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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 9.6%, up 7.3% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiWeb, on the other hand, focuses on Web Application Firewall (WAF), holds 8.4% mindshare, up 7.4% 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

"Although FortiADC has multiple features that I like, the global DNS is the most helpful. It is primarily useful for customers with huge environments and at least two data centers. FortiADC can act as your DNS server. It can check which data center has the lowest latency, and route traffic to that one. It's an intelligent DNS."
"Because ADC is the intermediary between the servers and the end-user application, it gives thorough information about the traffic, what the problem is."
"Content caching and content compression are good features."
"Simple to use and easy to integrate."
"The main feature that we use is GSLB (Global Server Load Balancing). GSLB makes the customer's network more reliable by scaling applications across multiple datacenters. GSLB as a disaster recovery solution can direct traffic based on site availability."
"Fortinet FortiADC is a good product because each and every piece of content is monitored by it."
"The solution provides high-level services such as availability, redundancy, and load balancing between servers."
"The user interface is very easy and integrates with Sandbox easily."
"If I need something from tech support, I can get it answered within the hour."
"I like FortiWeb's usability and ease of configuration. It's simple to configure rules and exceptions inside the attack log. We block everything by default. If something isn't working, we ask the system admin to adjust the template and add exceptions."
"FortiGate is a stable product."
"FortiWeb offers machine learning in the latest product. This fixed many problems. There are no false negatives."
"Also, if you serve files or you accept files with your server, Fortiweb has built-in antivirus. The Fortinet product family also provides good IP intelligence (botnet C&C, etc.)."
"Fortinet FortiWeb has improved my organization by protecting our customer's web infrastructure environment."
"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."
"FortiWeb provides the level of security we need at an excellent price point. It's easy to deploy and operationally efficient."
 

Cons

"Though FortiADC is useful, I'd appreciate more user-friendly features and in-depth insights into network activity, like detailed logs and AI-driven feedback for optimization."
"If I need design help, they do not assist; they say it is a design issue they cannot support, and I must approach the system integrator."
"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."
"FortiADC is complex to configure so the interface should be improved."
"When the FortiADC is part of a platform with components like FortiManager and FortiGate, automation and pushing configuration are very inconvenient."
"There is a mismatch between the number of features they are offering and the device capacity on how much it can handle."
"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."
"The tool's WAF or web application firewall area has certain aspects that can be improved."
"Fortinet's technical support is pretty slow."
"The memory use in each of the appliances is problematic."
"The solution could offer more integration opportunities."
"Describing security rules should be improved. It's tricky to define new feature tools when you want to describe an attack pattern and want to block it."
"Though the reporting is a nice aspect associated with the tool, I feel that it has certain shortcomings and can be made better."
"The solution is not very scalable, to scale up would require another deployment with a new appliance and a change to the network."
"FortiWeb needs to have support for the newest technology being used in web applications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe the price is good. It's fair. There are no extra costs."
"The price is competitive"
"The solution is less expensive than F5 or Imperva and is the most reasonably priced option available."
"The product has affordable pricing."
"Our basic license excludes features such as antivirus and IDS. Due to license limitations, some functionalities are not configured."
"The solution's pricing is an issue and should be improved."
"Compared to F5, FortiADC pricing is better."
"They offer a perpetual license."
"Due to the situation in Iran with the sanctions, the price of this solution is very expensive."
"The solution is a bit expensive when compared to other products."
"The pricing is average; the product is neither particularly expensive nor affordable."
"​It really pays off to buy licences for multiple years​."
"There are no licensing costs."
"FortiWeb is more expensive than some competing products."
"The pricing is pretty good. We do pass a lot of traffic through our API servers. Something like 100 gigs of web traffic is a fair amount for reduced JSON API calls, but the cost is $50. For that peace of mind, we have thousands and thousands of customers that are protected by that $50, so it's a no-brainer."
"The solution is cheaper compared with other solutions. It has a yearly license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Educational Organization
43%
Computer Software Company
9%
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
 

Learn More

 

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: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.