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Fortinet FortiADC vs Fortinet FortiWeb comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiADC
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (7th)
Fortinet FortiWeb
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Fortinet FortiADC and Fortinet FortiWeb aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Fortinet FortiADC is designed for Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) and holds a mindshare of 9.8%, up 7.4% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiWeb, on the other hand, focuses on Web Application Firewall (WAF), holds 8.5% mindshare, up 7.5% since last year.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Saeid Khanipour Ghobani - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level load balancing and routing protocols but scalability is limited to 200 gigabits
The initial setup and configuration are very easy because the solution includes a simple OS. Initial configuration takes about ten minutes for simple environments. It is important to assess the environment and decide what services, servers, and web applications are needed. The solution can be configured in router mode or one-arm mode which uses source NAT as destination NAT to send traffic to the firewall. One-arm mode is more complex and requires discussions with our engineers. For example, you have a website with Node.js for your programming language, Amazon S3 for your CDN, NGINX for your web server, and you use both React and reCAPTCHA. Our team meets with your developer to learn your website and OS through a multi-step process and then we configure the solution to protect everything.
Kacem CHAMMALI - PeerSpot reviewer
Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb
The xFF, or X-Forwarded-For feature, IP reputation, and protected hostname. We can block access using the IP address, so no one can connect to our web server or website using the real IP. They need to use the FQDN instead. Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb and the option to protect the hostname. All traffic passes through FortiWeb. Machine learning capabilities in FortiWeb: I don't use machine learning all the time. In the initial phase of FortiWeb deployment, we use the learning process to detect the traffic passing through FortiGate to our website.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It helps with defining server load balancing tasks and managing SSL certificates, ensuring the communication flow through the Fortinet gateway."
"Fortinet FortiADC is a good product because each and every piece of content is monitored by it."
"I am impressed with the product's load-balancing feature."
"The solution enhances performance by efficiently balancing the load across multiple backend servers."
"The solution provides high-level services such as availability, redundancy, and load balancing between servers."
"FortiADC provides load-balancing capabilities needed for integration with other Fortinet platforms."
"Simple to use and easy to integrate."
"From a technical perspective, it is the most scalable device from Fortinet."
"It is a good product. We have just blocked everything coming from some geographical locations or certain countries, and it has been working very efficiently when I look at logs, events, and incidents generated from the system. It is generating very good analytic reports about it. This is the most valuable thing about this solution. It has load balancing and almost everything that a web application firewall needs. It is very flexible and easy to learn and configure. It can be easily learned and configured by using the information available on different channels such as YouTube."
"The ease of configuration is valuable. We have Azure WAF, we have OCI WAF, and we also have Cloud Armor for GCP, but their configuration isn't very easy. It's pretty simple in FortiWeb, and we can enable or configure whatever we want."
"The most valuable feature is ease of use."
"Provides good vulnerability scanning, IPS, and geolocalization."
"The reason I recommend this product is because it guarantees that your network will be safe if it is set up properly and you fully utilize most of the functions."
"Both the internal firewall management and the cloud can be managed by a single console."
"The product has a very user-friendly dashboard."
"FortiWeb provides the level of security we need at an excellent price point. It's easy to deploy and operationally efficient."
 

Cons

"The solution's WAF needs an upgrade because it is not as good as FortiWeb, VMware, F5, or Imperva."
"I had a terrible experience with Fortinet support. I only used support once when I bought the solution. I got no response for two days. However, I believe that it's no longer the case. Fortinet solutions have problems when they're launched. For example, we had issues with Fortinet's authenticator when it came out. We also had trouble with FortiNAC in the beginning."
"The user interface could be more friendly and CLI could be more like that of Fortigate."
"When the FortiADC is part of a platform with components like FortiManager and FortiGate, automation and pushing configuration are very inconvenient."
"It would be good if they built in a fully functional web application firewall."
"I will queue all the details clearly on the ticket, including the diagram, log files, and everything else. Once a case is assigned, they ask the same questions again without checking the submitted details."
"The L7 Persistent load-balancing algorithm has not worked for me after having tested it many times with my customer's in-house application. I'd like to suggest that the company make sure that all load-balancing algorithms work properly with most applications, even those that are in-house apps."
"The solution needs to integrate sFlow. sFlow provides better visualization of the bandwidth and types of traffic passing through the device. When used in the traffic path, this information can be really useful."
"Fortinet's technical support is pretty slow."
"We would like to know more about the integration with the hardware or security products, such as Gemalto, because we need to move to that point."
"The upgrade process could be a bit smoother."
"When we look at the incident reports in the dashboard, they are available for a maximum duration of 24 hours. They should provide more time for the analysis and increase the duration of the availability of these reports. Currently, it gives the options for 5 minutes, 1 hour, and 24 hours. It would be excellent if there are more options for a longer time period. It may be configurable, but I don't know how to do it."
"A better load balancer is needed when multiple servers are used for the same website."
"Sometimes, even if you follow the documentation, it doesn't work as expected."
"The reporting could be optimized."
"The memory use in each of the appliances is problematic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is less expensive than F5 or Imperva and is the most reasonably priced option available."
"The product has average pricing. I rate its pricing a five out of ten."
"Our basic license excludes features such as antivirus and IDS. Due to license limitations, some functionalities are not configured."
"Compared to F5, FortiADC pricing is better."
"I believe the price is good. It's fair. There are no extra costs."
"The price is competitive"
"They offer a perpetual license."
"The solution could be more cost-effective."
"All our Fortinet pricing is bundled together for different products, like FortiGate, FortiAnalyzer, and FortiWeb. FortiWeb, by itself, is probably around $2,500 to $3,500."
"Keep a loose margin between your actual bandwidth and the product sizing when using hardware appliances. Only virtual machines are upgradable to larger sizes."
"​The pricing is reasonable."
"The maintenance fee for this product could be improved."
"FortiWeb offers these services at a price that SME customers can afford, but it's also suitable for large enterprises. Still, they need to put in more work to gain a greater share of enterprise business because they face stiff competition in this segment from F5, Cloudflare, and some others."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The license to use Fortinet FortiWeb is approximately $14,000."
"It should be somewhere about 36,000 Euros. That's the cost for three years. It's moderately priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Educational Organization
43%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?
For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.
Do you recommend Fortinet FortiADC?
I recommend Fortinet FortiADC. My experience with Fortinet has been very positive. Our company has been using it for around five years. We mainly use FortiADC for the load balancing of application ...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiADC?
The user interface is very easy and integrates with Sandbox easily.
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
I would rate the licensing cost as seven out of ten, considering it good value for money. The price is affordable and reasonable for the features offered.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
There is room for improvement in the portability on multi-cloud environments. Enhanced DDoS integration to make FortiWeb more unified with other Fortinet products could be beneficial.
 

Also Known As

FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, HAProxy and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC). Updated: March 2025.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.