Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall comparison

Fortinet and Zscaler are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Fortinet is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.6, while Zscaler is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.6. Fortinet holds a 1.9% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Zscaler’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Zscaler Cloud Firewall compete in the cybersecurity market. Zscaler Cloud Firewall tends to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive features, albeit at a higher cost.

Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers advanced threat protection, VPN capabilities, and versatile deployment options. Zscaler Cloud Firewall is known for its cloud-native architecture, seamless integration, and comprehensive threat coverage.

Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiGate-VM could improve its setup process, introduce better reporting tools, and simplify its initial deployment. Zscaler Cloud Firewall needs better documentation, improved performance during peak times, and addressing its occasional inconsistency in customer support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiGate-VM has a complex setup but offers responsive customer service. Zscaler Cloud Firewall provides a smoother deployment experience due to its cloud-native design but has varied support quality.

Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is valued for competitive pricing and positive ROI. Zscaler Cloud Firewall, while more expensive, delivers substantial ROI through its advanced features.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

April 2025

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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 FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 1.9%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Cloud Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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Pietro Di Blasi

Pre-Sales Analyst at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Organize networks efficiently while benefiting from strong reliability and support

The main use is for clients who are migrating to the cloud. We started this journey during the pandemic, and the main case is with clients who are moving to either a private or a public cloud The solution allows us to organize our networks and access within one vendor, using an integrated…

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Bhaskar Rao

Network manager admin at Yamaha

Though it helps deal with web traffic or any malicious traffic, it needs to work on its DC performance issues

The product's initial setup phase is moderate in level, so it is neither very complex nor very easy. For the deployment, my company first needs to gather all the requirements of the users and the domain names and consider how many users there are in the company. In the implementation and planning part, my company needs to consider what kind of policies we will create while ensuring that the policies are created based on the requirements of the users. There is a need to segregate the users' requirements since there are separate departments in the company, like the HR department, sales department, IT department, and manufacturing department, so that our company can create policies depending on their requirements. On-site, if you want a GRE tunnel, our company can handle GRE tunnel traffic routing and Zscaler Cloud Firewall, after which Zscaler will take action based on the policies created by our organization. For the deployments and maintenance, a team of five members consisting of two managers and three engineers is required.

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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 virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."

"The most valuable feature is the web filter."

"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."

"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."

"A strong point of FortiGate is that the graphical interface is complete and easy to use, especially if we think there is a list of operations that we are able to perform inside."

"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."

"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."

"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The thing that I like the most is that they're very willing to work with us to resolve issues that they haven't taken care of before in their product."

"There is an interesting possibility of building a tunnel to a firewall from access points. We use this feature for small branch offices with one to two employees with access to central RDP servers."

"The product can scale."

"It's very easy to set up, even for more junior developers."

"The most valuable features are the web proxy for protection and web gateway for deployment."

"Scalability is an excellent selling point for FortiGate VM."

"It gives all the features of a full-fledged firewall with great performance."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are the ease of use, IPS system, application filter, web filtering, and email security. Additionally, there is a migration tool that other vendors do not provide. We only need to upload the configuration file to the tool, and it converts everything, except the passwords, and gives us the new configuration, which we can directly upload on the firewall. This migration process takes a maximum of 15 minutes."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pros

"Includes advanced tech protection."

"I like the ease of deployment and its flexibility. We don't need to deal with license, quotes, procurement, delivery, and installation. Everything is software-based, and it's very easy to operate."

"Zscaler is still a very good product."

"The technical support from Zscaler was excellent."

"If malicious traffic attacks our on-premises servers, then it gets blocked by Zscaler Cloud Firewall."

"It helps a lot of companies to reduce their downtime. Also, It helps businesses in terms of being secured and protected from any threats."

"The scalability is okay. We have around 2200 people using this solution."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pros

Cons

"In my opinion, Fortinet FortiGate could be improved by making the appliance smaller than what we have here, as it is pretty big."

"We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs."

"They've become quite expensive."

"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."

"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."

"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."

"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."

"Lacks training for new features."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"Fortinet devices are acknowledged as highly potent and come with a notable cost. These devices offer extensive visibility, an array of configurations, and a range of security features. However, there's room for enhancement in their routing and switching security aspects, akin to Cisco's offerings. A noteworthy aspect here is Meraki, which offers cloud controllers. If FortiGate were to introduce a similar cloud management solution, it could strongly compete with both Meraki and Cisco products. Cisco operates in two sectors: enterprise and SMB. Particularly in the SMB market, they hold sway due to their convenient cloud management features. For instance, Meraki's cameras and wireless access points can be easily controlled through their cloud management portal. If FortiGate were to provide cloud-based management solutions for SMB customers, it could cater to a significant portion of the market, considering that a substantial number of customers fall within the SMB and mid-level enterprise categories."

"The tech support calls were not the best and could be improved. There have been times when we felt as if we knew more about the device than the support person on the phone."

"The product has issues with integration. I would like to see better integration in future releases of the product."

"Right now, we have two data centers that are a thousand kilometers apart. It would be nice to be able to string them together."

"One thing that can be better is added automation. And, on top of that, enhanced security when it comes to the automation itself."

"Customization needs improvement."

"We are experiencing a failed login issue. There should also be improvements in functionalities we store to enhance our services."

"If I could add one feature, it would be free security profiles."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM cons

"When it comes to customer support, there is room for improvement in Zscaler's service."

"I don't have the visibility of a control dashboard or a network management system."

"There are several areas for improvement. Firstly, the GUI is outdated, with noticeable lags and delays, especially when generating reports for past transactions."

"Apart from the issues associated with the product in areas like the DC performance issues and DC failover, Zscaler Cloud Firewall's IP should not have a proxy IP."

"It would be better if they improved their policy, package visibility, and flexibility while we're creating rules for inspection. It could also be cheaper or more things could be included in the basic package. In the next release, I would like better coverage in the Asia Pacific region and better quality of service."

"Zscaler Cloud Firewall should have a better understanding of all dynamic cloud applications."

"Instead of the standard license, they should certainly provide customers with the visibility to access and view the logs."

"We are having some issues with internet access being denied when organizational ID-based policies change. For example, a lower level employee ends up getting the same level of access as that of a higher level employee."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is fine."

"The pricing of the solution is very competitive."

"The price, in comparison to other products is very cheap."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is the lowest in the market."

"Its pricing is good. It's average or normal as compared to Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls."

"We have the full version of Fortinet FortiGate and we are on a three-year contract with a commitment of five years."

"The product pricing is reasonable."

"The price depends on the size of the company. From the beginning, you just want to know the internet bandwidths, speed, and the number of users to be able to offer the right product and model. They have a lot of products in FortiGate according to the size of the company, like 200D and 300D."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"There is a benefit in terms of the cost of using this solution because the price is very good."

"We don't have to pay for the licenses. But we might purchase licenses in the future."

"I would rate the product's pricing as four out of five."

"The best part of Fortinet is the license is bundled together, so it is easy to use and apply."

"There are yearly or monthly licenses which you can choose from."

"The basic pricing in Austria is OK, but asking for special offers, e.g., NPOs, NGOs, trade up, and/or trade in, is always useful."

"The product’s licensing must be a little cheaper."

"The price of the solution could be less expensive. There are some features that have to be purchased separately that have their own license."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pricing and cost advice

"The product is a bit expensive compared to the solutions offered by its competitors, like Palo Alto. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the license in charges associated with the product."

"Zscaler is priced too high compared to the cost of Fortinet."

"There is an annual license required for the use of the Zscaler Cloud Firewall."

"It is expensive for small businesses."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis. It is somewhere around 30 or 40 pounds per user for our organization."

"It is not the most budget-friendly solution, but it's important to consider its overall value."

"There are different subscription models available."

"It comes at a significantly reduced cost while ensuring control and effectiveness."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

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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...

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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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Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls

In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...

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Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?

Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...

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What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured.

See all answers

Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?

Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...

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What do you like most about Zscaler Cloud Firewall?

The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Cloud Firewall?

The product is a bit expensive compared to the solutions offered by its competitors, like Palo Alto. There is a need ...

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 26% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 5% of the time

Zyxel Unified Security Gateway vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 4% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 4% of the time

KerioControl vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 17% of the time

OPNsense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Multicloud Defense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

April 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

April 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate-VM product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Cloud Firewall

March 2025

Download Zscaler Cloud Firewall product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

FortiGate Virtual Appliances allow you to mitigate blind spots by implementing critical security controls within your virtual infrastructure. They also allow you to rapidly provision security infrastructure whenever and wherever it is needed. FortiGate virtual appliances feature all of the security and networking services common to traditional hardware-based FortiGate appliances. With the addition of virtual appliances from Fortinet, you can deploy a mix of hardware and virtual appliances, operating together and managed from a common centralized management platform.

Fortinet

Zscaler enables the world’s leading organizations to securely transform their networks and applications for a mobile and cloud first world. Its flagship services, Zscaler Internet Access and Zscaler Private Access, create fast, secure connections between users and applications, regardless of device, location, or network. Zscaler services are 100% cloud-delivered and offer the simplicity, enhanced security, and improved user experience that traditional appliances or hybrid solutions are unable to match. Used in more than 185 countries, Zscaler operates the world’s largest cloud security platform, protecting thousands of enterprises and government agencies from cyberattacks and data loss.

Check more details: https://www.zscaler.com/produc...

Zscaler

Sample Customers

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

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE

Zenith Live, Azure, Carlsberg Group

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

April 2025

Free Report: Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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