Fortinet FortiWeb Reviews

We have deployed a couple of projects for our customers to protect their online e-commerce systems. They have web-based applications for online ordering, for example, for online ordering from a hypermarket. It seems to be a very good solution. We have replaced the existing Barracuda devices of a customer. We deal with the latest version of Fortinet FortiWeb.

The customers are very happy with this solution because of two things. First, the IPS integration with a web application is very tightly done on Fortinet. Second, the ease of use is there. The management interface or the GUI interface is very easy to use, configure, and manage. These are the two main valuable features.

It supports integration with other Fortinet products. It also integrates very well with the firewall and sandboxing technology. They already have enough integration with different technologies. They have got a complete tech intelligence view of the whole product. 

They could improve their support a little bit for faster response time. 

I have been using Fortinet FortiWeb for two years.

It is very stable.

It is very scalable. The web application firewall is protecting the web servers in an organization from outside to inside. It probably has more than 1,000 users.

Their technical support needs a little bit of improvement in terms of faster response time.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It took about 30 to 40 minutes for one web application for default settings. If you want to go with complex settings, then it would probably take three to four days to understand the application backend and everything else.

We used a system integrator. One Admin is more than enough to deploy and maintain it. It is very stable and easy to configure and deploy.

Its subscription prices are cheaper, and it is not very expensive. From a price perspective, Fortinet is a very well-known security vendor.

Subscriptions are very simple. They have a couple of licenses on an appliance, and that's it. The cost is not that big. One license is 40K, which they give with all the products. Another one includes the subscriptions for threat prevention, IPS, sandboxing, etc, which is more than enough.

Fortinet FortiWeb is rated as one of the top WAF devices in many of the independent research reports. Our customers find Fortinet FortiWeb much better than other solutions. 

We plan to continue using this solution if an opportunity is there. It depends on the customer's requirements. If a customer is going for an online e-commerce website, we would always recommend going with Fortinet FortiWeb. 

I would rate Fortinet FortiWeb an eight out of ten.

Normally I deal with on-premises installations. The firewalls are always on-prem for government departments. In a recent case, I was looking at a cloud solution because it was what the client preferred. So it was the Fortinet rules applied to an AWS solution. I was looking at the architecture around becoming an IRAP (Information Security Registered Assessors Program) certified program and I was looking at the AWS firewalls around how it would be able to comply with the ISM (International Safety Management) standards.  

For me personally, the most valuable thing is that I like the fact that it is standardized so both internal firewall management and the cloud can be managed by the same company. Communication between the two works well and it can be a benefit. We can keep a single console to manage both.  

User administrative controls could be a little bit better. I guess that would be the main thing. The usability within Fortinet could be a little bit easier on the users. But it is what it is.  

The thing that was more difficult was not the tool itself but dealing with the logistics of the compliance issues. I was applying a standard set of rules to an AWS firewall. It served a purpose. The complex part of the solution was more of a compliance issue.  

We have been using Fortinet FortiWeb probably for over a year-and-a-half. Closer to two years.  

At this point in time, scalability seems to be fine. I mean, we are talking processing requests from all over Australia. It seems to be keeping up quite well. My impression of it at this stage is that it is very scalable. It is quite well suited for data management.  

I think judging our experience with technical support is a little bit unfair because I know all the local support people. I do go into the help desk when I have to, but I do know most of the teachers or technical support staff. I would rate them as being very responsive to customers. I have had no issues. If I need something I can get it answered within the hour. It is quite good.  

It was quite easy to do the initial setup and apply basic rules. Administratively, keeping an AWS firewall and applying the Fortinet rules made it quite simple for the difficulty level of this particular requirement.  

I think that ForiWeb is expensive for what they are offering. At the end of the day, when you sell a suite, compliance within the suite is easy to maintain. That is the good part. It is an expensive suite and it is an expensive solution, but it is a manageable one for an enterprise. It should just be cheaper for what they are offering in comparison to other tools on the market.  

My advice to people would be to evaluate the marketplace against your requirements and choose appropriately. Fortinet does operate at the enterprise level. It is listed on the Australian standard and it does carry Australia's approval for common criteria. So it does address the requirements needed for security for the assessments. Not every product can.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate this Fortinet solution as a seven-out-of-ten because of user administrative controls, usability, and price.  

Fortinet FortiWeb is known for its web application firewalls. We are using it for preventing and detecting layer 7 attacks such as SQL injection.

We have several web applications in our organization and we use this solution to protect them against attacks.

It's stable and works efficiently against OWASP Top 10 attacks.

It's good at checking IP reputation and it's capable of detecting Layer 7 DDoS attacks.

Overall, it has many features.

The Layer 7 DDoS attacks need improvement, it could be better. When you compare it with the F5 solution, FortiWeb is weak in detecting the Layer 7 DDoS attacks. At times, it generates several false positives and there should be fewer.

In the next release, I would like to see better DDoS protection. It's an essential feature that should be included.

I have been using Fortinet FortiWeb for more than five years.

We are using the 4000D model.

It's a stable solution and we run it 24/7. In the past five years, we have had four cases where there were some inconsistencies with the firmware. There are times where we experience crashes because of issues with the firmware.

It's not easy to scale this solution. It has a determined throughput and if your throughput is more than it should be then you have to use another solution or purchase another FortiWeb model.

We have less than 10 people using this solution on a daily basis.

We are not able to use international support because of US sanctions. We use a consultant to help us troubleshoot.

Previously with another company, we used ModSecurity, which is an open-source solution. FortiWeb is better.

If I compare with F5 solutions, I would suggest F5.

The initial setup was not easy but not exactly complex.

We maintain the system ourselves.

We completed the initial setup ourselves and we had a consultant help us with some of the features. It was a hybrid implementation.

It's an expensive solution, although there are no additional costs.

In my opinion, F5 is the best solution in the world, whereas Fortinet FortiWeb would be second.

I have heard that Barracuda is a good solution, but I have not worked with it. In my experience, F5 is the better solution.

I would rate Fortinet FortiWeb a seven out of ten.

I initially deployed it for my company, but now I administrate it for a client.

We use it to secure VMs and applications in Azure. It protects against DDoS attacks.

It's very user-friendly.

There is room for improvement in the support. The response time could be faster. Plus, they ask for a lot of information. It is not easy to get support. 

In future releases, I would like to see added antivirus features that provide user-based activity indicators. For example, if a user downloads a large number of files or connects frequently, the WAF could flag this activity for investigation.

I have been using it for three months now. 

It is a stable solution. 

It is a scalable product. 

For some initial issues. It's good, but not during the first year. FortiWeb could improve response time and first-level support clarity.

Positive

The first implementation with an expert took two hours. My solo attempt took three weeks.

Take time to test it thoroughly. Consider buying an existing solution if needed.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use FortiWeb for protecting web applications.

The product has a very user-friendly dashboard.

The software's support services could be better compared to Sophos.

The product's scalability could be better compared to Sophos.

It is challenging to communicate with the FortiWeb's support team.

We use Sophos as well.

FortiWeb's configuration process is more difficult than Sophos. I rate the process a one out of ten.

The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a ten out of ten.

I rate FortiWeb a five out of ten.

It helps us prevent attacks on servers, and we deploy it on-premises.

There are many valuable features. It has machine learning, artificial intelligence, behaviour detection, and many other features capable of detecting web attacks.

The initial setup could be simplified.

We have been using the solution for approximately ten years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

We do not have experience with customer service and support.

The initial setup is complex and takes between three to six months.

We implemented the solution in-house.

Fortinet FortiWeb has some types of licenses, and the main licenses refer to updating a signature and a pattern.

We evaluated machine learning and the main signatures about known attack signatures.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten, and I recommend it for every organization with web services.

We use this product for load balancing and for their firewall. We are partners with Fortinet. 

I like that the GUI makes it easy to scale in terms of learning and utilization.
We chose this solution based on the online training and materials they offered. It's easily available on the web. 

There are specific functionalities that I'd like to see improve and that would basically bring it into line with what is being offered by solutions such as F5 and Imperva.

I've been using this solution for five years. 

This is a stable solution. 

The initial setup is straightforward, the deployment took us about two hours. We currently have 16 users. 

I rate this solution seven out of 10. 

The support services, performance, and pricing are all valuable features. The performance is excellent.

The initial setup process could be improved.

I've been working with this solution for two years.

It is deployed both on-premises and on the cloud.

In general, we have small projects, so the scalability has been fine for our clients.

As for users, we have, in general, 50 to 100 clients.

My colleagues at the network operations center have contacted technical support. I would rate technical support at eight on a scale from one to ten.

Positive

We sell and work with several options, but we feel comfortable with Fortinet FortiWeb because the performance and feedback are great.

In general, the initial setup is easy, and I would rate it at four out of five.

I deployed it myself.

There's only one payment for the duration of the license. On a scale from one to five, I would rate pricing at four.

I have not encountered any additional costs on my projects involving Fortinet FortiWeb.

I sell or presell, and in general, the feedback is great. In fact, I think that Fortinet FortiWeb is number one in terms of performance.

The most valuable features in Fortinet FortiWeb are sandboxing and threat prevention. 

In my experience, Fortinet FortiWeb could improve the intelligent features to acknowledge whether any threat or incident that's running happened. Then give us the ability to escalate it to layer 2 or layer 3 in the network operations.

I have been using Fortinet FortiWeb for approximately two years.

I have found Fortinet FortiWeb to be stable.

The solution is scalable, but it can only scale at a medium level.

We use the technical support from the system integration, not directly with Fortinet FortiWeb. It takes them a lot of time to solve an issue when we submit a complaint.

in Indonesia, we need more knowledgeable local support.

The initial implementation is simple and the configuration is straightforward.

The price of Fortinet FortiWeb is reasonable. This is one of the key factors of why we use this solution.

I rate Fortinet FortiWeb an eight out of ten.

We mainly use it for protection. OS scanning and load balancing are two of its main use cases.

My team is most probably working with its latest version. In terms of the deployment, lately, it has been on the cloud because the end-user-facing web applications are usually live on the cloud.

Banks have to be compliant with PCI and other things, and FortiWeb is absolutely amazing in terms of providing these reports. Otherwise, they will have to spend a lot of time on them.

The compliance piece is the best feature. Load balancing is also valuable, which is something that all web application firewalls do. Another valuable feature is high availability. You can scale it very well. Load balancing and high availability are the two reasons why we picked it for a couple of banks.

From the feature perspective, it is pretty rich. The automation piece can be improved. Although they say it can be automated very well, there is still manual work. Its usability should be improved in terms of automation because we want to build an infrastructure with code, but you can't do that easily with this solution. If they can give us APIs in the firewalls that we can tap into, it would be perfect. 

I would also like it to scale automatically based on the traffic.

I have been using this solution for about six years.

I've never seen any issues, but when you turn on all the features or every single scanning, that's when it slows down a bit.

It is scalable, but it is a roundabout way of automated scaling. It is not truly automated scaling. In general, when the size is okay, scaling is not a problem. I would like it to scale automatically based on the traffic, but that doesn't happen because automation is not there.

I haven't seen any big issues with performance. We ran 20,000 connections through it, and it was okay. When you deploy it in the cloud, you can increase the size of the VM, and with extra licensing, it is fine performance-wise.

It is suitable for medium and large customers. My team has deployed at least 500 of these in the last few years. In general, it's okay. We don't have any issue with it.

They have been pretty good, honest, and upfront. It all comes down to expectations when you buy these things.

I know the country manager very well. He is my friend for Fortinet. They are very good in terms of support. 

When you buy these things from a marketplace like Amazon or AWS, the support is not as good as it can be because the first line of support is the cloud provider, and then there is the vendor. So, our preference usually is to go directly to the vendor because they know more about it.

One of the best things about Azure Firewall is the automation. There is a huge difference. The second thing is pricing. 

With FortiWeb, when you want to buy HA, you need to start designing high availability across different regions. With Azure, it comes by default.

It depends on the customer and the use case. Usually, it's straightforward, but as you add more applications, it can become more and more complex.

The deployment duration varies. Usually, designing, building, and putting in production take about four weeks, but it also depends on the application type.

It requires maintenance all the time. Everything requires maintenance. Usually, we build it and operationalize it, and we then hand it over to the customer.

It keeps changing, but it's based on the size of the VM you buy and also the traffic throughput you want from it, whereas what we have on Azure is just the traffic throughput. You can also pay on a monthly basis from Azure. During each part of the project, it's okay to get Azure-based licensing or AWS-based licensing for FortiWeb, but over time, you would want to go with the perpetual license. You should go to Fortinet and buy the license from them. So, there is a two-step process there.

I would advise getting the right engineer. You need someone who is a specialist, and that's very important.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.