Most importantly, it is for the administration of Forti fabric devices and reporting of Forti fabric, and being able to generate reports. It's for logging. All 40 fabric devices are able to send logs to FortiAnalyzer. Basically, the use cases are for administration, reporting, and logging.
Security Solutions Architect at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
User-friendly and easy to set up with good logging
Pros and Cons
- "Logging is the best feature."
- "We would like to do the reporting, logging, and administration of all the public devices and all the IoT devices. We wish to add the switches, and routers from different vendors, so it's not a vendor-specific diagnostic solution."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Logging is the best feature.
I like how everything is integrated with the FortiGate devices, FortiAuthenticator, and other fabric devices. You're able to see all the login details for the administration of FortiGate. It offers great user connectivity using that Fortinet embodiment of the user. It gives you all those login information details.
It's easy to set up.
The solution is stable.
It can scale well.
It's very user-friendly.
What needs improvement?
The fact that it only works with FortiGate devices is quite unfair. We would like to do the reporting, logging, and administration of all the public devices and all the IoT devices. We wish to add the switches, and routers from different vendors, so it's not a vendor-specific diagnostic solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for four years now.
Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiAnalyzer. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is 100% stable. I haven't found any issues with FortiAnalyzer. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Depending on the licenses you procure, the number of devices, and the storage space that you have, to be able to attain those logs and reports, the solution can scale.
How are customer service and support?
Support is great. Usually, when you call on them, they are right on time, and they'll be able to assign an engineer for remote session support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
Setting the solution up is pretty easy. It's just a matter of integrating with the Fortinet public devices. FortiGate will start sending logs and then reports to FortiAnalyzer.
Once it is set up, the solution is easy to maintain.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not sure about the exact licensing costs.
What other advice do I have?
I'm working with the latest version of the solution.
We've done on-premises and cloud deployments.
Usually, clients who don't have SIEM or Nag solutions find FortiAnalyzer quite effective as it's going to give them identification of the user activity reports on different IO devices and the usage of devices. It gives you visibility of your entire infrastructure.
I'd recommend the solution. It's very user-friendly.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
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Vice President of Innovation and Customer Solutions at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Useful reports, scalable, and priced well
Pros and Cons
- "The solution does what it is supposed to. I want it to do reports for Fortinet and it does it well."
- "The FortiAnalyzer is not good at managing multi-version environments. If all your FortiGate are at different versions in the field, that's difficult. The one thing we didn't like is the fact you have to have 100% of your environment at the same release, which is not pleasant, to have it fully functional. You can have a different release, but to have it fully functional 100% of your environment has to be the same release."
What is our primary use case?
We're a managed service provider and we use Fortinet FortiAnalyzer to generate reports for our customers. We manage our customer's Fortinet environment and FortiAnalyzer allows us to send a monthly report or on-demand report to our customers.
What is most valuable?
The solution does what it is supposed to. I want it to do reports for Fortinet and it does it well.
What needs improvement?
The FortiAnalyzer is not good at managing multi-version environments. If all your FortiGate are at different versions in the field, that's difficult. The one thing we didn't like is the fact you have to have 100% of your environment at the same release, which is not pleasant, to have it fully functional. You can have a different release, but to have it fully functional 100% of your environment has to be the same release.
In a future release, if they could turn they could turn Fortinet FortiAnalyzer into a multi-vendor supporting tool it would be awesome. However, I do not think this will happen.
For how long have I used the solution?
I used Fortinet FortiAnalyzer for approximately two years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is scalable.
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is easy to scale. We have approximately 50-100 employees using this solution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have other log analyzers, but we have found with Fortinet FortiAnalyzerwhen you have a Fortinet environment, it's fully integrated. This was what we were looking for, we were not looking for multi-vendor solutions, we were looking for the best log analysis tool for Fortinet.
How was the initial setup?
The solution is easy to set up.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We found the price of Fortinet FortiAnalyzer to be reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise those wanting to use Fortinet FortiAnalyzer to use an MSP, to use a managed service provider, they can call us.
I rate Fortinet FortiAnalyzer an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiAnalyzer
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiAnalyzer. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Group IT Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Great dashboard with customizable reporting and excellent logs
Pros and Cons
- "There are customizable workflows that you can work with. You can automate certain tasks in FortiAnaylzer in the incidents and events sections."
- "It's possible that they could add some advanced analytics and some proactive controls for logging analytics. That will help a lot."
What is our primary use case?
The Primary case is to collect & monitor logs & events from all of our firewalls and appliances in one single interface with analysis
How has it helped my organization?
Our work has been more focused and efficient due to the automatic notifications and reports
What is most valuable?
You can monitor all appliances from a centralized location.
You have a front dashboard for all our operations and all the logs. If you need to search for anything you can just dig deep into the logs.
For example, if you are searching for an email to find out why it is blocked, you will be able to see the policy that blocked it, which logs were triggered, etc... It gives you all the information you need right there, from the dashboard.
The solution offers excellent customizable reports. In our case, we needed a monthly report of all internet consumption, and we were able to easily create this.
There are pre-defined templates. The logs cover any question or need that we populate within these templates. However, you can also build your own template.
There is great analytics that can be used in different departments. For example, our marketing department can go more into media patterns and not just into browsing patterns.
Everything is easily visible and can be tracked and studied.
SOC is very helpful. It shows which IPs are targeting your environments. It shows you the threat levels of all the threats you're facing - including the locations, which policy was triggered et cetera. It will even tell you if the system blocked the threat or not.
FortiAnaylzer is compatible with all of our web browsers.
There are customizable workflows that you can work with. You can automate certain tasks in FortiAnaylzer in the incidents and events sections.
What needs improvement?
It is a pretty big software package. It has a lot of features which maybe aren't that useful.
It's possible that they could add some advanced analytics and some proactive controls for logging analytics. That will help a lot.
The could be more automation and more artificial intelligence integrated into the solution.
It was a service model application originally. It needs to have some artificial intelligence in dealing with the analysis of the nodes, and not just showing the nodes. I'm one version behind the latest version, so I don't know if they added it yet, however, if they haven't it would be a good thing to put into their roadmap.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
My solution is based on VM ova image which is predefined by Fortinet. I don't remember when was the last time I restarted the machine which shows no matter what is the size of logs collected the system doesn't crash.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is pretty good. It's only limited in the log size. You can buy five gigs or 10 gigs if you need to. It depends on how you're going to handle/store the logs.
That said, it is scalable since you are only billed with the size of logs you are using as per the packages and you don't need to modify the cpu/ram. I have it installed on a VM environment and it's connecting to data all over my sites that are both inside and outside Lebanon.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is perfect whether from the vendor or from the online support. I'm lucky to have a partner in Lebanon who is a preferred platinum partner with Fortinet. Whenever we open a case with them we always get a clear response. They are professional. We're quite satisfied with the level of support we are getting.
How was the initial setup?
It is very straight forward, the only thing that you might do some customization in the report and the event management. Other than this everything is predefined and based on templates, so you are able to add your touch on the reports as well.
What about the implementation team?
I have implemented it with a vendor who is the leader in our region working with Fortinet Solutions.
What other advice do I have?
We're Fortinet end-users.
I was on older versions and now I'm with a newer version. People have faced many issues after downloading the latest update so I tend to keep one update back from the newest one to avoid issues.
I'd advise other potential users that, first of all, if they have Fortinet products in their environment, they should consider FortiAnaylzer. If they don't have it, they shouldn't consider it. They need to have Fortinet appliances.
Secondly, it is a very easy configuration, so companies will not have any problems configuring the FortiAnaylzer. It doesn't require a lot of resources.
We're going to bring a dedicated server for our FortiAnaylzer due to the fact that it is a bit of a predefined virtual machine that we can download from Fortinet's side. If you don't want to go deep in the reports and logs, it can rely on the built-in reporting tools in your appliances.
If you happen to have three Fortinet solutions in your environment then you need to have a FortiAnaylzer as it helps a lot in troubleshooting. It helps a lot with predicting everything that you might see happening on a lot on your network. You will need to have FortiAnaylzer due to the fact that the reporting is not that advanced in the appliances.
Overall, I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. If it was more automated and added in some AI elements, I would rate it higher.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Assistant Manager - Cloud Planning and Development at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Very good log analysis and reporting with a straightforward deployment
Pros and Cons
- "The log analysis and reporting are both quite good."
- "The solution lacks business intelligence features. It's much too basic."
What is our primary use case?
We're a service provider. Our clients use the solution for log management.
We are using physical and virtual end ware. We have a physical and logical virtual environment for using this platform, which we provide to our customers.
What is most valuable?
We are utilizing the previous site end dividers and the IPS, IDS DDoS features.
The log analysis and reporting are both quite good.
What needs improvement?
The solution doesn't have online analysis. We can't analyze certain parts of the logs. For example, we can't analyze current logs.
It would be helpful if we could use the system we use to monitor everything to also check the live traffic or live logs.
The solution lacks business intelligence features. It's much too basic.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for two or three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable. We've never faced issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution does not scale easily. It's a hardware solution. We have FortiAnalyzer hardware, and since it has a hardware agent on the storage ware, it requires Forti capacity for analyzing purposes. There's only a finite amount of space in the hardware itself. It isn't infinite.
How are customer service and technical support?
We've dealt with technical support in the past and we've been very satisfied at the level of support we've received so far.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup varies from company to company. Some are straightforward, some are complex.
Deployment is a simple task. FortiAnalyzer comes with the hardware version and a virtual agent. We just deploy and integrate it with the other Fortinet products.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
There is a lot of competition for Fortinet in this area, including USM and Palo Alto.
What other advice do I have?
We are Fortinet partners.
For those organizations that need to use a product for reporting or some analysis of logs, this is a good solution.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. The features are basic, and there's not too much business intelligence behind them. If it offered more of that, I'd rate it higher.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Information security officer at a financial services firm with 1-10 employees
Good value for money, works well with other Fortinet solutions, and has helpful support
Pros and Cons
- "The log events are quite useful for us."
- "We'd like to see more embedded features."
What is our primary use case?
The solution is used for grabbing logs. It is designed for log aggregation of all Fortigate firewalls and to give visibility of traffic and usage.
What is most valuable?
The log events are quite useful for us. The events aggregation from various Fortigate products makes it very helpful.
Technical support is helpful.
The stability is excellent.
This is a highly scalable product.
The setup is straightforward.
What needs improvement?
We'd like to see more embedded features.
We'd like to see more SIEM capabilities. I'd love to see this merged with FortiSIEM for example.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for around 20 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is great. I'd rate it ten out of ten for reliability. We rarely have any issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
You pay compared to the volume of logs you collect. It is very scalable. It's highly expandable. On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate the scalability ten out of ten.
We have less than five network engineers using the product.
How are customer service and support?
I've dealt with support in the past and found them helpful and responsive.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use a variety of Fortigate products.
We did not use a different vendor previously. There is no other real option. We did try to use the free version of Splunk. We moved to Fortianalyzer as it works better in Fortinet products. Splunk is harder to fit into other Fortinet products.
How was the initial setup?
The installation process only takes a couple of hours. It is easy to install.
The maintenance is very minimal. One person can handle maintenance tasks.
What about the implementation team?
We do use specialized consultants occasionally. However, I have been able to do it by myself as well in the past.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I cannot speak of the exact price. Someone else manages the contract. However, you do get good value for your money. It's not overly expensive.
As it is on-premises, you do need some on-prem resources. You need a traditional hypervisor and need the ability to host the solution on your premises.
What other advice do I have?
We're customers and end-users.
We are using the latest version of the solution typically.
I'd recommend the solution to other users.
I would rate the solution ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solutions Consultant at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
Easy to deploy, stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of the solution is reporting."
- "The solution can improve the incident response function to provide more detailed information on where the incident is originating."
What is our primary use case?
The customer purchased a Fortinet Firewall in order to run it as a decentralized block and collect amazing security logs from their internet usage or other data from the box. The benefit of having an on-premise firewall is that they don't have to worry about any subscription, and the storage space it consumes is minimal due to the internal hard drive of the FortiAnalyzer. Furthermore, the firewall does not consume a lot of traffic from the internet due to it being on-premise.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution is reporting. The report that accompanies the solution includes the top 10 usages, threats to be aware of, and any highlights. Additionally, the API can be connected to other systems to receive more notifications.
What needs improvement?
The solution can improve the incident response function to provide more detailed information on where the incident is originating.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for three months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable and we have never experienced downtime.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I give the scalability of the solution an eight out of ten.
This solution is suitable for enterprise customers with a large number of devices and logs. Fortinet FortiAnalyzer enables the compilation of log files over a period of time, such as 90 days in Thailand. This is especially useful for gathering and analyzing data.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is simple. Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is an out-of-the-box solution, so we can start customizing as soon as we finish the installation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I give the cost a seven out of ten. I believe that Fortinet is a cost-effective brand, making it a competitive option in terms of pricing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
An alternative solution is SolarWinds, which analyzes server performance, and could be a competitor's CM solution or a managed service that sends data from sensors on the site to their facility. The primary distinguishing feature of SolarWinds is its form factor. SolarWinds must be installed on a server and requires server resources. In the past, a large amount of OS and other resources were necessary, but the form factor has remained the same.
What other advice do I have?
I give the solution an eight out of ten.
Due to the high cost, Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is not feasible to use for certain office or branch office environments. A possible compromise could be to use a combination of two solutions: for banks, the file-based solution may be beneficial, but for on-premises locations, it could be worthwhile to make use of the existing value and use it to centrally control and manage the data.
I recommend utilizing the FortiAnalyzer if our log volume is sufficient and we have a FortiGate.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Co-founder at Korunet
User-friendly interface with a quick response and good analytics
Pros and Cons
- "FortiAnalyzer has a user-friendly interface with a quick response and good analytics. It's very secure because it's taking the log from the devices on a secure channel, so there is no problem with that in your network."
- "The cost of FortiAnalyzer could be cheaper, especially when you are installing to a VM. For 90 percent of customers, the VM solution is enough."
What is our primary use case?
For most of our customers, we are installing FortiAnalyzer as a VM-based solution. We installed a big analyzer for just one customer because they needed too much storage capacity. We have about 10 clients using it currently.
How has it helped my organization?
We prepare reports for our customers, and when the manager sees them, he's pleased. They show how many users connected, how many attacks happened, and the number of attacks stopped. The management of the IP depends on your report, so the customers need it. We are customizing these reports every day or every week, depending on what the customers need. We send emails with these reports, and the managers are also pleased about it. Also, technical guys are thrilled because they can solve problems very quickly. It's working on the SQL Server, so techs can do a quick search in real-time and see everything in the port analyzer's interface query.
What is most valuable?
FortiAnalyzer has a user-friendly interface with a quick response and good analytics. It's very secure because it's taking the log from the devices on a secure channel, so there is no problem with that in your network. Because you're getting the information from a secure channel, it's also possible to back it up in a storage solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been installing FortiAnalyzer bundled with other products for about six or seven years.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up FortiAnalyzer is very straightforward. It takes just 30 minutes or less. With our installation, we sent our FortiGates log, email logs, and other logs for the three devices we're currently running to the analyzers we are using within the public architecture.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The license depends on the storage capacity. If you want to take a log of up to 1 gigabyte daily, it's free, if I remember correctly. But if you want 5 gigabytes daily, it's licensed at different prices. The cost of FortiAnalyzer could be cheaper, especially when you are installing to a VM. For 90 percent of customers, the VM solution is enough.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate FortiAnalyzer 10 out of 10
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Fraud Risk Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Provides analyzing tools, monitoring tools, and log management
Pros and Cons
- "From my perspective, we need to see the traffic in a good way so we can know what has happened in our network. The analyzing tools and the monitoring tools and the logs are the important part in the network."
- "The traffic monitoring could be better, and stability could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use cases are log management and the reporting fraud forum. It provides a vision of the network.
What is most valuable?
From my perspective, we need to see the traffic in a good way so we can know what has happened in our network. The analyzing tools and the monitoring tools and the logs are the important part in the network.
What needs improvement?
The traffic monitoring could be better, and stability could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution should be more stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
For the cloud version, you can expand it as you need it.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't contacted technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The solution is easy to install.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
FortiAnalyzer was in the product itself, but two years ago they split it from Fortinet. We paid the license two years ago.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.
I can recommend this solution for other users.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: February 2025
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