Fortinet FortiADC vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

Fortinet FortiADC vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

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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

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

7th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Azure Application...

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

4th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiADC is 9.6%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is 8.5%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

Saeid Khanipour Ghobani

IT Manager at Technology Evaluation Center

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.

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Sooryanarayan Hegde

Technical Architect at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Easy management and configuration, affordable, and has good features

We use all the features. It is very useful. Using WAF, we can control the WAF rules based on our application requirements. We can control what rules should be used and what should be disabled. The role of the tool is limited to HTTP traffic. It does exactly what it must do. It's a regional service. We know how to use it for DR scenarios. WAF has been the most valuable in protecting applications. We use at least three instances in the back end to give the best performance for our applications. The management and configuration of the solution is quite easy. All certificate renewals are automatically taken care of by Key Vault.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The GSLB, the DR side, is the best part. Because we had our main side in one city, we created another, and we had a complete MPLS over the internet. We used the GSLB and data loss for our business applications."

"Simple to use and easy to integrate."

"This ensures that clients can connect to their applications without interruption."

"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."

"It's a good product because it supports all the features that ADC solutions in the market can support, like F5 solutions, for example, such as the LTM of F5."

"Content caching and content compression are good features."

"The user interface is very easy and integrates with Sandbox easily."

"Fortinet FortiADC is a good product because each and every piece of content is monitored by it."

More Fortinet FortiADC pros

"The solution provides great automation and it is easy to upgrade service."

"It is a scalable solution...The installation phase of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is very easy."

"The simplicity of the solution and its ability to integrate easily with others are its most valuable aspects."

"The tool helps manage microservices by providing developers with a platform to conduct tests and assessments on the web application. The custom domain option is one of the most valuable features I've found. This feature is incredibly helpful for the end-users of the web application. With the custom domain feature, you can change the lengthy link to a shorter, more memorable one. For example, instead of using a lengthy default link, you can customize it to something like imail.com, which is much easier to remember and share."

"Azure Application Gateway's most valuable feature is ease of use. The configuration is straightforward. It isn't difficult to adjust the size of your instances in the settings. You can do that with a few clicks, and the configuration file is the same way. You can also set rules and policies with minimal time and effort."

"It has a filter available, although we are not currently using it because it is not part of our requirements. But it is a good option and when it becomes part of our requirements we will definitely use it."

"The solution integrates different applications and APIs securely, enhancing overall security and network optimization."

"Using policies to link and manage these URL-based routing configurations is also valuable."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pros

Cons

"The solution's WAF needs an upgrade because it is not as good as FortiWeb, VMware, F5, or Imperva."

"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."

"The product’s price could be reduced. Also, some of its features need to be more advanced."

"There is a mismatch between the number of features they are offering and the device capacity on how much it can handle."

"Because it is so generic, the documentation requires special attention. A person who has not worked on Fortinet FortiADC or a similar product will struggle to understand what the document is trying to say. The documentation could be more specific, and more detailed."

"The product's stability for VMs could be better."

"The user interface could be more friendly and CLI could be more like that of Fortigate."

"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."

More Fortinet FortiADC cons

"Needs easier integration with the existing SIAM."

"The solution should provide more security for certificate-based services so that we can implement more security on that."

"The solution can sometimes feel a little cumbersome unless you're a professional infrastructure person."

"It could be easier to change servicing."

"The tool's pricing could be improved."

"The monitoring on the solution could be better."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."

"Application Gateway’s limitation is that the private and the public endpoint cannot use the same port."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our basic license excludes features such as antivirus and IDS. Due to license limitations, some functionalities are not configured."

"The price is competitive"

"They offer a perpetual license."

"The product has affordable pricing."

"The product has average pricing. I rate its pricing a five out of ten."

"I rate Fortinet FortiADC's pricing one out of ten. It is fixed."

"The solution could be more cost-effective."

"Compared to F5, FortiADC pricing is better."

More Fortinet FortiADC pricing and cost advice

"The price of the solution can be reduced a bit."

"The solution's pricing is not complex. It is not expensive from our point of view."

"The solution is fairly priced."

"There is some additional cost, such as extended support."

"Every solution comes with a license and cost. Microsoft provides the license and the total cost is for the maintenance every year."

"The solution is paid monthly. The solution is highly expensive."

"The pricing is based on how much you use the solution."

"The solution is reasonably priced compared to other solutions."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

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's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?

We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...

How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft Azure Application Gateway web application firewall software was the better fit ...

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Fortinet FortiADC

Comparisons

Compared 27% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 26% of the time

NetScaler vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 13% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 8% of the time

More Fortinet FortiADC Competitors

F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 13% of the time

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 11% of the time

AWS WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

NetScaler vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Fortinet FortiADC

Download Fortinet FortiADC product report

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Download Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Also Known As

FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC

Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway

Learn More

Fortinet

Microsoft

Overview

Fortinet FortiADC is a robust application delivery controller (ADC) that delivers application optimization, application security, and application availability. FortiADC is a valued offering from Fortinet, which is widely recognized as a trusted supplier of dynamic security solutions worldwide. FortiADC offers dynamic security functions (AV, DDoS, and WAF) in addition to advanced application connectors for a simplified deployment and complete transparency to an organization's networks and applications. FortiADC offers three primary deployment options: physical machine, virtual machine, (VM) and cloud solution options.

Fortinet FortiADC Benefits

FortiADC security protocol: FortiADC integrates with FortiSandbox to improve the overall antivirus security protections where every file is scanned for known and unknown malicious risks. If a file is identified as malicious or problematic, it will be blocked in the future.
SSL protocol: FortiADC securely uses the most up-to-date cryptography to provide exceptional encryption and decryption using a hardware-based SSL ASIC. FortiADC offers complete transparency to inspect all traffic for threats, improves server response time, and reduces backend server load, SSL inspection and SSL offloading. FortiADC integrates seamlessly with Gemalto’s SafeNet Hardware Security Module (HSM).
FortiADC connectors: FortiADC Fabric Connectors offer open API-based integration and coordination with numerous software-defined networks (SDNs), third-party partners, and cloud management providers. Fortinet Fabric Connectors provide deep open and turnkey integration with recognized third-party vendors such as AWS, K8s, OCI, and SAP, in multi-vendor solutions, improving scalability, simplified management, and automation.
Business stability: FortiADC load balancing for on-premise global server load balancing (GSBL) and in the cloud (FortiGSBL Cloud) will ensure users can maintain a reliable and available network by improving the ability of scaling applications throughout numerous data centers to reduce application response times and enhance disaster recovery. Users are able to define protocols based on network latency concerns, overall data performance, and site availability.

Fortinet FortiADC Features

Application availability
- 4-7 application load balancing: DNS, HTTPS, RTMP, RADIUS, MySQL and more
- External fabric connectors: Splunk Integration, AWS/OCI Connector, Kubernetes Service.
- Security fabric connectors: FortiSIEM, Fortigate BanIP Integration, FortiAnalyzer, and more.
- Deployment modes: High availability (AA/AP Failover), Router mode, transparent mode (switch), one-arm mode (proxy with X-forwarded for support.
Web application firewall (WAF)
- Security services: Captcha support, cookie support, HTTP header security, XML/SOAP/JSON validation, CSRF protection, API gateway, and more.
- Application security: Web attack signature, bot detection, web vulnerability scanner, OWASP Top-10 Wizard, API protection and more.

Application enhancement
- HTTP and TCP improvement: TCP buffering, HTTP compressions/decompression, HTTP caching (dynamic and static objects), Bandwidth monitoring using quality of service (QoS), TCP buffering, and more.
- Authentication offloading: Two-factor authentication (Fortitoken/Fortitoken Cloud and Google Authentication), NTLM, AUTH2.0, SAML 2.0 (SP and Idp) RADIUS, LDAP, Kerbos, and local.
- Networking: Integration with Ansible, Cisco ACI, OpenStack and Nutanix, NVGRE and VXLAN support, VLAN and port trunking support, IPv6 Support (SLB, firewall, routing and interfaces), Dynamic NAT, Hide NAT, Static NAT for added scalability and flexibility.
- Management: Syslog support, SNMP using private MIBs with threshold-based traps. REST APIs, VDOMS, data analytics, real-time monitoring graphs, role-based monitoring, intuitive reporting, FortiView integration, and more.

Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell

Fortinet FortiADC vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway