We compared Fortinet FortiGate and VMWare SD-WAN based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate is highly regarded for its ease of use, extensive features, and affordability. However, it could benefit from enhancements in SSL VPN, multi-factor authentication, and filtering. VMware SD-WAN is praised for its efficient multipath optimization and robust cloud web security, but it needs improvements in customization, Broadcom routing support, firewall capabilities, and inter-cloud connectivity. The customer service and support for both products have received varied feedback.
"The initial installation is very straightforward."
"The solution is scalable."
"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The cloud gateway is a very good feature for scaling purposes, etc."
"Anyone can migrate over to VeloCloud, it's that simple, just plug in the necessary cables and it's done."
"The most valuable feature for one of our customers is the ability to stage cloud workloads from the local network."
"I love the solution because of its many features like cluster and cloud VPN."
"I have found the dynamic multipoint protocol(DNPO) most useful because it can tell you which is the best circuit to use for different types of traffic."
"Initially, we had a scattered environment, but VMware SD-WAN helped us achieve centralization, which was beneficial."
"The most valuable feature is the Dynamic Multipath Optimization (DMPO), which allows the customer to maintain and monitor their link quality in real-time."
"The product is consistent and is one of the best despite the competition."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"In the next release, I would like to see the interface simplified to be more user-friendly."
"The user interface could be improved to make it less confusing and easier to set up."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."
"There are a number of customers we have that require a fully mashed SD-WAN on VeloCloud that is not available currently."
"Its integration with the security systems would be a nice implementation. They can also consider using a management platform for both network and security operations. This would be a great improvement."
"Reports could be simplified."
"If you don't have an Internet connection, you can’t control it."
"The initial setup could be simplified for beginners."
"I would like to improve the tool’s cloud security features. I would like to see high-throughput hardware requests in the product’s next release. The solution should also support multiple gigs which could be around ten."
"They need more gateways"
"I would like for them to upgrade to 5G integration. Our customers have 4G now and the connectivity isn't good. It should be much faster."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 306 reviews while VMware SD-WAN is ranked 4th in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 50 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while VMware SD-WAN is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware SD-WAN writes "To fully utilize cloud vendors' hardware networking, Microsoft and VMware support everything". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas VMware SD-WAN is most compared with Cisco SD-WAN, Meraki SD-WAN, Cato SASE Cloud Platform, Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform and Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. VMware SD-WAN report.
See our list of best Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions vendors and best WAN Edge vendors.
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One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. It is a very stable, reliable, and consistent solution. We like that we can manage the entire network from one interface; there is no going back and forth as some other solutions force you to do. Fortinet Fortigate firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system; there is no need for additional devices. This solution offers great built-in features for web filtering and the VPN is an extremely valuable feature.
The reporting with Fortinet Fortigate needs some degree of customization so that more usable reports can be created. If you want extra features, you need to buy extra licenses, which can get expensive quickly. We would have liked to get more features with the general license. We would also like to see better cloud management.
We like VMware SD-WAN for our clients that want a very easy-to-use solution. VMware SD-WAN offers simple troubleshooting and great cybersecurity. One amazing feature it has is DMPO (Dynamic MultiPath Optimization), which helps ensure data integrity. VMware SD-WAN comes loaded with several defined applications so that you don’t have to create them yourself - this is a huge time-saver.
Reporting and security with VMware SD-WAN could be improved, though. There really needs to be some failover capabilities, especially with their own devices. We would also like to see a mobile application. Many other solutions are already offering this as a basic feature. It would help make this solution easier to manage.
Conclusion
We felt the biggest difference between Fortinet Fortigate and VMware SD-WAN was the ease of use. The zero-touch provisioning offered with VMware SD-WAN makes it very easy to set up and the DMPO makes it easy to manage. We also felt the SD-WAN on VMware SD-WAN was better.