Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Fortinet FortiGate SWG vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

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

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th)
Fortinet FortiGate SWG
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Prisma Access by Palo Alto ...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (1st), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is 6.4%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is 11.1%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
David Carlson - PeerSpot reviewer
Non-IT people could plug it in, connect it to the fiber, and get it running without IT help.
FortiGate is easy to configure. We configured one of the units and sent it to Indiana to be installed. We asked them to give us a call when they got it, so we could help them through the process, but they called us back to tell us it works great. Non-IT people could plug it in, connect it to the fiber, and get it running without IT help. That was fantastic. Fortinet also offers a single pane of glass that we can use to manage our routers with gateways, so that's convenient. We're running a VPN to our remote location, and the performance is good. We're changing all our VPN connectors on our laptops from Cisco's Anywhere to Fortinet's VPN because the performance is just so much better.
Partha Dash - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes us part of a bigger security ecosystem with updates taken care of for us, but pricing and support need work
There are definitely a number of things that could be improved. One of them is geographic coverage. China is still an issue because the solution does not operate there properly due to government regulations. I believe Palo Alto is trying pretty hard to get into partnerships with Alibaba and other cloud providers, but they do not have the same compelling offering in China that they have in the rest of the world. Businesses that are operating within China have to be very sure to evaluate the solution before making a buying decision. It is not an issue with Palo Alto, rather it is predominantly the result of government rules, but it's something that Palo Alto needs to work on. There is also room for improvement when it comes to latency in a couple of regions, including India and South America. They might have to increase their presence in those locations and come up with more modern cloud architectures. The third area is that, while Palo Alto has understood the essence of building capabilities around cloud technology and have come up with a CASB offering, that is a very new product. There are other companies that have better offerings for understanding cloud applications and have more graceful controls. That's something that Palo Alto needs to work on.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"I am content with its user interface and functionalities."
"The overall features of Fortinet FortiGate SWG are good."
"One of the features I appreciate the most is application control which offers great flexibility."
"The pricing on offer is excellent."
"The solution is easy to use and checks the access control as a firewall."
"FortiGate is a great solution, although initially, it faced challenges in the Brazilian market due to lower brand recognition than Cisco. However, explaining and demonstrating its product format and offerings has proven easy. The cost-effectiveness and better features of FortiGate have made some clients skeptical. We set up a trial period, and they eventually opted for it. Many clients were convinced it was great after experiencing the solution's capabilities firsthand."
"FortiGate is easy to use, and I also like its VPN."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is inspection."
"The stacked policies, event policies, and routing policies are easy to understand for someone with general knowledge."
"The most valuable feature is the zero-trust part of this solution."
"Prisma Access gives us security from a single point. It controls mobile users and determines how secure their networks will be, including from where they will get internet access. We can optimize things and add security profiles centrally."
"Prisma integrates well with Cortex XDR and Cortex Data Lake. My company has been also using Prisma Access in-house for nearly a year, and it integrates seamlessly."
"Prisma Access is very stable, and I am very much satisfied with its stability, rating it nine to ten out of ten."
"The most valuable features are ZTNA 2.0, CASB, Threat Prevention, and Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADAM)."
"It's quite reliable and performs well for users."
"Prisma helped us build a moat around our production systems. It's now impossible to log into our production from a non-MDM laptop. Prisma Access provides decent security overall."
 

Cons

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"It could always be more secure."
"We have experienced a number of failures when trying to upgrade firmware and the process takes a long time. We only experienced this when doing major upgrades between versions."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"From a pricing perspective, I would rate them a six."
"The UI/UX experience can be a little better."
"The product needs to drastically improve its reporting capability."
"Fortinet FortiGate SWG's costs need improvement."
"We can't identify which users are causing challenges when we have issues."
"I would like to see support for custom applications."
"It's not really Prisma's fault, but when you try to create exceptions you don't really have those abilities. You cannot say, on the management platform, "Hey, for these users I want to create these exceptions." That is one thing that I have gotten some complaints about, and we have faced some challenges there."
"Pricing for Prisma Access and Prisma SD WAN is high due to the need for different hardware flavors like IONs."
"The tools' scalability is subject to some limitations when done on-premise due to the need for additional licenses. However, in other scenarios, increasing scalability involves expanding infrastructure to accommodate more third-party VPN access. It is scalable as long as you pay the money. Also, it needs to improve security."
"They could add more flexibility and improve product performance."
"The Prisma Access could improve in terms of adding more machine learning and AI capabilities to automate tasks such as incident response."
"There is a lack of integration with third-party solutions like CrowdStrike or SentinelOne in Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks. Although they have a tight ecosystem with their products, opening up for integration with other solutions would be beneficial."
"The one thing that I've been a little bit disappointed with is when we have had to open cases with Palo Alto about Prisma Access issues. Versus their other platforms, like their firewalls, where we tend to get really quick responses and very definitive answers, the few tickets I've had to open for Prisma Access have taken them longer to respond to. And they haven't necessarily given me the kind of answer I was looking for, meaning a fix to the problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is around $50,000 per month."
"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten. The additional cost depends on the extra feature requirements."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"When comparing the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG to other solutions it is expensive. The price could be better."
"FortiGate SWG is reasonably priced."
"The solution is cheap."
"When comparing this solution to others, I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of pricing. However, the issue of requiring a separate license for redundancy is a drawback, and I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"I would advise choosing your options according to your company's needs. Just go for what you want and do not pay for anything extra in terms of licensing. You need to determine how much bandwidth is required in your company network, and according to that, you should pay for the license. The mobile user license is based on the number of users who are going to use the VPN solution. You need to determine how many mobile users you are going to have in your network, and you should pay according to that. There are no other costs in addition to licensing, but if you go for the consultant services of Palo Alto networks to deliver the solution for you, then you need to pay something extra. That is not a part of licensing."
"Based on what I have heard from others, it is a pricey solution as compared to its peers, but I am not sure. However, considering the features that it offers, it is a break-even point. You get whatever they are promising."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution, especially when compared to other solutions like Cisco. There are no additional charges apart from the standard licensing costs attached to the solution."
"Prisma SaaS is more expensive than similar solutions but I think it's worth it."
"The price has been good for the ROI during these difficult times for the cruise industry. There are no hidden costs; what the product offers is what you get."
"Prisma Access is a little bit expensive."
"Actually the solution is very expensive. I don't know the particulars since the purchasing team dealt with it."
"The licensing model for this product is complicated and changes all the time, making it very hard for the user to comprehend the configuration."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have a couple of thoughts for improvement, but usually when I address them with my rep, they put it into the featur...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We use it primarily for simpler filtering because we're a K12 entity.
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate SWG?
The interface and other reports are all user-friendly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiGate SWG?
On a scale from one to ten, I would rate the pricing for FortiGate AWG as nine, which is perfect.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiGate SWG?
I would rate the technical support of Fortinet a six or seven out of ten. It is not very helpful. I would like to see...
What is the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?
We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure ac...
What do you like most about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?
The most valuable features of the solution are in the areas of the secure remote access it provides while also being ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?
From my experience, Palo Alto is more expensive compared to solutions like Netskope and Triscale.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
FortiGate SWG, FortiGate Secure Web Gateway
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Prisma Access, GlobalProtect, Palo Alto GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager, Prisma SaaS by Palo Alto Networks, Prisma Access
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Salt Lake County, Catholic College Bendigo, Azienda Unita Sanitaria
Concord Hospital, State of Colorado, Essilor International, RheinLand Versicherungsgruppe, University of Westminster, Universidade Nove de Julho, SPAR Austria, CAME Group, ZipRealty, Greenhill & Co., IKT Agder, Aviva Stadium, Animal Logic, Management & Training Corporation, Brigham Young University Hawaii, School District of Chilliwack
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate SWG vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.