Fortinet FortiOS vs Vectra AI comparison

The compared Fortinet and Vectra AI solutions aren't in the same category. Fortinet is ranked #28 in Firewalls , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 0.9% mindshare in the category. Vectra AI is ranked #2 in ID , with an average rating of 8.2, and holds a 11.9% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Vectra AI users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiOS and Vectra AI based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls.

To learn more, read our detailed Firewalls Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

January 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

Firewalls

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

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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RaynoPowell

Senior System Analyst at EOH

Great IPS and DNS filtering with useful tutorials available

We don't really find a lot of issues on it. If I really have to complain about something, and there's not much, is the free VPN solution is a bit limited. Then again, it is a free solution. That's essentially it. Nothing else on the FortiGate or on the Fortinet OS side is really an issue. That's one of the main reasons why we use them: everything works and works well. For what we use, there isn't really any missing feature. In fact, we actually want to get rid of some of the features that they have due to the fact that, for the security model that we need to implement, having more features actually opens up potential risk. We actually would like to have a device that is more focused specifically on OT environments the operational technologies. We would prefer a device that's stripped down, that doesn't have all the other fluff in the more enterprise system. We actually want a feature where we can remove features that are there that we don't use. That is actually a thing that we find. We use it now in an operational technology environment. We use normal IT equipment. However, it's not a normal IT network. It differs significantly from a normal corporate IT environment. In a normal corporate IT environment, you like the fluff, and the additional features, and you can click, click, click, and you're done. However, all of those features you add to a device open up risk for us. And that is something we do differently in the OT environment in operational technology. We prefer to not have the fluff. We prefer to have only what is needed for the device to do what it needs to do. For example, imagine an additional feature for some sort of additional VPN technology has been added. However, it's not really needed for the OT environment, and it's not configured on the device, yet there's some sort of security threat in there. Now, all of a sudden, somebody can hack your system, and he's in there, and he's switching the lights on and off the entire city. And you don't know about it due to the fact that the additional fluff that we added to the system, we weren't aware of that issue was on there. You can enable and disable certain modules in it. However, with disabling, nobody can really tell us if that module is disabled. Is it really disabled? Is it actually unloaded? Is it uninstalling Word from your laptop, or is it just not running Word?

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Mohammad Alkurdi

Owner at Fortibits

Innovative detection features enhance monitoring

The advantages of the integration are not entirely out-of-the-box. You have to do it manually. When I'm doing tier response, an out-of-the-box solution is not available. You need to have a Linux server, and from the Linux server, you must perform AI tasks, and there is a lot to be handled in the back end. This is a major consideration about them. The recall feature, if it can be placed in some areas instead of the cloud, and charged for, would be better. Recall the storage where you watch all the traffic, and you can recall it and try to analyze it in the back end. It’s cloud-based. If they offer it on-prem, it would be better. I think they have a solution, but I have never tested it, to be honest with you.

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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

"It is very flexible to use."

"The most valuable features are the possibility of having one fabric for switching on security."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."

"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."

"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."

"The next-generation firewall is great."

"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."

"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"There are many useful features, such as web security and advanced threat detection."

"The customer service and support team are excellent."

"Firewall and overall management are valuable features."

"The solution is extremely scalable."

"Compared to other firewalls, the segmentation is much easier in FortiGate."

"The VDOM (Virtual DOM) is a virtualized firewall that has some opportunities for flexibility that are an advantage in certain configurations."

"This is an easy means of setting up high-availabilty firewall protection."

"The interface is easy to understand, so when there are threats you get alerts. It's quite intuitive, but if you are ever confused they have instructional videos. For example, if you don't understand a graph there's a link to a video that explains what the graph means. It makes it very user-friendly."

More Fortinet FortiOS pros

"It does a reliable job of parsing out the logs of all the network traffic so that we can ingest them into our SIEM and utilize them for threat hunting and case investigations. It is pretty robust and reliable. The administration time that we spend maintaining it or troubleshooting it is very low. So, the labor hour overhead is probably our largest benefit from it. We spend 99% of our time in Vectra investigating cases, responding to incidents, or hunting, and only around 1% of our time is spent patching, troubleshooting, or doing anything else. That's our largest benefit from Vectra."

"The administrative privilege detection feature is the most valuable feature. The admin accounts are often highly accessible to the high-risk component of the environment. If those accounts are compromised or are being used in a suspicious manner, that's high-fidelity events for us to look into."

"Vectra AI generates relevant information."

"It keeps up with the network traffic, which is a good thing. It provides more context to plain alerts compared to using an older system. So, it helps an analyst reduce the information overload."

"The UI is easy to use and when we send detection to everybody, they easily understand what we are asking at the time."

"Most of their use cases, including deployment, are managed by the tool itself, requiring less manual input from our team."

"We particularly like the user experience around the dashboard, which we find to be much more straightforward than the dashboard of some of the competitive products... Vectra is a really easy system to understand and use to prioritize where we need to focus our security resources."

"It gives you access, with Recall, to instant visibility into your network through something like a SIEM solution. For us, being able to correlate all of this network data without having to manage it, has provided immediate value. It gives us the ability to really work on the stuff where I and my team have expertise, instead of having to manage a SIEM solution..."

More Vectra AI pros

Cons

"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."

"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."

"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."

"The UTM filtering needs improvement."

"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."

"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."

"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."

"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"I want to see a better integration or a better integration with the endpoint protection or with EDR with the security life cycle."

"It could more scalable for the lower end users."

"I would like to see fewer bugs. If you use the box with its basic features, the solution is straightforward and stable, but you can run into bugs when using newer features or in more complex use cases. They included a DNS filter as a new feature, and I had issues that required raising a ticket with customer support."

"The solution is good, but they have poor marketing in Nigeria. They need to market their product better."

"In the future I would like to see more user-friendly dashboards and a drop in the price."

"You can enable and disable certain modules in it. However, with disabling, nobody can really tell us if that module is disabled."

"The reporting and monitoring could improve, they have a lot of limitations. The monitoring is not easy compared to the other firewall."

"There is some room for improvement in the support."

More Fortinet FortiOS cons

"The false positives and the tuning side of it is something that could use improvement. But that could be from our side."

"Neither Vectra nor Darktrace have a function like a status health check on my log sources and traffic sources."

"The advantages of the integration are not entirely out-of-the-box. You have to do it manually."

"We have a lot of system solutions and integrations with system solutions. Vectra is a type of black box. It implements AI-informed detection mechanisms, but we cannot create system detections. I understand that the product is designed this way, but it would be great if we could create our own detections as well."

"One thing which I have found where there could be improvement is with regard to the architecture, a little bit: how the brains and sensors function. It needs more flexibility with regard to the brain. If there were some flexibility in that regard, that would be helpful, because changing the mode of the brain is complex. In some cases, the change is permanent. You cannot revert it."

"There is room for improvement in the documentation. We would like to have more details on how it detects what we see."

"For S&D account scans, it would be easier if Vectra AI could triage with users. If a client uses a lot of accounts, then it could indicate that these accounts are benign, for example. That would help a lot."

"We have had a few issues with the integration of Vectra AI with EDR. Some filters have not been working. We've also had issues with the brain not being powerful enough."

More Vectra AI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The price of FortiGate support is too expensive."

"The price of the license and warranty can be better because it is very expensive."

"It is a good product from a price perspective versus functionality."

"They are very competitive, but we like to have the factory warranty taken care of."

"It has been two years. I don't remember the actual price, but it was affordable. We buy the boxes and then use the license for three years."

"It's an expensive solution."

"It's a very full-featured and it's priced well solution."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"It is not cheap."

"The price of Fortinet FortiOS is reasonable and it is paid annually. You are able to select the features that you want."

"The solution is quite affordable and I rate the cost a four out of ten."

"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 cost is around $40,000."

"The best solution in the category including the price in Thailand is Fortinet FortiOS."

"We had a three-year license to use Fortinet FortiOS and we are going to renew it this year."

More Fortinet FortiOS pricing and cost advice

"The upfront pricing model that we have would have been more beneficial if it had been a recurring license fee, but that wasn't a massive issue for us. It's fairly priced."

"At the time of purchase, we found the pricing acceptable. We had an urgency to get something in place because we had a minor breach that occurred at the tail end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017. This indicated we had a lack of ability to detect things on the network. Hence, why we moved quickly to get into the tool in place. We found things like Bitcoin mining and botnets which we closed quickly. In that regard, it was worth the money."

"Vectra's pricing is too high. All schools will not be able to afford it. Vectra will only end up targeting higher education and higher value independence purely because of the price. A lot of schools would love to have a product like Vectra AI, but they simply can't because they struggle to even pay the high E5 licensing from Microsoft. When you're up against that, Vectra AI is never going to be within the sector's price range."

"The licensing is on an annual basis."

"My company pays for the Vectra AI licensing fee yearly. I know the figure because my company recently renewed the license, and it's okay, at least for the financial sector."

"Their licensing model is antiquated. I'm not a fan of their licensing model. We have to pay for licensing based on four different things. You have to pay based on the number of unique IPs, the number of logs that we send through Recall and Stream, and the size of our environment. They need to simplify their licensing down to just one thing. It should be based on the amount of data, the number of devices, or something else, but there should be just one thing for everything. That's what they need to base their licensing on. Cost-wise, they're not cheap. They were definitely the most expensive option, but you get what you pay for. They're not the cheapest option."

"The solution is low-cost and affordable."

"The pricing is very good. It's less expensive than many of the tools out there."

More Vectra AI pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

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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What do you like most about Fortinet FortiOS?

The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiOS?

Regarding the cost, the initial purchase is relatively cheap because it comes bundled. However, the subscription rene...

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What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?

The two platforms take a fundamentally different approach to NDR. Corelight is limited to use cases that require the ...

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What do you like most about Vectra AI?

The solution is currently used as a central threat detection and response system.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vectra AI?

Vectra is cheaper in terms of pricing and features compared to Darktrace.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 23% 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

Sangfor NGAF vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Fortinet FortiManager vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 12% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 5% of the time

Sangfor NGAF vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiOS Competitors

Darktrace vs Vectra AI

Compared 35% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) vs Vectra AI

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Vectra AI

Compared 6% of the time

Arista NDR vs Vectra AI

Compared 5% of the time

Corelight vs Vectra AI

Compared 5% of the time

More Vectra AI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiOS

January 2025

Download Fortinet FortiOS product report

Buyer's Guide

Vectra AI

December 2024

Download Vectra AI product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR

Learn More

Fortinet

Vectra AI

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 FortiOS is a comprehensive security operating system that powers Fortinet's network security solutions. It provides advanced threat protection, network visibility, and centralized management for organizations of all sizes. With its robust features and intuitive interface, FortiOS enables businesses to secure their networks, applications, and data from cyber threats.

One of the key features of FortiOS is its advanced threat protection capabilities. It incorporates multiple security technologies, including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention system (IPS), and web filtering, to detect and block a wide range of threats. This ensures that organizations are protected against malware, ransomware, and other malicious activities. FortiOS also offers extensive network visibility, allowing organizations to monitor and analyze network traffic in real-time. This visibility enables businesses to identify potential security risks, detect anomalies, and take proactive measures to mitigate threats.

Additionally, FortiOS provides detailed reports and analytics, helping organizations gain insights into their network security posture. Centralized management is another crucial aspect of FortiOS. It allows businesses to manage and configure their security policies, devices, and users from a single console. This simplifies the management process and ensures consistent security across the entire network infrastructure.

Moreover, FortiOS supports integration with other Fortinet products, enabling seamless security orchestration and automation. FortiOS is designed to be scalable and flexible, making it suitable for organizations of all sizes. It offers a range of deployment options, including physical appliances, virtual machines, and cloud-based solutions. This flexibility allows businesses to choose the deployment model that best fits their requirements and easily scale their security infrastructure as their needs evolve.

Vectra AI is used for detecting network anomalies and potential malicious activities, providing visibility into network traffic and enhancing threat detection across environments.

Organizations deploy Vectra AI mainly on-premises with additional cloud components. It helps with compliance, incident response, security monitoring, detecting insider threats, and correlating network events. Vectra AI captures and enriches network metadata, provides detailed dashboards, reduces false positives, and supports cross-environment behavioral analysis to enhance threat detection and prioritization. While valued for its high accuracy and alert aggregation, it has room for improvement in UI/UX, packet management, and integration with SIEMs and other tools. It is noted for expensive pricing and limited proactive threat response features.

What are Vectra AI's most valuable features?

High accuracy in identifying threat locations
Aggregation of alerts into single incidents
24/7 threat detection
Visibility into the entire attack lifecycle
Risk score aggregation
Effective triaging of alerts
Integration with other tools

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Enhanced threat detection and prioritization
Comprehensive network visibility
Reduction in false positives
Better incident response capabilities
Improved compliance monitoring

In specific industries, Vectra AI is deployed to monitor complex networks and alleviate challenges in threat detection. It is particularly effective in sectors requiring stringent compliance and security measures, offering insights and capabilities crucial for protecting sensitive data and maintaining operational integrity.

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

Tribune Media Group, Barry University, Aruba Networks, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Securities Exchange, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association

Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls. Updated: January 2025.

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