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Fortinet FortiManager vs Skybox Security Suite comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 FortiManager
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (4th)
Skybox Security Suite
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (41st), Firewall Security Management (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Fortinet FortiManager and Skybox Security Suite aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Fortinet FortiManager is designed for Network Management Applications and holds a mindshare of 5.3%, up 5.1% compared to last year.
Skybox Security Suite, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 0.5% mindshare, down 0.6% since last year.
Network Management Applications
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

HamedWasel - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up with good integration capabilities but we've had troubles when moving devices
We've faced an issue when we need to move devices. Templates need to be recreated instead of having the policies, et cetera, cut and pasted over. Everything should just move over when we need to move devices instead of recreating everything from scratch. For the IPSEC tunnels, Fortimanager doesn't have all of the features that are available on Fortigate.
NenadMijatovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient in vulnerability management, stable and easy to use
Vulnerability management is the most valuable feature because it lets you focus on the most critical vulnerabilities. That's the important thing. Here in Serbia, there are not so many companies that have too many firewalls inside one company. So, they usually don't buy this model for Firewall Assurance unless there is some compliance. So you can prove that your firewalls are compliant. So, that model is not so important here in Serbia. It's for bigger companies. So, they usually buy network assurance to build the model of the network and vulnerability management to focus on the most important vulnerabilities. Moreover, Skybox can collect data for many vendors. From the endpoint protection vendors to the network equipment vendors to other security vendors. So, it supports more than one hundred vendors to collect data from them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate the ability to connect via SSH through Fortinet FortiManager to the FortiGates I manage. This feature allows me to gather information about the interfaces without having to physically connect to the device. This is a convenient aspect that I find valuable."
"FortiManager's best feature is the integration of administrator users."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiManager are the overall management it provides and its ease of use."
"It makes management very easy."
"The solution is very stable."
"FortiManager's ability to scale is good."
"Fortinet FortiManager allows you to manage multiple FortiGate devices from a single console, and this is a valuable product feature."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiManager was easy."
"Skybox allows organizations to reprioritize the vulnerability they attempt to patch and mitigate, based on the contextual awareness of the network."
"Skybox Security Suite was a very good tool for my organization."
"The solution offers very nice dashboards and they've recently added a very good Java-based web interface."
"It's very supportive and very user-friendly."
"The performance could be good because we chose it at the time, but it is too complex for us to appreciate its performance because we lack the necessary skills."
"It has a good policy management feature and can provide customers with good quality outputs."
"The product's most valuable feature is vulnerability management."
"We use Network Assurance for network visualisation and troubleshooting."
 

Cons

"Troubleshooting for Fortinet products is more difficult than competing products like Cisco and Palo Alto."
"The documentation could be better."
"The GUI could be updated. It's not as good as it could be and is something the solution should improve in an upcoming release."
"FortiManager should improve the integration with third-party platforms."
"The graphical user interface could use improvement as it appears complex and not user-friendly."
"Regional support in African countries needs to be improved."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
"It's a difficult process to transfer one interface from one virtual domain to another."
"The vendor's support is terrible."
"The solution does not support certain devices or vendors in some regions or countries due to regulations."
"The company made bad business decisions impacting many clients and their own staff. Reporting could have been improved, and feature requests often were not implemented."
"The initial setup with Skybox Security is hard. You need one or two strong security engineers on your team."
"During implementation, we realised approximately 30 devices were not supported by the Skybox platform​."
"If anything could be improved it would be staying on top of the collector scripts, but I understand that's a very tough challenge."
"Reporting. A lot of the reports, out of the box, are limited to a certain number of either configuration violations or access rule violations. So when you first set up a new firewall to be monitored by Skybox, you don't get a real full report. You have to really tweak it to get everything."
"The solution was quite technical. It would be easier to manage if the solution was more specific about aspects of the solution and provided more advisory around how to use it effectively. It would help users a lot if they were more clear about everything."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FortiManager isn't expensive, but its cost is dependent on which services are required."
"For the licensing fee, we paid around 10,000 to 15,000 euros."
"Compared to Check Point or Cisco, Fortinet FortiManager is more affordable but it is still on the higher end."
"Pricing could improve a little bit so I rate it a seven out of ten."
"FortiManager is a bit expensive - I would rate its pricing three out of ten."
"The solution requires you to have a license for every device, as well as for any advanced features being used, which makes it costly for high-volume users. However, for a large-scale environment with a lot of customers we have found it to be a worthwhile investment."
"The pricing is based on a licensing model by feature."
"If you compare Fortinet and Palo Alto, Fortinet is cheaper, but if you compare Cisco and Fortinet, sometimes Cisco is cheaper because Cisco gives us more discounts because of the size. Cisco isn't cheap, but sometimes, we get a big discount from them."
"Licensing is normally on a yearly basis. There may also be a perpetual license. Normally, the customers ask for a lower price. If you want to sell more, you have to think about it."
"I think the price is fair."
"Skybox comes with extra licenses and has a change management license. The licenses are expensive, but they come with extra value."
"The price is not expensive."
"I think for the cost, what we got definitely is worth it. The only caution I would give is that whenever you license for Firewall Assurance at the same time, for some weird reason, you have to get one Network Assurance license, just to manage one firewall. That's a little bit of overkill. But otherwise, in general, the pricing is fairly okay."
"The product's pricing is excellent value. In terms of licensing, make sure you understand your network components, all your hops through your network, thoroughly, before you decide on the total cost. If you want to do point-to-point flow analysis and such, you need to have the configuration of all the devices in between point A and point B. A lot of people don't realize all their network components until they start using this product."
"The pricing is high, and the licensing model needs more flexibility."
"Skybox Security Suite has indeed helped us reduce costs. The prices of AlgoSec and Skybox Security Suite are approximately 50 percent different. The tool may require special vendor support from abroad, resulting in slightly higher costs. Its pricing is in the middle."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiManager?
The most valuable feature is the centralized management console.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiManager?
The graphical user interface could use improvement as it appears complex and not user-friendly. Better integration of Fortinet ADC into FortiManager would be beneficial.
What do you like most about Skybox Security Suite?
Overall, the tool has helped us reduce risks. If any step is missing, it's easier for my team or engineers to identify it. The tool provides accurate recommendations based on the data. Its integrat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Skybox Security Suite?
Skybox Security Suite has indeed helped us reduce costs. The prices of AlgoSec and Skybox Security Suite are approximately 50 percent different. The tool may require special vendor support from abr...
What needs improvement with Skybox Security Suite?
There is room for improvement in the product's user interface. It could be more user-friendly.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
ADP, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BT, USAID, Delta Dental, EDF Energy, EMC, HSBC, Johnson & Johnson
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetScaler and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.