Fortinet FortiOS vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway comparison

Fortinet FortiOS vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway

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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

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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Alexander Azikov

It Manager at Diamond Braces

A robust appliance that is reasonably priced and straightforward to set up

Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved. There are two user interface options available, namely the basic and the advanced. The basic UI is not very good and doesn't have a lot of features, although it is fast. The advanced UI allows me to do whatever I want, but this is where the issue of speed exists. At one of our sites, the CPU utilization was very high, and for no reason. Technical support needs to be more responsive to requests.

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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's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."

"The most valuable feature of the solution revolves around SSL VPN."

"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."

"The customization potential is quite impressive."

"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."

"FortiGate SD-WAN facilitated a smooth transition for our customers between their two internet service providers, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity without any downtime."

"The product offers very good security."

"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The technical support on offer has always been quite good."

"The customer service and support team are excellent."

"It's very easy to use."

"It efficiently manages large-scale firewall deployments."

"The classification of the websites is helpful."

"It is more robust than SonicWall, particularly on the VPN from site to site."

"The most valuable features are the ease of use, and the overall simplicity, everyone can use it with a small introduction."

"FortiOS's most valuable feature is a next-generation firewall that can be used as the APT solution in advanced threat protection."

More Fortinet FortiOS pros

"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."

"The solution can scale well."

"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."

Cons

"The advanced models are expensive."

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."

"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."

"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."

"There's always something new that can be added or fixed."

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."

"The pricing could always be better."

"It needs more available central management."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The solution needs improvement with DDoS protection."

"Fortinet FortiOS can improve by limiting the need for the CLI and GUI combination. The more functions they can have on the GUI and less on CLI would be helpful."

"It should also manage the local DSCP network."

"The reporting for this solution could be improved. It could also be more stable and offer better pricing."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the pricing could be lower. The price is very steep."

"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."

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

"Fortinet FortiOS's integration could be improved."

More Fortinet FortiOS cons

"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."

"The product has some scalability and data management issues where improvements are required."

"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for the product is alright."

"The price could be lower."

"Its price is affordable and lesser than Cisco. Cisco is expensive. In terms of licensing, there is only one issue. If a customer's license has expired a month ago and they do the renewal after one month, Fortinet renews the license from the start of the previous month. The activation of the product is done from the previous month, not from the date of renewal. The customers usually shout and complain that because they are paying today, the renewal should start from today. The support contract renewals or licensing should be renewed from the date of renewal, but Fortinet starts from the day it had expired. It is a loss for customers. They might have had some problems because of which they did not take the license one month before. Fortinet should work on this. Cisco doesn't do this. Cisco always starts from the day they apply for the license."

"We just pay a flat monthly fee to the vendor for the support."

"It is affordable. Palo Alto is much more expensive than Fortinet."

"The price of FortiGate is good."

"Fortinet's pricing is more straightforward than other solutions. If Fortinet doesn't stick out when you're searching for a solution, you are a glutton for punishment. You only need to know two things when purchasing a Fortinet solution: your total bandwidth and bandwidth at the site. You need to estimate the future bandwidth with other solutions if your customer plans to upgrade."

"The price is okay."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The pricing could always be lower."

"FortiOS is affordable, but its price could be lower."

"The price of Fortinet FortiOS is comparable to other similar solutions on the market. We are on an annual license to use the solution."

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

"The software costs roughly half what the hardware costs. Overall, the product is expensive."

"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."

"It is not cheap."

"The licensing for FortiOS is good, with a security license included when we update the main license."

More Fortinet FortiOS pricing and cost advice

"The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market."

"This gateway is pretty cheap."

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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

21%

Comms Service Provider

16%

Retailer

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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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 ...

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?

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

What do you like most about Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?

The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?

The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market.

What needs improvement with Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?

If you have very secure data, Zyxel Unified Security Gateway will not be very useful. My company doesn't have to deal...

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

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Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 5% of the time

Darktrace vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 20% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Fortinet FortiGate

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Fortinet FortiOS

Download Fortinet FortiOS product report

Unified Threat Management (UTM)

Download Zyxel Unified Security Gateway product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Learn More

Fortinet

Zyxel

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.

ZyWALL USG Series delivers high-access quality to help businesses satisfy the demand for always-online communications. For internal deployments, the ZyWALL USG Series provides active-passive High-Availability (HA) service to support device or connection failover.

With Device HA Pro service, the ZyWALL USG Series also supports instant failover, so connections are always maintained when a failover event occurs. For external deployments, the ZyWALL USG Series features multi- WAN load balancing/failover and a comprehensive mobile broadband USB modem support list for WAN backup operations. The ZyWALL USG Series also supports IPSec load balancing and failover, providing additional resilience for mission-critical VPN failover with VTI Interface deployments.

ZyWALL USG110/210/310 thoroughly protects networks with industry-leading firewall, Anti-Malware/ Virus, Anti-Spam, Content Filtering, IDP, and Application Patrol functionality. Regulate unauthorized use of Web applications over your network, such as Facebook, Google apps, and Netflix, among others. Zyxel security measures are enhanced with SSL Inspection, blocking threats hidden in SSL-encrypted connections while facilitating deeper policy enforcement. Furthermore, newly improved Content Filtering 2.0 enhances HTTPS Domain Filter, Browser SafeSearch, and Geo IP Blocking for an array of security enhancements to ensure clean Web connections.

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

Information Not Available

Fortinet FortiOS vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway