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Darktrace vs Fortinet FortiOS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Darktrace
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (9th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th), AI-Powered Chatbots (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (16th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (12th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (3rd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
Fortinet FortiOS
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. Darktrace is designed for Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and holds a mindshare of 9.3%, down 10.7% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiOS, on the other hand, focuses on Firewalls, holds 0.9% mindshare, down 1.0% since last year.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Luis KiambatA - PeerSpot reviewer
Great autonomous support, offers an easy setup, and has responsive support
The autonomous response is great. It blocks basically everything that is outside the normal, and what's happening 24/7. When we don't have anybody looking, it's great. The visibility that it gives you into any incident is great. You can see everything. I would say these two are the biggest aspects we really appreciate. It is easy to set everything up. The solution is stable. Users can scale the product. Technical support is helpful and responsive.
Saleem Ullah Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up, reliable, and good for traffic management
We are not scaling it right now. We bought it sometime back and we didn't need to scale it. We bought a higher end for our use case, which is still sufficient for another few years. We have 200 or so users of different levels and positions on it. We do not have plans to increase usage. This firewall is quite a capable firewall - even up to 1000 users. Due to that, we didn't find any requirement to expand it or replace it somehow. It has helped us build our software-defined WAN, LAN, et cetera. It is sufficient for us. It gives us Gbps throughput, which is good enough. The firewall itself is 32Gbps capable, which is more than what we need.

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 dashboards, which are cool. They are more user-friendly, in my experience. Its learning capabilities are really good."
"The features that are most valuable to me include detection, response with analytics, and network detection."
"The most valuable features of Darktrace are the tracing of unusual external emails and monitoring the local network."
"The most valuable feature of Darktrace is the AI that detects abnormal network activity."
"I am impressed with the product's ability to give insights into network traffic."
"I find it very good in the way that they show the past events, including the attack history."
"It has helped the organization to detect any malware affecting the machines...The network monitoring and the email monitoring features are very valuable for us."
"The most valuable features are the AI and advanced learning tools that distinguish it from other products."
"FortiOS' most valuable features are management, security, and easy updates with no downtime."
"The pricing is excellent."
"The technical support is very good and the assistance they gave was very good."
"The solution is extremely scalable."
"It efficiently manages large-scale firewall deployments."
"We found the initial setup to be straightforward."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the ease of use and user-friendly interface."
"The solution is very easy to configure and has a good interface, plus it offers more configuration options than other vendors."
 

Cons

"The module can improve so that every time it's more intelligent."
"The solution can improve the reporting."
"Darktrace could improve by being more user-friendly."
"Darktrace requires numerous configurations. It would be beneficial if the configuration could be made simpler."
"One thing I would like is for Darktrace to flag SMB traffic more accurately. Currently, it only flags that SMB traffic has occurred, but it doesn't specify which file was being transferred. This makes it difficult to investigate incidents involving SMB traffic, as we don't have concrete evidence of what was being sent."
"Darktrace needs significant improvement in its notification capabilities."
"The level of tracking within the network from the transmission level up to the machine level can use improvement."
"Its documentation is not up to the mark. At times, I have a lot of trouble finding a solution. Even when I posted questions on the community chats, it took a lot of time for me to get answers. That's something that can be improved. Darktrace can focus on creating a more interactive community. If there are more people from Darktrace to focus on community chats, it would be better."
"The solution's graphic interface could be a bit more responsive and include notations when changes are made."
"I would like to see fewer bugs. If you use the box with its basic features, the solution is straightforward and stable, but you can run into bugs when using newer features or in more complex use cases. They included a DNS filter as a new feature, and I had issues that required raising a ticket with customer support."
"You can enable and disable certain modules in it. However, with disabling, nobody can really tell us if that module is disabled."
"The technical support is good. However, during the holidays they can get a little slow to respond."
"There are some features for FortiGate using FortiOS that can only be enabled via a command line. These aren't very advanced features they have been part of FortiOS for quite some time but they still aren't accessible from the graphical user interface. It makes it a little bit harder than it should be for us to manage the solution. That's my main concern with the user interface. Another concern we have is some elements for the user interface, if they're not properly configured, it could lead to hardware and performance degradation."
"The central management can improve in Fortinet FortiOS. It is sometimes difficult to manage all the devices."
"The pricing of the product is too high."
"The support could be improved, Fortinet's response time is very slow. Setting up the VPN could be made much easier, especially when deployed with Azure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers feel that the price of Darktrace is quite high compared to other solutions."
"Darktrace is pricey, but the price is reasonable for what the solution does, and it's comparable to other products."
"This solution is expensive."
"All of the other modules, such as the licensing modules, are on par. It's one for one."
"Darktrace is expensive. You can pay for the license yearly."
"The price of the solution is not cheap. It is not a one-time purchase, there is a subscription that needs to be paid every one to five years depending on your choice. It is expensive but you can reduce the price by only using the services that you want."
"The pricing is subscription-based and it is high."
"The solution is about $6,000 per quarter."
"The cost is around $40,000."
"The solution is cost effective. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"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."
"A yearly subscription might be around $20,000 to $30,000."
"The licensing for FortiOS is good, with a security license included when we update the main license."
"I am on a two-year contract and I pay annually for Fortinet FortiOS."
"The best solution in the category including the price in Thailand is Fortinet FortiOS."
"It is not cheap; it is also not expensive. It is somewhere in the middle."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is meant for smaller to medium-sized businesses. It is also a good option for organ...
What do you like most about Darktrace?
A very useful feature in Darktrace for real-time threat analysis is the packet inspection that analyzes the packet traffic in real time.
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it kind of depends what you value most. PA is good at app control, web filtering a...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiOS?
The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiOS?
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...
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Wazuh and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Updated: December 2024.
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