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Aruba Networks Wireless WAN vs Fortinet FortiWLM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Aruba Networks Wireless WAN
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Wireless WAN (5th)
Fortinet FortiWLM
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Wireless LAN (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Networking solutions, they serve different purposes. Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is designed for Wireless WAN and holds a mindshare of 2.4%, up 1.9% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiWLM, on the other hand, focuses on Wireless LAN, holds 2.1% mindshare, down 2.3% since last year.
Wireless WAN
Wireless LAN
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Colly - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 26, 2024
Reasonably priced and offers a good GUI
The product is very scalable. When it comes to some schools, they start with the solution's proof of concept in certain sections. My company aims to improve the throughputs in the schools where the product is installed. If the rest of the School wants the product, it is easy to set up the solution. My company uses Aruba Networks Wireless WAN for schools and warehouses but not in the retail sector. The product offers reliability and uptime twenty-four hours and seven days a week. My company gets notified if the reliability offered by the product goes down. My company also gets notified if we are getting hacked.
Zachary Wheeler - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 5, 2022
Impressive manufacturing quality, highly durable, and very easy to deploy
They need to do more with their marketing. That's what's wrong with them. Nobody knows they do all this other stuff. I love the product. For an enterprise-level system, you never have to explain why you're recommending Fortinet, whereas you might have to do that if you want to use the Ubiquiti Professional or the new Netgear line, but you don't have to explain Fortinet. It has been remarkable to work with. It would be nice if they had some smaller switches or hubs. They should offer two-port, three-port, or four-port devices so that you don't have to buy an eight-port switch, and you don't have to use an unmanaged element, but their product line is very complete, and I can't say enough about it.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I like the way that it integrates with the ClearPass security system on-site."
"The solution is overall a great product. The stability is one of the best aspects of it. It's also useful in helping control multiple access points. You don't need to have a physical controller like other brands."
"From the performance perspective, I'm happy with the solution. Also, from the technical side, it seems to be pretty good."
"The GUI is user-friendly and the dashboards are good."
"I have found the technical support to be one of the most valuable features."
"It integrates with the Aruba portfolio very easily, and it's a vendor-agnostic solution, and that's brilliant."
"I rate the support an eight out of ten since it is good."
"What I like most about Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is seamless integration from an endpoint perspective. Another valuable feature of the product is that it supports certificate-based authentication."
"We're using SD-WAN at all of our locations now, which helps increase and aggregate and lower response time and improve application performance."
"The most valuable features are the roaming profile, the mesh, and the performance."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiWLM is the single management pane and integrated controller inside the firewall."
"Seamless roaming by leveraging Virtual Cell is a major advantage which reduces roam times and issues related to roaming. Code stability has been excellent and the hardware quality is second to none."
"Although there are a few steps, the initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The security is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to connect and broadcast to different networks without using a VLAN or a layer two switch, which allows you to easily create guest networks."
"We can deploy a tunnel-based VLAN and SSID, for something that happens at the last minute, in a matter of minutes, because of the interaction between the FortiGate, the FortiSwitches, and the FortiAPs."
 

Cons

"They have to work on their Aruba Central cloud platform. There are still some glitches such as not showing proper user details. When we removed the AP from the Aruba Central cloud, it showed up as being connected to Aruba Central. They need to fix these issues."
"Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is expensive."
"Aruba Networks Wireless WAN could improve the solution availability. The selection of mounting hardware for the various radios is limited and poor. Often, you have to create and manufacture your own mounting hardware in certain situations."
"The product offers a feature that pinpoints where the devices are to help users find them easily if they want to know where a laptop or tablet is, but it is a feature that needs improvements due to some shortcomings."
"The integration, pricing, and configuration could always be improved upon."
"If they provided more updates that would be ideal."
"The initial setup has a lot of options, which makes it very versatile yet very complicated to install. There should be two modes: a basic mode and then a more advanced mode to help make implementation easier. Most of the time, if it's a small installation, you don't need the complexity. You shouldn't need higher expertise in order to install a couple of access points in a single place."
"Technical support is important to me and I feel that it is something that can be improved."
"Documentation could be improved."
"Technical support is very poor. We are not satisfied with the technical support because there is not any direct person from Fortinet for any troubleshooting, which we expected."
"Licensing is the only area that I think they are below average. They need enterprise licensing, an all-encompassing license to cover all products for a company."
"The interface could certainly do with some improvement. We have other customers with WiFi networks, and they always use Ubiquiti. With Ubiquiti, it's a much better user interface, and it is much easier to configure."
"This solution should be easier to set up in a production environment."
"The pricing for the solution is expensive and can be improved."
"I have used Cisco previously and I don't see any specific differences from Fortinet FortiWLM or other vendors."
"The range needs some improvement and also the stability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution is better than some other vendors."
"That's really subject to the type of environment you're deploying. If you're doing a full controller model with 200 APs, the initial deployment could be 150 grand. Maintaining that or maintaining support for that per year could be something like 10 to 15 grand per year. In the cloud sense, the cloud is by the number of APs. So, everything is readily available."
"The price of Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is less expensive than Ruckus and Cisco."
"The price of this solution is approximately 1,000,000 ESP ($6,750 USD)."
"You will need to pay an annual subscription cost."
"It is more affordable than Cisco."
"The licenses are available as both perpetual or yearly."
"I rate the pricing a seven or eight on a scale of one to ten, where ten is the highest and one is the cheapest."
"The price of Fortinet FortiWLM is reasonable compared to the other vendors. We are using a five-year license."
"Fortinet would do something with their pricing model to attract smaller business users and eliminate the mandatory service contracts."
"If a customer already is a FortiGate customer, the cost to go to the FortiAP is incredibly affordable, because you already have the controller."
"The solution is fairly priced."
"The product is highly expensive. I rate the pricing a ten."
"For indoor access points, there is a one-time cost, upfront, whereas outdoor access points have an annual fee."
"There is a perpetual license required for this solution and the price could be reduced."
"Fortinet FortiWLM's pricing is regular and competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Media Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Do you recommend Aruba Network Wireless WAN?
I recommend Aruba Networks Wireless WAN. I have been using Aruba for approximately a decade. It has a great centralized management system, which means we don’t need wireless LAN controllers at ever...
 

Also Known As

No data available
FortiWLM, FortiAP, Fortinet AP/OAP, Meru Wireless LAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The Pittsburgh Golf Club, Rio Rancho Public Schools, Amwaj Rotana - Jumeirah Beach Residence - Dubai, Trevecca Nazarene University
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Ubiquiti Networks, Ruckus, Cambium Networks and others in Wireless WAN. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.