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Fortinet FortiGate vs Sangfor Internet Access Gateway (IAG) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Fortinet FortiGate
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
594
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Sangfor Internet Access Gat...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
33rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 6.7%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor Internet Access Gateway (IAG) is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate6.7%
iboss3.5%
Sangfor Internet Access Gateway (IAG)0.8%
Other89.0%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
JK
IP Network Security Specialist at MTN Ghana
Process-Level CPU Visibility: Introduce detailed CPU-usage metrics per subsystem (e.g., IPS engine, logging) so administrators can quickly identify and address performance spikes.
Analytics with FortiAnalyzer. Being able to pull in logs not just from our FortiGates but from all our other firewalls and then get them in one view has been a game changer. Whether I’m building an executive dashboard or doing a deep dive forensics session, I get everything I need without navigating consoles.Straightforward Application Control. FortiGate spots and blocks unwanted apps (eq. like BitTorrent or streaming services) with accuracy. Segmentation with VDOMs. We’ve carved our data center into four logical ‘mini-firewalls’ enterprise, core, billing, and WAF—all on one box. Each has its own rules and logs, and any traffic between them still gets inspected. It’s like having multiple appliances without the extra hardware. Always-Up-to-Date Threat Feeds. Daily signature updates and AI-driven threat sensing mean we’re blocking the latest vulnerabilities almost as soon as they’re announced.
Muhammad Asif Shaikh - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy GM - IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Designed to provide comprehensive and secure internet access with high visibility into users
After my purchase, I noticed a need for improvements, particularly in the area of identifying the source user of the device, which can sometimes roll back to the base. Additionally, there were challenges with SSL gate traffic, which wasn't functioning as effectively as expected. Even though there have been fixes to these issues, they should be inherent to the product and need further attention. These aspects, especially sub-features, aren't very robust and seem complex. Regarding integration, while Sangfor Internet Access Gateway (IAG) integrates well with its own products, its compatibility with third-party tools like QB is limited. There's room for improvement in making protocols compatible with various third-party products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"The iboss solution gives me the ability to scan the traffic through all the ports, through all the 131,000 PCP and UDP ports, and with this ability, we have the granularity also for consults over social media and applications on mobile, and this is an advantage that the customers are looking for right now."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"Fortinet has a product that can cater to any area of the security market."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"I haven't configured or experienced any stability issues."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall has a very high ROI"
"The most significant aspect is the control it offers over internet traffic, like managing computer access to specific sites such as Facebook. I find particular value in its ability to control the depth of internal traffic, enabling actions like blocking specific file extensions on social media or specific IPs. This control by categories is a standout feature for us in Sangfor Internet Access Gateway (IAG)."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The solution is interoperable and has centralized management."
 

Cons

"I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly."
"It is stable, but due to growth, it can sometimes be less stable than wanted."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"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."
"Fortinet's support team consists of a huge networking team, because of which there is a delay in response at times."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license. There must be some of kind synergy between the license so we don't have to pay for every individual license that we would like to have."
"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"I do not foresee the product being easy to scale. We find it so hard."
"The reports are very basic."
"The performance could be a bit better. Right now, I find it to be lacking. Having good performance is very important for our work."
"In Sangfor Internet Access Gateway (IAG), its speed is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"After my purchase, I noticed a need for improvements, particularly in the area of identifying the source user of the device, which can sometimes roll back to the base. Additionally, there were challenges with SSL gate traffic, which wasn't functioning as effectively as expected. Even though there have been fixes to these issues, they should be inherent to the product and need further attention. These aspects, especially sub-features, aren't very robust and seem complex. Regarding integration, while Sangfor Internet Access Gateway (IAG) integrates well with their own products, its compatibility with third-party tools like QB is limited. There's room for improvement in making protocols compatible with various third-party products."
"The solution's logging system should be improved because its logs are not precise and are a little confusing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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 not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"The product is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"There is only a standard license cost to use the solution."
"The support subscription for the solution is annual. You are paying for support and there are two levels of support, professional and advanced."
"Currently, we are paying about $1,500 a month for three sites."
"You need to pay a license for this solution. Our licensing is now done in our subsidiary."
"The cost has increased since the update so I would rate it eight out of ten."
"The licensing costs are very competitive."
"The pricing depends on the FortiGate model we are using, ranging from $3,000 to $20,000 US dollars."
"I rate the product pricing a five or six out of ten on a scale of one to ten."
"The solution’s pricing is cheaper than any other solution."
"It is one of the reason for choosing it over other available products. However, recently, this year, there have been recurring concerns. I believe we might consider migrating to another solution."
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant with 51-200 employees
Jan 3, 2016
Sophos UTM vs. Fortinet FortiGate
I have used both Sophos and Fortinet products in production and I have found the Sophos UTM appliances (hardware and virtual) to be a better fit most of the time -- with a few caveats which I will touch on below. In both instances, the transition from TMG will be mostly straightforward. The main…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business372
Midsize Enterprise138
Large Enterprise195
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
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Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
 

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.
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
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Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate vs. Sangfor Internet Access Gateway (IAG) and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
907,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.