We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Fortinet Fortigate VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet Fortigate is the winner in this comparison. According to reviews, it has better support than Fortinet Fortigate VM.
"The security on offer is very good."
"The product is easy to use and is stable. The SV1 functionality is a benefit."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."
"It's a relatively simple product that is easy to use. It's not overly complex."
"The tool improved the security in our company's virtualized environment, as it was helpful in creating an additional layer of security for the organization and for the use of the internet."
"Primarily, the VPN solution is most valuable. It allows you to have more flexibility in terms of what is there on the end-user device, and what is not there. You can check and make sure that they're current. It has more flexibility than just a straight VPN solution. It works really well. It has the features that 99% of people need."
"We like FortiGate-VM's IPS features and its ability to create multiple virtual firewalls."
"The interface is decent."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"The policies are very valuable. They allow me to secure and manage future traffic effectively."
"The most valuable features are site-to-site connections and UTM."
"I think the only issue that needs improvement is the interface."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
"Fortinet could improve the windows opener or the virtual IP solutions for opening windows. The virtual IP settings need improvement as firewalls are trending in new development directions."
"It needs more available central management."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"Its price could be better."
"We face some issues with the IPsec connection during replication."
"The graphical user interface should be enhanced."
"Their offering for MFA isn't the cleanest."
"It has a monitoring tool, but it could be improved."
"We'd like to have more customization and easier customization of policies."
"It would be useful to have integration with different reporting tools. This is something we are sorely missing. It would be a plus to have reporting integrations. It would be good to have more integration with the identity suites, such as Office 365 and Azure Active Directory, of different providers that we use. Integrations are already available, but it would be nice to have some more advanced options."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM should improve its asset identification, wherein the device can identify assets on the network, like computers."
"Capacity-wise, I think the solution's log storage area is something that needs to be increased since, by default, it stores logs for only seven days."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and SonicWall NSa, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
Purpose-built appliances offer tested performance measures and provide proven results for the specified traffic and service configuration.
VM can only provide vCPUs, RAM, and hard disk resources. However, in some cloud environments, you only have the VM option, no appliances accepted.
We have several Fortigate VM firewalls operating for 3 years now in the cloud and appliances in our centers that handle the traffic just fine. We have not had to increase the resources above the recommendations and they work just fine.
FortiGate VM
Virtual machines are less efficient than real machines because they access the hardware indirectly.
FortiGate Hardware
Fortigate appliance is purpose built with NPU and SPUs designed to increase throughput while maximizing the ability to decrypt packets in search of malware.
VM deployments are software only and do not include the NPU and SPUs.