's a very good solution. I'm still working on learning the solution. 

We have two branches and find that this solution makes it easy to implement the same configuration in different firewalls. You don't have to log onto any of the equipment with the VPN of the customer. It is the easiest way to manage a network.

This tool is simple to use. It makes management very easy. 

It helps with the underly IT. Things go more smoothly since everything is managed in one place.

The solution is stable.

It can scale well.

The product does help save a lot of time thanks to its efficient management capabilities. 

The price is a bit too high. Aside from the price, I do not have any complaints about the product.

It would be ideal if they could bundle the product with others. Right now, you have all of these Forti products and you have to pay for a license for FortiGate and then have other licenses for the Analyzer and Cloud, for example. Instead of paying separately and having all of these licenses, it would be nice to centralize everything and maybe reduce the price for a bundle.

I've used the solution for around seven months. 

It has good stability. The product is reliable. I'd rate it nine out of ten in terms of reliability. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze.

The scalability is great. I would rate it nine out of ten. It expands easily. 

We did not previously use any different products. 

The implementation is simple. It doesn't require an installation. All the products work on the same cloud. You just have to add it to the equation. 

We have seven engineers working on it to support it. They are available for any maintenance requirements. 

We have seen a bit of ROI in that we save time providing the service to clients. 

The pricing is pretty high.

I'm using the latest version of the solution. 

It's a good solution. I'd suggest others to go ahead and try it without any hesitation. 

I'd rate the product nine out of ten. 

We have 20 Forti Firewalls, including FortiManager. 

We use it for firewall management as we have many objects. In FortiManager, we use one type of object and implementation, the different firewalls.

The most valuable feature is having one object on all networks, which allows for implementation only once. We can have that object on one firewall or many, and we don't have to do everything one by one.

It's easy to set up the solution. 

Stability is good within the product.

It is scalable. 

Technical support is helpful and knowledgeable. 

The central management is great.

It's very transparent. If I  am troubleshooting for people who have a problem connecting to the network, then I can just open FortiManager and see all of the history of the connection. It makes it easy if I have to adjust a configuration.

The rules need to be more flexible. I prefer configuring rules and the VPN on the standalone device, not on the manager.

I've used the solution for three years. 

It's quite stable. It's reliable, and the performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

We have found the product to be scalable. It's not a problem if you want to expand it. 

For example, if you want to add another 10 or 15 firewalls, will it have any problems

We have technical support in my local language. The person who assists us is senior and he's a master of FortiManager. He knows many options for configurations.

Their technical support is very responsive. They are very knowledgeable.

Positive

It's easy to set up the product. It's an easy deployment. If I have a new box, we just have to create a template, and I add a new FortiGate to FortiManager, and implementation becomes only standard configuration via FortiManager. We do any password policy, proxy pack, and other features we implement, we do so through FortiManager. Other updates, for example, a hostname or object, is from FortiManager. However, if I create any specific rule on a specific VPN, we configure that on the device.

I'd rate the solution four out of five in terms of ease of implementation.

We bought FortiManager as an option as we bought maybe five firewalls plus a license to FortiManager. The implementation site gave me only one price, which included both solutions. It was basically a package. It's moderately priced. I'd rate it a three out of five in terms of affordability.

We had average security knowledge about management, and we started with a demo project. It was from Fortigate Support. They gave me two or three months free to try out FortiManager. I'd advise people to take the time to test it and see how it works. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

Our client was at the start of a network automation journey. They were a multi-brand network environment and they started investing in the FortiManager to support their vision of network and security orchestration.

That was their first step in a series of steps to build up their security capabilities or at least to get better visibility on the security topics within their environment. With a different team, they also deployed the Nessus and Lansweeper in the same environment to do automated vulnerability sweeps. Before I left that customer, there were plans of deploying additional Fortinet products - FortiAnalyzer, for example. I left the customer team in February this year, so I'm not updated anymore on what's happening there. 

This was the first time for me to work with the FortiManager or a similar product. It was an interesting learning for me personally, to understand how we could do centralized management of these firewalls. At the same time, while we were deploying the solution, I considered how useful it would be in collaboration with other Fortinet products, for example, the Analyzer, and the FortiSIEM, to really get automated security responses. That's what the vision was.

To have a quicker response to security events, the customer wanted to eventually acquire the capabilities to do automated security responses, just to make it faster to respond to security events. Even without the security orchestration, just the fact that the customer could request the firewall team to configure a job that would roll out a configuration on the firewalls and it could be deployed across all the firewalls through the FortiManager. That was a big improvement compared to deploying the new firewall rule on each firewall sequentially. So being able to roll it out to all the firewalls in the same change, was a big improvement in terms of being able to respond more quickly to any security events.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

Within the management of some features on FortiManager, specifically the management of user objects used for VPN service, FortiManager is quite weak. This was the case as of the time when we deployed them, which was one software cycle ago. I don't know whether that deficiency was fixed, however, we found it was easier to make changes to the VPN user objects, and local user objects. It was much easier to make the changes directly on the firewall than with FortiManager because in FortiManager you have to go through different windows, and even the CLI, in order to make the changes to the user database. It's just a matter of improving the UI, being able to manipulate objects that could be manipulated using the firewall GUI for example. It's just about expanding the features of the product so that whatever you can do on the firewall, you can also do it at the same level of convenience on the FortiManager.

I used the solution for a while. I used it just last year. The project ended in February this year, so it has been several months now since I last touched FortiManager.

The solution was stable. I left that customer last February, so I don't know how it is now. At the point I left, it was stable. 

With regards to scalability, with the on-prem solution, I would say it won't be as scalable as a more virtual solution, either on the cloud or on-prem. With virtualized environments, you can scale easily. With appliances, you do have hard limits in terms of capabilities. Once the number of devices exceeds the limits of the product, then you have no choice but to upgrade to a higher model of FortiManager.

We have two clients who use FortiManager in their environment.

The overall support was okay. We only had issues really when we raised several tickets to help solve the synchronization of the user objects, I felt it took much longer than it should have. It took several weeks before we finally definitively were told it won't work and this is what we need to do. Therefore, it took much longer than I felt it should have taken. For other topics that we raised during the deployment, they were quite helpful, however.

I helped the project team in implementing it. It was the first time that we implemented FortiManager.

The initial setup was straightforward. If you wanted just to do the basic configuration, it's quite straightforward.  

That said, it was straightforward except we had some big issues, and big challenges in our first attempt to put all the devices in the same ADOM as each device had a fair amount of custom firewall rules and custom firewall objects already existing, and each firewall at the branch site was also acting as a local VPN hub. 

We had a lot of local user objects and we discovered quite quickly that when we had a lot of user objects for the same user, but on different firewalls, when we wanted to put them into the same ADOM, it created a huge challenge in synchronizing user objects because these user objects on different firewalls are considered to be different user objects owned by the same physical person. They had the same username and the same authentication credentials, so it created an issue in synchronization.

Eventually, after consulting with Fortinet, we had to redo our design. That was the only hiccup we had in the design during implementation. Had we known about this requirement, had we understood that particular technical constraint earlier, our design from the beginning would have been much different.

The deployment itself took four months. 

We had two technical people who set up the solution, however, neither were full-time. You only really need one full-time person.

The licenses that we purchased as part of the project were for three years. I don't remember the price anymore. I can't recall the monthly license fee. In any case, the licenses were purchased for three-year periods.

I'd rate the product eight out of ten.

Fortinet FortiManager can provide visibility for other Fortinet solutions across the company's environments, such as multiple branch offices. You are able to manage all these devices efficiently.

The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiManager is the ease of manageability and policy-pushing functionality.

Fortinet FortiManager could improve them by adding more portfolio components.

In a future release, it would be beneficial if Fortinet FortiManager could improve by adding more devices able to be managed the solution, including  switching, routing, and wireless,

I have been using Fortinet FortiManager for approximately five years.

The stability is fine but could improve.

I rate the stability of Fortinet FortiManager an eight out of ten.

Fortinet FortiManager is a scalable solution.

I have a considerable number of clients who currently use FortiManager - at present, I can recall more than five. Since effective policy management and centralized upgrades are critical for multi-location management, FortiManager is an essential tool for such purposes. FortiManager is installed in the majority of my clients' locations.

The support of Fortinet FortiManager is good. 

Positive

The initial setup of Fortinet FortiManager is straightforward. We can push out the policies centrally. From a hardware or a component perspective, the implementation is simple.

The initial implementation can be completed in just a few days. However, over the course of a week or a week and a half, we could potentially refine and simplify the process. Nevertheless, it's an ongoing endeavor, as each organization's needs dictate the policies that must be established and maintained.

One person is enough for the deployment of the solution. However, it can depend on the environment. If there are a lot of modifications there might be a need for more people for the deployment. 

Fortinet FortiManager operates on a licensing system that is dependent on the number of devices being managed. Yearly subscription renewal is necessary to continue using the service. Although there is a cost associated with Fortinet FortiManager, its price is undoubtedly justified by the value it provides in terms of the purpose it serves.

Fortinet FortiManager is highly recommended as a crucial component of any comprehensive solution offered to clients. This is especially true for clients operating in multi-location and multi-branch environments, where individually managing, upgrading, and patching each location can be a significant burden. In such scenarios, Fortinet FortiManager can greatly alleviate these challenges and streamlines the management process.

I rate Fortinet FortiManager an eight out of ten.