Fortinet FortiOS Reviews

FortiOS's most valuable feature is a next-generation firewall that can be used as the APT solution in advanced threat protection. The IPS feature is also very good and can sometimes detect threats that are not detectable by the Palo Alto firewall.

The threat time interval lags a little, especially if there's a heavy load on the firewall.

I've been working with FortiOS for over four years.

FortiOS is one of the most stable solutions.

FortiOS is very easy to scale.

Fortinet's technical support is good.

The initial setup was easy and could be done without an integrator or other external assistance.

Compared to other firewalls like Palo Alto, FortiOS is easy to deploy and upgrade - for example, an upgrade of Palo Alto takes at least thirty minutes, but Fortigate can be done in around ten. I would rate FortiOS eight out of ten. 

I am using Fortinet FortiOS for firewall security.

The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiOS network segregation, UTM, and antivirus, freight management protection, such as DDoS. Additionally, the command-line interface(CLI) and the graphical user interface(GUI) are easy to use. The architecture makes sense, and the commands in the CLI are organized well. They have quite a lot of features are easy to use, and are user-friendly. Any novice can use Fortinet FortiOS without an issue.

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS for approximately eight years.

The stability of Fortinet FortiOS initial setup is simple and it is user-friendly. To do the whole process of transferring the firewall configurations and updates took approximately one day. 

We have approximately 2,000 users that use what hardware Fortinet FortiOS manages. All types of verticles are passing through the solution.

I rate the support from Fortinet FortiOS a four out of five.

There is some room for improvement in the support.

Fortinet FortiOS initial setup is simple and it is user-friendly. To do the whole process of transferring the firewall configurations and updates took approximately one day.

We have seen a return on investment because a lot of the features are effective. We do not need to train our engineers to use the solution, it is very easy to use.

The price of Fortinet FortiOS is comparable to other similar solutions on the market. We are on an annual license to use the solution.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS an eight out of ten.

The most important features of Fortinet FortiOS are the ability to block and make white and black lists. Additionally, the filtering of user access to websites is useful. 

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS for approximately five years.

Fortinet FortiOS is stable. However, last month we had an issue with a released patch. We had to receive another update to fix the firewall issue consuming all of the resources. The patches should be tested more before going into circulation.

We have approximately 800 users using the solution.

We were previously using other firewalls, such as Palo Alto. They are similar solutions.

Fortinet FortiOS's initial setup is simple.

We had a three-year license to use Fortinet FortiOS and we are going to renew it this year.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS a nine out of ten.

Fortinet FortiOS provides a full UTM experience, including UTM profiles, firewall rules, remote access, VPN connection, IPSec, and SSL connection.

I have found the most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiOS is the low maintenance.

The central management can improve in Fortinet FortiOS. It is sometimes difficult to manage all the devices.

I wrote my opinion about changes to the SSL-VPN authentication directly on the Fortinet forum, and they said that right now they will not change it. Hopefully, in the future, they will change the SSL-VPN authentication for groups and users.

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS for approximately five years.

The stability of Fortinet FortiOS depends on the operation being done. If we are using the basic functions I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiOS a five out of five. If we are using the advanced functionality I would rate the stability a three out of five. Overall the solution is stable.

The support from Fortinet FortiOS is good. However, there are times they give a five out of five level of support and whereas other times they give a one out of five.

Fortinet FortiOS's installation is easy.

The scalability of Fortinet FortiOS is good. However, central management is intuitive for the end-users. We had a lot of questions about central management, and sometimes they didn't use it and did their firewall management directly on FortiGate instead of using Fortinet FortiOS.

My advice to others is for them to read the instructions on how to use the solution.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS a nine out of ten.

We use Fortinet FortiOS to protect our office, and we have another deployment in production. We have the PCI DSS environment on which we have deployed the Fortinet Firewall.

I am satisfied with Fortinet FortiOS. It's a cool product and has a lot of UTM features. It has application control, web filtering, antivirus, IPS/IDS, DNS filtering, and many things in that firewall. It also has a web application firewall WAF feature. On the feature side, it's a good firewall.

It would be better if AWS instances were available. If I want to upgrade from T2.small to T2.medium, it should be available rather than having a big instance and paying a lot of money for that.

The issue is that we had deployed in AWS Cloud, and we were using a very small instance. Recently we wanted to move in-house and deploy it on the big instance because it was struggling with the RAM. If we use T2.small, we cannot upgrade it to the T2.medium. It has predefined instances in the marketplace with a lot of cost differences.

If I can increase the RAM, I have to choose the T3.large instance. If I'm paying $270 for the small instance, I have to pay more than double the cost for T3.large. It is about $850, and this is not good. So, it would be better if it was cheaper.

I think both AWS and Fortinet should think about that. They should provide it on lower instances as well. If I want to upgrade it from T2.small to T2.medium, it should be available, but it's a problem.

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS since 2019, so more than three years.

Fortinet FortiOS is a stable product.

Fortinet FortiOS is scalable. 

Technical support is good. When I create the ticket, they respond to me, engage the engineer, and support is good. No issue at all.

The initial setup is not too complex; it's simple.

It would be better if it were cheaper. We have the firewall in our office, and the license is expiring in 20 to 25 days. We got a quote for almost 80,000 Pakistani Rupees, which is a little costly.

If I compare Fortinet FortiOS with Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA), it's a cool product. The deployment of ASA is a little bit complex because it's GUI-based, and ASA also has a graphical user interface. But I still think Fortinet is a good firewall compared to ASA because if you want to use the IPS/IDS feature in the ASA, you have to deploy the management center and integrate it with the firewall, which is a little complex.

I recommend this solution to potential users because it has many features, and it's a stable product.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Fortinet FortiOS an eight. 

We use FortiOS for the internet router and firewall for our customers' offices. In some of the smaller offices, there is only one FortiGate, but the hub site may have a pair of firewalls in an HA configuration.

Performance-wise, I think FortiOS is much better than its Juniper counterpart. Based on our actual experience and performance metrics, FortiOS-based products are much better than Juniper. We've experienced some trouble with Juniper in the past and some unstable, unpredictable performance on Juniper devices.

They're using a lot of application-specific IC, so that may be causing some performance issues. And whenever a Fortinet adds new features, it can affect performance. I don't handle implementation, so I have to ask my frontline engineers to implement new features, like software-defined WAN service. But I'm not sure these are stable and acceptable because this project is still in progress. FortiOS and all the other firewall products are adding SD-WAN service, and this kind of service needs a lot of resources from the fabrics, the hardware, and the software. Still, I think we have more confidence deploying this service with FortiOS than using the other brands, like Juniper.

I've been using FortiOS for more than 15 years.

Fortinet provides sufficient support, and their response time is reasonable.

We have a team of around 10 engineers that manage FortiOS-based devices and all other firewall brands. 

FortiOS has a UTM feature, for which you have to buy an annual subscription. Most brands of firewalls will also have such a subscription.

I rate FortiOS at least eight out of 10, and we recommend it to our customers.

I am using Fortinet FortiOS in conjunction with a firewall for our network security.

This solution has helped our organization prevent multiple attacks. It has been beneficial having geographical visibility of what threat is being blocked in real-time.

The main features I find useful are intrusion prevention and web filtering. Additionally, the solution is easy to manage.

The solution could improve the log retention and reports.

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS for approximately eight years.

The solution is stable.

Fortinet FortiOS is scalable.

We have different size organizations using this solution and when determining if it fits the organization's it depends on their use case.

We have been satisfied with the technical support.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I have found Fortinet FortiOS to be a good investment.

The price of Fortinet FortiOS has been reasonable.

We have evaluated other solutions, such as SonicWall, Palo Alto, Cyberoam, and Check Point before choosing Fortinet FortiOS.

I would recommend this solution.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS a nine out of ten.

We are system integrators and we deploy firewalls for our customers. I'm the CTO and we are partners with Fortinet. 

Fortinet is a feature-rich firewall. The ease of use is one of the primary advantages of this product. It has a very simple OS and things are pretty easy to do. Fortinet has a good price point which is one of the reasons it's so popular. It's also a good security product. With Fortinet, the link balancing features are easier to use compared to other firewalls. 

We have had some performance issues, but that seems to be improving. I'd like to see better integrations and more flexibility for different scenario configurations. In comparison to Cisco, the CLI is quite difficult to use. Finally, I believe that the reporting could be enhanced to provide better visibility into the traffic. 

As an additional feature, Fortinet could have XDR embedded into it which would mean more visibility from the reporting side because right now we have to separately install FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer for driver analysis.

We've been using this solution for over five years. 

Fortinet is a pretty stable product. 

Fortinet still has to prove themselves when it comes to higher throughput cases, because there are many places where other brands are placed with higher throughput than Fortinet. When we enable all the features, sometimes the performance migration is more significant compared to Fortinet's claims of what it should be, so that needs to be better matched. 

I think Fortinet needs to improve their support. They are not one of the gold star rating support companies. There are a few big vendors like Cisco, EMC, VMware with gold star support rating. The support is sometimes not up to the mark. 

The initial setup is quite straightforward. 

We generally deploy Fortinet, Cisco and occasionally Palo Alto which is an expensive firewall so less companies use it. We deploy Cisco and Fortinet frequently. When it comes to performance and price, Palo Alto is at the top on both counts. 

I rate the solution seven out of 10. 

We're using it for web filtering, intrusion prevention system (IPS), intrusion detection system (IDS), and VPN. We are also using it as DSCP.

The information security features are the most valuable. 

It would be great if they can push the Microsoft updates through Fortinet OS and provide a centralized patch management system.

They should also include the data loss prevention (DLP) and data leakage prevention features. They could also add network monitoring more effectively.

We have been using Fortinet FortiOS for nearly seven years.

It is very much stable.

It is very scalable. We have a global presence in more than 23 countries. 

We are satisfied with the support. They provide fantastic support. They provide online support, and on priority, they also provide a remote session.

It is extremely easy to set up.

We deployed it ourselves.

This particular solution will be in a firewall. It's not a firewall, but it is a unified threat management (UTM) box. It acts as a firewall, plus it has many features like web filtering, VPN, DSCP, IPS, and IDS. It also has the high availability (HA) feature. You are getting a very good solution with all these features combined into one box.

I would rate Fortinet FortiOS a nine out of ten. We will surely keep using Fortinet FortiOS because it is a great and very secure product. We intend to only go with this product.

We are still using it in our company. We use FortiOS primarily for perimeter security and network segmentation.

In terms of benefits, it’s a standard solution used by many, and our customers and partners widely utilize the VPN features. It’s elementary to work with and implement because it is familiar across different infrastructures.

Sometimes, Fortinet FortiOS changes its CLI (command line interface) with new versions, which leads to internal incompatibility. When this happens, you need to update the configuration to match the new format, as the commands aren’t always the same. This can create some confusion and extra work because, unlike other vendors where the CLI commands remain primarily consistent with updates, Fortinet often changes the syntax between versions.

We have been using Fortinet FortiOS for more than six years.

Fortinet FortiOS is very scalable and can handle many users, depending on your hardware. Expanding it when needed is straightforward.

It’s generally good, but there’s always room for improvement.

Positive

The complexity of implementing and setting up Fortinet FortiOS depends on the customer'srequirements. With a network map of a hundred nodes, it could be either very complex or straightforward. There isn't a standard rule for this; it varies based on the specific design and planning needed. It would be best to have a straightforward design and a good plan before implementing. If the design isn't well done, you might need to make changes during the project, which isn't ideal.The time required for a full implementation of FortiOS can vary
significantly. It might be small but complex or large but straightforward—tthere'sno one-size-fits-
all pattern.

For maintenance, FortiOS requires attention to patches because it handles many functions and can be complex. It's crucial to stay updated on your running version and check for any reported vulnerabilities to avoid potential issues.

The return on investment for FortiOS is good but not exceptional. It’s close to breaking even; not every case justifies the renewal cost.

Regarding the cost, the initial purchase is relatively cheap because it comes bundled. However, the subscription renewals can be quite expensive. The renewal costs are high, even though the initial purchase might include discounts.

Overall, I would rate Fortinet FortiOS an 8 out of 10. It’s a solid product but could improve in areas like update management. Currently, it’s up to the user to check for updates, and Fortinet doesn’t proactively notify you about necessary updates. If they know your version, they should inform you directly about any needed upgrades instead of relying on you to check.