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Sangfor NGAF vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
328
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Sangfor NGAF
Ranking in Firewalls
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zscaler Cloud Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
24th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor NGAF is 1.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Cloud Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

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.
Zaid Farooqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced threat detection with integrated security features and good support
We are using application firewalling, WAF, and SD-WAN. The capabilities are mostly within the box. For example, you will get web application firewall WAF as part and parcel of this. SD-WAN is also bundled. It integrates with their SIEM and SOAR solutions very nicely. Lastly, the pricing point is very cost-efficient as well.
Bhaskar Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Though it helps deal with web traffic or any malicious traffic, it needs to work on its DC performance issues
The product's initial setup phase is moderate in level, so it is neither very complex nor very easy. For the deployment, my company first needs to gather all the requirements of the users and the domain names and consider how many users there are in the company. In the implementation and planning part, my company needs to consider what kind of policies we will create while ensuring that the policies are created based on the requirements of the users. There is a need to segregate the users' requirements since there are separate departments in the company, like the HR department, sales department, IT department, and manufacturing department, so that our company can create policies depending on their requirements. On-site, if you want a GRE tunnel, our company can handle GRE tunnel traffic routing and Zscaler Cloud Firewall, after which Zscaler will take action based on the policies created by our organization. For the deployments and maintenance, a team of five members consisting of two managers and three engineers is required.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortinet FortiGate brings numerous benefits to my company."
"Unified Threat Management (UTM) features."
"Fortinet FortiGate has SD-WAN, FortiView, antivirus, sandbox, and IPS, which are generally well-known features."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"There is an easy process for configuring it, and it is straightforward to implement the device from scratch."
"It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."
"The price versus value is good because the solution is less expensive than Sophos, Fortinet, or SonicWall."
"We've found the technical support to be helpful."
"I think the tool has the feature to detect and kill ransomware in three seconds."
"The VPN connectivity feature is really nice."
"The capabilities are mostly within the box."
"Sangfor has the best capabilities for securing connections, securing web browsers, securing servers, and general threat protection."
"It seems to be a durable, stable product."
"Particularly good in the DPI where we can inspect inbound and outbound traffic."
"The solution is scalable."
"It helps a lot of companies to reduce their downtime. Also, It helps businesses in terms of being secured and protected from any threats."
"The visibility and log availability offered are highly valued for troubleshooting purposes, and this is a key factor driving customer interest in the firewall module."
"Since it is really customizable, I can use it and avoid enabling access to the full network."
"The solution offers good sandboxing."
"Once you have Zscaler running you have access to configure it however you want."
"If malicious traffic attacks our on-premises servers, then it gets blocked by Zscaler Cloud Firewall."
"Zscaler Cloud Firewall understands the applications in the current generation and adapts to the present generation cloud applications."
 

Cons

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"Regarding challenges, customers initially faced issues like internet dropping, but after firmware upgrades, everything worked well."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"There are problems with the custom reporting of the unique traffic. The data is there, but it is too difficult for us to extract."
"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."
"The product must provide more IPS features."
"Sangfor need greater exposer in the market because the market is mainly saturated by Fortinet. The user experience of Fortinet is quite different compared to NGAF. If we want to switch our users from Fortinet to NGAF, we have to convince them that the user experience will be much easier once once they start to use it."
"The setup phase is quite complex."
"The solution should be able to work in a hybrid setup."
"It does not offer any recommendations on how to mitigate or control attacks."
"An area of improvement for Sangfor NGAF could be in the field of reporting and logging."
"Sangfor could improve their interface capacity on the 5100 series model and upgrade their hardware from one gig to 10 gig. This would improve the overall throughput."
"They need to increase the number of ports in the firewall."
"I don't have the visibility of a control dashboard or a network management system."
"It would be nice to have some sort of a form factor, a physical form factor perhaps, or virtual machine that you could install on devices or on a cloud, and have some cloud computing."
"Its technical support services could be better."
"Apart from the issues associated with the product in areas like the DC performance issues and DC failover, Zscaler Cloud Firewall's IP should not have a proxy IP."
"They do not provide a few components that are fundamental to differentiate the products"
"The issue right now is probably that Zscaler is not providing web browser isolation. Another solution, Menlo, offers this. For one customer, we had to send traffic to Menlo to do the isolation for us. It was requested by the customer so that they could integrate any iframe. Zscaler needs to add this type of feature in their next release."
"Pricing is a challenge."
"Zscaler Cloud Firewall should have a better understanding of all dynamic cloud applications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of FortiGate is average and I would say that based on the top five products available on the market, it is in the affordable range."
"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."
"The pricing or licensing of Fortinet FortiGate is quite effective as it offers different bundles that aggregate most required features, while also allowing clients the option to select specific components alone."
"I think that the pricing is fair."
"No comment."
"It's expensive, but compared to the competition it's okay."
"In the Asian economy in which we operate, FortiGate is expensive."
"The price of FortiGate is comparable to that of most other firewall solutions and is more affordable than Cisco."
"The price is unmatcheable."
"-"
"It is one of the cheapest tools in the market."
"Sangfor is cheaper than competing vendors."
"Sangfor NGAF price is reasonable and there is an annual license. However, the maintenance cost can be a bit high."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"For over 2000 users, the cost is around 5000 to 6000 USD. If you want a web application firewall, you have to purchase an additional license for it."
"Price-wise, I would not consider Sangfor NGAF to be a cheap product. It is an expensive firewall solution, though not as expensive as something like Palo Alto, which is costly. However, the higher price point is justifiable given the feature set the tool provides that other firewalls may not offer in a single dedicated appliance."
"It is not the most budget-friendly solution, but it's important to consider its overall value."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis. It is somewhere around 30 or 40 pounds per user for our organization."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"Zscaler is priced too high compared to the cost of Fortinet."
"It comes at a significantly reduced cost while ensuring control and effectiveness."
"The product is a bit expensive compared to the solutions offered by its competitors, like Palo Alto. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the license in charges associated with the product."
"There is an annual license required for the use of the Zscaler Cloud Firewall."
"It is expensive for small businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

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...
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 ...
What do you like most about Sangfor NGAF?
I think Sangfor NGAF is more valuable than Cisco products because of its simplicity and ease of management. If I comp...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sangfor NGAF?
The licensing cost is quite high compared to other available firewalls in the market.
What needs improvement with Sangfor NGAF?
The cost of licensing is very high compared to other firewalls available here. There should be improvements in hardwa...
Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?
Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...
What do you like most about Zscaler Cloud Firewall?
The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Cloud Firewall?
The product is a bit expensive compared to the solutions offered by its competitors, like Palo Alto. There is a need ...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Sangfor NGAF Firewall Platform
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
The Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Indonesia), Lawson, Inc. (Philippines), Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (Indonesia), TEK Automotive (Italy), etc.
Zenith Live, Azure, Carlsberg Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Sangfor NGAF vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.