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Ijeoma Nkemjika - PeerSpot reviewer
Customer Success Manager at Digitank Technology
Reseller
Top 5
Provides good detection against advanced threats because it has a strong machine-learning capability
Pros and Cons
  • "Fortinet FortiSIEM provides good detection against advanced threats."
  • "The solution's interface could be modernized and improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to monitor events and logs. It gives us a very powerful view of what is going on. We can configure it to send notifications of any malicious detection because it is based on an ML (machine learning) algorithm. Aside from using the solution to monitor the logs from different sources, we can also get detections because it has strong machine learning capability.

What is most valuable?

Fortinet FortiSIEM provides good detection against advanced threats.

What needs improvement?

The solution's interface could be modernized and improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Fortinet FortiSIEM for one year.

Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiSIEM
May 2025
Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiSIEM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
853,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate Fortinet FortiSIEM ten out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Around 50 users are using Fortinet FortiSIEM in our organization.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten for scalability.

How was the initial setup?

I rate Fortinet FortiSIEM a nine out of ten for the ease of its initial setup.

What about the implementation team?

If nothing goes wrong, the solution can be deployed in one week.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment with Fortinet FortiSIEM.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Fortinet FortiSIEM is very cost-efficient compared to other SIEM solutions.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten.

What other advice do I have?

The solution is deployed on the cloud in our organization. I'll recommend Fortinet FortiSIEM to users because of its functionalities, irrespective of whether they have a hybrid, on-prem, or cloud deployment. If a company has some compliance and regulations, the solution can fulfill their compliance and regulations within their country or industry.

Overall, I rate Fortinet FortiSIEM a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:

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    senior consutant at HCLSoftware
    Real User
    Top 5
    A stable solution with an awesome IP database
    Pros and Cons
    • "The solution’s IP database is awesome."
    • "When our team tried configuring logs for Microsoft SQL, it did not work."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use the solution to collect logs from critical servers on the customer's infrastructure, like Active Directory, and a few security devices, like firewall, proxy, and antivirus setup. Our team monitors the log. If we get an alert, we take the necessary action in the development environment.

    What is most valuable?

    The solution’s IP database is awesome. If we get malicious IP attacks in the firewall, the solution has a validated database to mark IPs as malicious and generate an alert. We need not use any third-party solution.

    What needs improvement?

    When our team tried configuring logs for Microsoft SQL, it did not work.

    The next release should improve database monitoring. Compared to servers and security devices, working with database and log configuration is not easy.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using the solution for the past four to five months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The solution is stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution is scalable. We initially configured five devices and then could scale it to 20 without any challenges. Ten to fifteen people in the security operation center team use the solution.

    How are customer service and support?

    My team members contacted the support team, and they helped us configure a few things.

    How was the initial setup?

    My team did not face any issues during configuration.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would recommend the solution to others. One of our customers moved from ArcSight to FortiSIEM because they had some support issues. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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      Buyer's Guide
      Fortinet FortiSIEM
      May 2025
      Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiSIEM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
      853,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.
      Niranjan Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
      Principal Solution Architect- Security & Privacy at Sify Technologies
      Real User
      Less costly than other products, but needs more marketing
      Pros and Cons
      • "Fortinet FortiSIEM is less costly than other products and is available 24/7."
      • "Fortinet FortiSIEM is a little out of sight and needs more marketing efforts to be popular in the market."

      What is our primary use case?

      We have an MSSP license and provide services to customers from various verticals like manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and MRD (Manufacturing, Retail & Distribution). We provide the services of Fortinet FortiSIEM to customers who cannot avail of costly on-premise services.

      What is most valuable?

      Fortinet FortiSIEM is less costly than other products and is available 24/7.

      What needs improvement?

      Fortinet FortiSIEM is a little out of sight and needs more marketing efforts to be popular in the market.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      We have been using Fortinet FortiSIEM for almost one and a half years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      The stability of Fortinet FortiSIEM is good.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      Fortinet FortiSIEM has good scalability.

      How are customer service and support?

      I have faced no issues with Fortinet FortiSIEM’s customer support.

      How was the initial setup?

      The deployment of Fortinet FortiSIEM, which included the migration of 30 plus customers and the initial setup of all components, did not take more than a month.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      Fortinet FortiSIEM is cheaper compared to other products.

      What other advice do I have?

      I use the latest version of Fortinet FortiSIEM. We have deployed Fortinet FortiSIEM on VMware.

      Overall, I rate Fortinet FortiSIEM a seven out of ten.

      Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

      Public Cloud

      If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

      Other
      Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:

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        Alain ClovisBapfunya - PeerSpot reviewer
        Cyber Security Specialist at EAST-NB
        Real User
        It integrates well with solutions by the same vendor and other popular third-party vendors
        Pros and Cons
        • "I like FortiSIEM because it integrates natively with our other Fortinet solutions and the Fortinet Fabric, but it also integrates with Cisco, Palo Alto and other security fabrics."
        • "The only drawback is the licensing model. It can get expensive if you want to integrate more solutions."

        What is our primary use case?

        I primarily use FortiSIEM for Rwandan clients in banking and finance. Most of my clients require strictly on-prem solutions because of national data regulations. They are also skeptical of putting their data on the cloud, and the law requires all data to reside at a domestic data center. 

        What is most valuable?

        I like FortiSIEM because it integrates natively with our other Fortinet solutions and the Fortinet Fabric, but it also integrates with Cisco, Palo Alto and other security fabrics. 

        What needs improvement?

        The only drawback is the licensing model. It can get expensive if you want to integrate more solutions.

        What do I think about the stability of the solution?

        I rate FortiSIEM eight out of 10 for stability. 

        What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

        FortiSIEM is highly scalable, but you need to consider the costs. It will be expensive if you want to scale it up. 

        How are customer service and support?

        We rely on Fortinet support, and their response times have room for improvement. They can take a while to respond sometimes. 

        How was the initial setup?

        Setting up FortiSIEM is straightforward because they provide you with a step-by-step guide that covers installation and troubleshooting. The deployment time depends on your setup and what you need to integrate. It can take days or weeks, but we can typically finish in under a week.

        There isn't a single one-size-fits-all implementation because some clients have mixed environments, and we need to develop a custom solution if we are working on multiple fabrics.

        What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

        You can get an annual license for FortiSIEM or a three-year license. It can be expensive if you're pulling data from many sources. If you plan to keep the solution for a while, I recommend choosing a three-year license or longer to save money. 

        What other advice do I have?

        I rate FortiSIEM eight out of 10. My only advice is to understand your environment and learn as much as you can about SIEM before implementing the solution. I started by building open-source solutions from scratch, which gave me a big picture view of how to implement SIEM solutions and work with fabrics. You need to learn the basics about how to set rules and interpret logs. 

        Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer

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          reviewer1051230 - PeerSpot reviewer
          Asst Programmer Data Center at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
          Real User
          Lacks a level of support we'd expect to see, particularly for patching; Threat Hunting is a great feature
          Pros and Cons
          • "The Threat Hunting feature provides complete traffic analysis."
          • "Patching is not great - we're not getting the support we'd expect."

          What is our primary use case?

          Our use case is for collecting logs and monitoring internet traffic through firewalls. We have Fortinet firewalls and Fortinet WAF. I'm a system programmer and we are customers of Fortinet. 

          What is most valuable?

          I like the Threat Hunting feature which provides complete traffic analysis, like file movement and processes. It's a good feature. 

          What needs improvement?

          We have recently faced many issues in terms of support and their turnaround time for giving support as well as their patch level. The patching is one of the significant issues we face with Fortinet SIEM. We're at the enterprise level and we're not getting the support we'd expect. They really need to bring in new features like proper dashboards and alert systems and a real-time alert system which would be beneficial for users.

          For how long have I used the solution?

          I've been using this solution for four years. 

          What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

          Scalability is good; you just add extra licenses. We have 15 admin users and around 10,000 EPS.

          How was the initial setup?

          There are lots of issues with licensing policies like the agentless and agent-based installation. It creates a lot of issues because when we purchase the SIEM, by default, we expect most of the licenses to be in the bundle. But it's not like that. We need to purchase separate licenses for each agent and agentless system. There is also licensing with the EPS. It's quite difficult for proposing and purchasing the solution. We hire Fortinet professional services for deployment. 

          Which other solutions did I evaluate?

          I think that QRadar and RSE are better solutions than SIEM. The interactivity, scalability, and performance are far better than Fortinet. 

          What other advice do I have?

          My needs are not getting met with this solution so I would not recommend it to anyone and rate it four out of 10. 

          Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

          Private Cloud
          Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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            Principal Cloud Architect at Viria Security Oy
            Real User
            Very easy alert setup; a good tool for analysis and for SOC
            Pros and Cons
            • "Easy alert setup which enables different alerts in different categories."
            • "Not very good on non-API features, lacks that functionality."

            What is our primary use case?

            We use Fortinet FortiSIEM for storage of security information and analysis, as well as for alerts from the 50-60 services that we have. All of our webs are linked to FortiSIEM. It's a form of SOC tool and data is used for identifying trends and what's happening around the networks. We're customers and end-to-end users when it comes to FortiSIEM, but for other Fortinet products we're either partners or a value-added reseller. I'm the principal cloud architect in our company. 

            What is most valuable?

            I think the most valuable feature is the easy alert setup, it's very important. It's quite simple to use and enables us to have different alerts in different categories. SOC is able to see all the red alerts, it's impossible to miss them. It's a good tool for analysis and for SOC. We upload all network detection tools that support FortiSIEM and can investigate for different alerts or vulnerabilities. A great feature is that you can use Python scripting for data stack. It's great for devices that don't generate a genuine local source of information. 

            What needs improvement?

            This solution is not very good on non-API features and lacks that functionality. We've raised multiple tickets to Fortinet about this and they are pending there. The product development hasn't been fast enough to ensure it can function on the cloud. It's excellent when you download and get the security locks but in areas like Microsoft 365, you have to fetch the security access using APIs and they don't update quickly enough. If Microsoft announces a new service today, we have to wait at least six months before FortiSIEM start supporting it. It's crucial that the API support is updated, for now FortiSIEM lacks functionality compared to its competitors.

            For how long have I used the solution?


            What do I think about the stability of the solution?

            It's a very reliable solution, we haven't had any outages during the last year and we're using it a lot. We have over 40 people using it 24/7.

            What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

            This solution is not very scalable if you have a lot of security events; it's focused more around smaller companies. We've become too big for it with 48,000 devices which we are monitoring and we had to create another instance and split things. It's not perfect because it requires purchase of a second license. We use the solution all the time. 

            How are customer service and technical support?

            Fortinet support is very fast. If I need to ask something, I'll get a response within a couple of hours. 

            How was the initial setup?

            The initial setup was quite straightforward. They have good documentation and once we deployed, there were only a couple of times where we needed a little bit of support because there were delayed reactions. 

            What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

            The licensing is on an annual basis and calculated on the set up number. Of course, the licensing cost could be less but it's not too bad and is quite nicely priced. With Centreon or Splunk you just pay for the use but if we compare the cost of FortiSIEM with Splunk, it's less than half the price.

            Which other solutions did I evaluate?

            We took a look at IBM QRadar, which was the main competitor, and we also looked at Splunk. Splunk lost out quickly because of the cost and we ended up going with Fortinet because it was much easier to manage and implement things than QRadar and it has the Python scripting.

            What other advice do I have?

            If your use case suits this solution, I would recommend it. If you are a professional operator and you're into pre-investing, and not just paying per use, then FortiSIEM is one of the best options you can have.

            I rate this product an eight out of 10. 

            Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

            On-premises
            Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner

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              senior consutant at HCLSoftware
              Real User
              Top 5
              An authentic IP database that marks malicious IP attacks against the firewall and generates an alert for the same
              Pros and Cons
              • "Fortinet FortiSIEM has its own validated and authentic IP database that marks malicious IP attacks against the firewall and generates an alert for the same."
              • "Our team tried configuring MS SQL database logs with Fortinet FortiSIEM, but it did not work for some time."

              What is our primary use case?

              We use the Fortinet FortiSIEM tool for log monitoring and alert generation. We use Fortinet FortiSIEM to collect logs from the critical servers of the customer's infrastructure, like active directory servers and file servers. We also collect logs from a few security devices like the firewall, the proxy, and the antivirus setup. Based on that, our team checks the logs, and we get an alert to take action on the development.

              What is most valuable?

              Fortinet FortiSIEM has its own validated and authentic IP database that marks malicious IP attacks against the firewall and generates an alert for the same.

              What needs improvement?

              Our team tried configuring MS SQL database logs with Fortinet FortiSIEM, but it did not work for some time.

              Fortinet FortiSIEM's database monitoring could be made easier, like the servers and the security devices.

              For how long have I used the solution?

              I have been using Fortinet FortiSIEM for the past four to five months.

              What do I think about the stability of the solution?

              Fortinet FortiSIEM is a stable product.

              What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

              Fortinet FortiSIEM is a scalable product. We initially configured five devices, and then we could scale it to twenty. There could be some issues if the device count goes up to hundreds and thousands. Around 10 to 15 engineers use Fortinet FortiSIEM in our company.

              What other advice do I have?

              Overall, I rate Fortinet FortiSIEM an eight out of ten.

              Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

              On-premises
              Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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                Solution Consultant at 1&1 Versatel Deutschland GmbH
                Real User
                It's a good tool for making security processes transparent
                Pros and Cons
                • "FortiSIEM is a great tool for making security processes transparent."

                  What is our primary use case?

                  FortiSIEM combines information from operations and integrates it into management.  

                  What is most valuable?

                  FortiSIEM is a great tool for making security processes transparent. 

                  What do I think about the stability of the solution?

                  I rate FortiSIEM 10 out of 10 for stability. 

                  What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

                  I rate FortiSIEM nine out of 10 for scalability.

                  How was the initial setup?

                  Setting up FortiSIEM is straightforward.  I prefer this product in the Fortinet environment. It's easy to install and configure.  

                  What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

                  FortiSIEM might be considered expensive in some markets. We have an international customer base, and it's affordable for a lot of them. 

                  However, customers in some markets cannot build a suitable use case around it. But it's not because of the product. It often depends on customers' operation organization. 

                  You also need some operation and security knowledge to make a professional management decision. 

                  A company needs to work with the consultants and distributors who are delivering the environment and necessary support.

                  What other advice do I have?

                  I rate Fortinet FortiSIEM nine out of 10. 

                  Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner

                  PeerSpot user
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                    Buyer's Guide
                    Download our free Fortinet FortiSIEM Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
                    Updated: May 2025
                    Buyer's Guide
                    Download our free Fortinet FortiSIEM Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
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