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Fortinet FortiOS vs Fortinet FortiWeb comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
318
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Fortinet FortiOS
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (17th)
Fortinet FortiWeb
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Firewalls
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Harshama Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
We have improved network security with user-friendly controls and high threat intelligence
FortiOS is very user-friendly and easy to configure for L1, L2, and L3 personnel. Its web filtering, application control, and IPS features are very user-friendly, easy to manage, and deploy. The threat intelligence in FortiOS is very high, and the system is scalable without additional licensing costs. FortiOS allows us to expand the number of users and devices as our network needs grow.
Kacem CHAMMALI - PeerSpot reviewer
Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb
The xFF, or X-Forwarded-For feature, IP reputation, and protected hostname. We can block access using the IP address, so no one can connect to our web server or website using the real IP. They need to use the FQDN instead. Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb and the option to protect the hostname. All traffic passes through FortiWeb. Machine learning capabilities in FortiWeb: I don't use machine learning all the time. In the initial phase of FortiWeb deployment, we use the learning process to detect the traffic passing through FortiGate to our website.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has been very stable, based on my ten to eleven years of experience."
"The response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"A strong point of FortiGate is the graphical interface is complete and easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The most valuable feature is the policy routing and application control."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the granular control and their interoperability is good."
"The information security features are the most valuable."
"Their classification inside of that database of the various threats is typically very, very good."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiOS network segregation, UTM, and antivirus, freight management protection, such as DDoS. Additionally, the CLI and the GUI are easy to use. The architecture makes sense, and the command in the CLI are organized well. They have quite a lot of features are easy to use, and are user-friendly. Any novice can use Fortinet FortiOS without an issue."
"The solution is very easy to configure and has a good interface, plus it offers more configuration options than other vendors."
"Performance-wise, I think FortiOS is much better than its Juniper counterpart. Based on our actual experience and performance metrics, FortiOS-based products are much better than Juniper."
"The technical support is very good and the assistance they gave was very good."
"We've been happy with the pricing."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its security profile."
"It's easy to use and allows us to integrate solutions together."
"SSL Offloading simplifies the public certificate handling and brings additional protection features."
"All the features that FortiGate contains are very suitable for our business. We work with other products in Fortinet, FortiWeb, FortiSandbox, FortiMail, and FortiCache. We use all UTM features like self-encryption, encryption, all UTM features."
"The GUI is user-friendly and it's easy to understand how to manage it."
"It is cost-effective compared to other solutions."
"This product is very user-friendly."
"The most important feature of this solution is protection from attack."
 

Cons

"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"​It needs to improve its ISP load balancing.​"
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"The logging details need to be improved."
"I feel that the reporting needs to be improved."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"It would be great if they can push the Microsoft updates through Fortinet OS and provide a centralized patch management system. They should also include the data loss prevention (DLP) and data leakage prevention features. They could also add network monitoring more effectively."
"The technical support is good. However, during the holidays they can get a little slow to respond."
"I want to see a better integration or a better integration with the endpoint protection or with EDR with the security life cycle."
"There is room for improvement in the reporting part. The reporting is only for logging data, and it's just a tabulation of the log in the report. I would like to be able to take down more information in the event of an incident."
"Fortinet could integrate something like a YubiKey for 2FA with their SSL VPN clients."
"The GUI could be improved to make it more usable, easier to administer, and easier to configure."
"Right now, it's very trendy to integrate everything into the cloud. This solution would be more effective if they did more integration in that regard."
"For monitoring purposes, we don't have any option to monitor the ISP link."
"The solution is not very scalable, to scale up would require another deployment with a new appliance and a change to the network."
"The Layer 7 DDoS attacks need improvement, it could be better."
"The interface could have the interdependent elements arranged sequentially and wizards that go through most common deployment actions."
"The solution could improve by being able to handle different use cases."
"Describing security rules should be improved. It's tricky to define new feature tools when you want to describe an attack pattern and want to block it."
"The solution could improve its ease of use and add more advanced WAF features in future releases."
"The F5 solution has more features than Fortinet FortiWeb, such as multiple load balancing."
"FortiGate could be improved on the security end because we've had some incidents with the customer. Otherwise, there is no problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The main reason we chose Fortinet FortiGate was that the price was better than the competition."
"They need to be competitive with other solutions."
"The price, in comparison to other products is very cheap."
"Fortinet costs are 25% lower than the high-cost provider. There is an equipment cost and a recurring monthly cost for licenses and technical support."
"Fortinet is reasonable in pricing and licensing. Overall, FortiGate is affordable. The licensing fee can be a little high, depending on the budget for your project."
"We pay for the solution annually."
"It is more expensive than Sophos. Fortinet is overall more expensive than Sophos. The small range of Fortinet, such as 60F and 80F, is more expensive than the small range of Sophos. Sophos is cheaper. In addition, if you jump from 80F Series to 100F Series, the price doubles."
"Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."
"We pay an annual license fee. It is rather expensive so I would like to perhaps see a drop in price in the future."
"It is not cheap."
"We pay $100,000. That covers the cost of the hardware that we run the VN's on. That also includes any SGNA costs for the internal support tech."
"It is not cheap; it is also not expensive. It is somewhere in the middle."
"It would be better if it were cheaper. We have the firewall in our office, and the license is expiring in 20 to 25 days. We got a quote for almost 80,000 Pakistani Rupees, which is a little costly."
"Regarding the cost, the initial purchase is relatively cheap because it comes bundled. However, the subscription renewals can be quite expensive. The renewal costs are high, even though the initial purchase might include discounts."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiOS is good. However, central management is intuitive for the end-users. We had a lot of questions about central management, and sometimes they didn't use it and did their firewall management directly on FortiGate instead of using Fortinet FortiOS."
"The support contracts are usually about $100 - $200 a device."
"We are on an annual license for this solution and the price is approximately €100."
"The pricing is pretty good. We do pass a lot of traffic through our API servers. Something like 100 gigs of web traffic is a fair amount for reduced JSON API calls, but the cost is $50. For that peace of mind, we have thousands and thousands of customers that are protected by that $50, so it's a no-brainer."
"​It really pays off to buy licences for multiple years​."
"It's an expensive solution, although there are no additional costs."
"There are no licensing costs."
"It is an expensive suite and it is an expensive solution, but it is a manageable one for an enterprise."
"The price is competitive."
"When I use any other firewall, I have to take a license. It could be a perpetual license or subscription-based. In both cases, we have to pay some amount in advance, whereas in the case of FortiWeb, when using it as a service, I am paying half a dollar only for the domain name, and then I am paying based on the traffic or the number of requests."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
41%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
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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...
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 ...
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...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiOS?
The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiOS?
I rate the pricing for FortiOS as eight or nine out of ten. It is an affordable solution for us.
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
I would rate the licensing cost as seven out of ten, considering it good value for money. The price is affordable and...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
There is room for improvement in the portability on multi-cloud environments. Enhanced DDoS integration to make Forti...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
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