Fortinet FortiGate vs ShieldX comparison

The compared Fortinet FortiGate and ShieldX solutions aren't in the same category. Fortinet FortiGate is ranked #2 in Firewalls , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 21.2% mindshare in the category. ShieldX is ranked #14 in MS , and holds a 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Fortinet FortiGate users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ShieldX users who would recommend it.

Fortinet FortiGate

Read 380 Fortinet FortiGate reviews

79,817 Views
63,854 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

ShieldX

Read 4 ShieldX reviews

264 Views
74 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiGate

ShieldX

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Fortinet FortiGate and ShieldX both compete in the network security category. ShieldX appears to have the upper hand with its advanced features, justifying its higher price.

Features: Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive threat management capabilities, robust performance, and extensive firewall features. ShieldX has advanced micro-segmentation, automation, and ease of integration with cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiGate could improve its reporting features, VPN configuration simplicity, and address basic usability concerns. ShieldX should enhance scalability options, add more automation features, and work on expanding its scalability potential.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiGate is noted for its straightforward deployment process and efficient customer service. ShieldX has a more complex setup but provides detailed support documentation and effective customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiGate is known for lower initial setup costs and better return on investment for small to mid-sized businesses. ShieldX, while more expensive, is seen as worth the investment due to its advanced features and longer-term benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiGate vs. ShieldX Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate vs. ShieldX

December 2024

Download the complete report

Helped 861,524 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

380

Ranking in other categories

Firewalls (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)

ShieldX

Average Rating

9.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Microsegmentation Software (14th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. Fortinet FortiGate is designed for Firewalls and holds a mindshare of 21.2%, up 17.7% compared to last year.
ShieldX, on the other hand, focuses on Microsegmentation Software, holds 0.3% mindshare, up 0.3% since last year.

Firewalls

Microsegmentation Software

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

Read full review

MichaelProcyshyn

IT Director at park holidays uk

Proactively monitors, blocks, and reports what it has blocked; and self-updates meaning there is zero maintenance

The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput. The traffic through our website depends on holiday bookings. It's very quiet in November through January, and then our traffic picks up quite rapidly and, at our peak, we will take in excess of a million pounds of business a day through our website. The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides. Uptime on the system has been 648 days and we do very little to it because it self-updates and alerts. It does everything that we need it to do, so the administration side of it is zero. One of the beauties about ShieldX is that it's such a good "fire-and-forget" product.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."

"It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."

"The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."

"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."

"The stability of the solution is excellent, as it is with other Fortinet products."

"The solution is stable."

"The solution provides good threat intelligence feeds."

"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"ShieldX has been designed from the very beginning to work well in cloud environments. It understands autoscaling, automation, and auto-configuration. These are the things which are important in today's operating environment."

"We were able to see what devices are talking to each other, giving us more visibility."

"The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides."

"The Adaptive Intention Engine is fantastic. It allows us to develop security policies using the language of our internal customers. It's machine-learning applied to security workflows. That allows us to much more easily construct the policies that will protect those workflows."

"...It takes the exact same policies that you would apply to your on-premise environment and enables you to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput."

"It has helped us tighten our security posture. Now, staff can only access things that they should be accessing."

Cons

"The pricing could always be better."

"It does not have key authentication for admin access."

"Fortinet already improved FortiGate, but in the current market, many brands of security devices have improved together. Fortinet still needs to catch up with market standards. Fortinet is lacking in features in comparison to competitors."

"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."

"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."

"The user interface of the Fortinet FortiGate management console could be more intuitive and user-friendly, and the log analysis and reporting features could be enhanced to provide more flexibility and customizable insights."

"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."

"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"There should be a bit more customer care, with regular review meetings on it or regular reports. It would be nice to have a quarterly or biannual review of what ShieldX has blocked."

"With any kind of tool like ShieldX, where you're in the cloud instead of a traditional firewall, you're using CPU resources in those environments to provide the protection. So there's a cost associated with CPU resources. I'm pressing upon them to make the product much more efficient and use less CPUs to do the same thing."

"I would like better reports and in-depth reporting."

"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so. As the vendor continues to evolve and add future functionality, we want to make sure that we are still keeping up with the integrations, etc. Time will be the key factor here. The proper support for some of the latest technologies, Docker containers, etc. They need to keep up with threat landscape, so we will see how the security get layered. This is what we are going to be keeping an eye on."

"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory. We can't seem to set it up."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is fine."

"The price of FortiGate is comparable to that of most other firewall solutions and is more affordable than Cisco."

"Fortinet prices are around $600 for the small 40F model, and for licenses, the simplest option is about $300 for a year. They sell licenses that can last for 1, 2, 3, or 5 years."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable."

"This is not a cheap solution but it isn't expensive, either. It's a good solution for the right price."

"Some of our customers are using Sophos and SonicWall due to price concerns, as they can't manage the pricing of Fortinet FortiGate."

"If the price of the license in Fortinet FortiGate was less expensive it would be better."

"The price is fair for what we get with FortiGate."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"ShieldX ensures that we can have the separation needed for our environment to avoid drastically increasing the cost on the licensing side. From this perspective, it's been very positive and helpful."

"ShieldX also enables us to migrate to cloud environments faster. That is an important part of it for sure because it takes the exact same policies that we would apply to our on-premise environment and enables us to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."

"For a three-year deal we paid £55,000 plus tax... But, and this is a big "but," this was over two years ago. ShieldX had only just hit the market. We were the first company in Europe to buy ShieldX."

"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX. It might not be the big name out there, but it does everything that you are looking for in microsegmentation at a very low price."

"Security policies are now applied as applications are going up. Because it's automated, we don't have the three to four week delay. The insertion of applications in the cloud for us dropped from an average of three to four weeks to a couple of days."

"We are very happy with the pricing and licensing. It's about getting a site-wide license. One of the challenges that we've had with our previous vendor had been the cost of licensing."

"We are actually expecting our costs to drop in the coming year, but it is just a matter of the licensing expiring. That is going to happen in the next six months or so. Then, we will start to see a decrease in overall spend."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user216600

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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 at large. In my opinion, Fortinet would be the best option and l use Fortinet too...

See all answers

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 the firewalls change every 5 to 7 years as stated but you really do need to upg...

See all answers

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 good. The most valuable features for me are their web and email filtering. I wou...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

July 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

ShieldX

June 2025

Download ShieldX product report

Also Known As

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

APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO

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

The ShieldX Elastic Security Platform dynamically scales to deliver comprehensive and consistent controls to protect data centers, cloud infrastructure, applications and data no matter where they are or where they go to make the cloud more secure than on-premise deployments. Our frictionless approach leverages agentless technology as well as the ShieldX Adaptive Intention Engine which autonomously translates and enforces intention into a set of comprehensive controls - microsegmentation, firewall, IPS and more - making security the easiest thing you do in the cloud.

Fortinet

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

Iowa State University

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate vs. ShieldX

December 2024

Free Report: Fortinet FortiGate vs. ShieldX

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate vs. ShieldX and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

DOWNLOAD NOW

861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. ShieldX report.

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.