Fortinet FortiClient Reviews

We use the solution internally when we need to access something on the network and we are not at the office.

As far as I can tell, the solution only has one single function, so they could expand its functionality.

My company has been using FortiClient for the last few years. 

The solution is very stable. 

There are currently about 800-900 employees using this solution at my company. 

Previously we just used a normal built-in Windows Defender and McAfee, but we don't use them anymore.

The setup for FortiClient is really straightforward. 

We implemented it in-house and it only took a few minutes. 

The product works fine and I have never had any problems with it. 

I would rate this solution as an eight out of ten.

I am a senior Network and Security Solution architect and having certifications, like JNCIE-SP, JNCIP-Sec, JNCDA, Fortinet certified, Sophos Certified Engineer, and certified in ethical hacking v10. with hands-on experience of Tele 3G, 4G, Metro Ethernet, IGW, and large Data Center Design. my primary focus is to recommend cost-effective solutions, to save End customer CAPEX & OPEX.

Comprehensive protection and user visibility when using FortiGate Firewall with FortiClient.

Right now, my opinion is that FortiClient is very inexpensive for what it is. They have a very feature-rich product available in the UTP (Unified Threat Protection) bundle when compared to what other vendors offered Endpoint. Other vendors sell different parts of their security solutions in different pieces, but Fortinet sells all the features like a unified solution in one UTP bundle. For example, they included limited WAF (Web Application Firewall) features, load balancing, SD Wan (a very important feature), cloud sandbox, antivirus, anti-spam, web filtering, IPS protection, and Remote VPN including SSL VPN. All of this is included in the one UTM bundle.

If we compare with other products like Cisco, Juniper, Sophos, and Palo Alto, those companies require separate purchases for all the different features. So this is why I consider Fortinet very inexpensive. But it is also not a sacrifice because even with low cost for what you get, their security rating is very high. Many customers right now in the situation caused by the pandemic are having budget issues. These companies have lower budgets right now and they have to be aware of the value. They still have the same security need and they want a very feature-rich solution. Fortinet fits in their budget and that is why customers prefer to buying Fortinet as compared to other solutions.

The improvement required for Fortinet is that they must increase RAM in low-end Firewalls. because low-end Firewalls come with very low RAM, due to low RAM users faced performance issues when increase user traffic, that can cause performance issues. even we know other vendors are using a minimum of 04 GB RAM. But Fortinet for their low-end entry-level box is using only one/two GB RAM. That is very low and can be a performance issue.

If we compare the performance based on their datasheet, it does not really meet the full requirements. For example, if we are using the FG-60F Network Security Firewall 10xGE, the throughput is 10 gigs. But the memory is two GB. Two GB of memory is too low to handle the throughput. So they should increase the memory in the box. Fortinet can gain end customer confidence.

I have been working with Fortinet products and FortiClient for five years.  

FortiClient is stable as per my experience with multiple clients. Right now, we have installed the FortiClient internally as well. It is protecting our network as well so we are not only resellers. We do not experience any issues with the endpoint security.  

Fortinet technical support requires a little bit of effort to improve their services. The level of services is based on the customer's purchased support bundle. So if a customer purchases a 360 support bundle, then the customer can contact directly at a higher level with the technical support team. But if the customer purchases the normal 24/7 bundle and they try to open a ticket and make a case for service — either on a call or using the websites — your customer can open only a maximum P3 (Third Priority) level case. This is a low level of priority and it is not suitable for more serious problems. My experience with Cisco and Juniper is different. Those companies have an excellent way of dealing with support cases and they are very skilled. A customer can open a P1 case via phone immediately. With Fortinet, if you want to open a P1 case, you can not do it that way with a standard support package. Support for FortiClient needs to be more in line with the severity of the case.  

I previously worked with Kaspersky and Sophos Intercept X products. I used both as endpoint security.

The main difference is the advantage of FortiClient in CAPEX cost and feature-richness.

One problem I faced was when a customer went to renew FortiClient for their second Year, in Fortinet SKU is the same as a new purchase.

even other venders having renewed SKU for next year.

The case was really more like an upgrade than an initial purchase and should have been somehow included as a bundle. If we compare that with Intercept X and Kaspersky, those companies give the option to renew in similar cases and the renewal pricing is very low compared to the initial cost. It is maybe a place where the Fortinet pricing structure could be modified to appear more competitive.

As per my experience, Fortinet has the simplest way of making deployments compared to other products and companies like Sophos. It is very simple and predictable. Just follow the simple steps and — one, two, three — the firewall is ready to deploy. So you do not need to get more experience and you do not need to study up too much documentation or courses to determine how to configure it. All the information you need is available for free. The customer does not need a technical expert to configure and operate Fortinet products. But if the customer wants to configure competing products like Juniper, Cisco, Palo Alto, and Sophos, they need the technical knowledge to configure the products to achieve proper functionality.  

FortiClient is very simple and user-friendly. The GUI is very user friendly and it is the simplest GUI compared to other vendor products. This is another plus point for Fortinet.  

Clients need not only to look at the price of the product as a bottom line. Some products offer more as a package, as Fortinet does in this case. Some customers see only dollar signs when there is more to evaluating the value of a product offering than the only cost.

My advice to Fortinet is that they should make a change to FortiClient pricing. They should have a renewal price that is lower than the new purchase price. They should include the price bundle as a renewal price, like say you were purchasing UTM (Unified Threat Management) next year for support. They should include a renewal process in their pricing scheme, and not just treat all purchasing as a new contract.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate FortiClient as an eight-out-of-ten.  

Our primary use case for this solution is endpoint synchronization.

I deal with all of the security vendors, and this is one of the products that I have experience with. The deployment is on-premises and is used in conjunction with our firewall.

From an application perspective, this solution is stable.

I feel that this product is more to bolster their marketing, rather than its use for actual synchronization.

This solution is not able to deliver interprocess visibility when it comes to the endpoint, and this is something that needs to be done. Other solutions, such as Carbon Black, are able to do this.

The memory check needs to be improved, giving better visibility into the run-time memory.

The anti-exploitation engine needs enhancement. When it comes to Windows processes and protocols, they need to be included in a more effective way. As it is now, they simply have a checkmark beside it. They have visibility of the protocol, for Windows and the operating system communication, but they are not offering the same level as other solutions, such as Sophos, when it comes to the endpoint.

The level of data protection provided by this system is inconsistent.

With respect to application stability, this is a stable solution. However, it is not consistent with respect to data protection.

While I have not tested the scalability to this point, my understanding is that this is a highly scalable solution. The biggest issue in this regard is on the accounting side, for the licensing.

I have worked with, and am familiar with many security solutions. These include Palo Alto, Fortinet, Malwarebytes, Sophos, and Carbon Black.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward.

I am the system integrator, and I handled the deployment of this solution.

Fortinet requires you to buy a lot of product in order for you to have proper protection.

When it comes to Fortinet, the users are not a big fan of their current model. Bit by bit, they pull you into to buying the entire security fabric. You have to buy a lot of product, and a lot of licenses, to enable all of the features which will help you to secure your environment. This is unlike other solutions, where you have the ability to buy a particular product and it will do its job from the start to the end.

I'm thinking that they are trying to move to the McAfee model, where everything is a separate license that needs to be added. You have to buy a lot of product to get the perfect solution. 

For me, the suitability of a solution often comes down to the price. Nobody is going to complain about the installation. I will design the solution and it will be the most secure solution, ever.

I would rate this solution a four out of ten.

We are using an on-site EMS server for this product and our clients install it on their workstations. I'm a security officer and we are customers of Fortinet. 

The valuable features for us are the integration of the vulnerability scan, mobile detection, and VPN client. The advantage of FortiClient for us is the integration with FortiGate and that they support Linux, which most other solutions do not. One-third of our users have Linux workstations.

FortiClient has compatibility issues between different versions, for example, the VPN doesn't work well between FortiClient 6.4 and FortiGate. There are usability issues with vulnerability scanning and with reporting. It's often difficult to interpret and there are inadequate features in management identity. I would appreciate a better explanation of the findings of the malware scanning and of things like real-time protection. The solution is geared toward centralized single sign-on for the workstations, which is something we do not have. From that point of view, it's not a good match. I've also found the SSL VPN very sensitive to network disruptions. The anti-ransomware feature is hard to use because when it finds something, it doesn't provide adequate information and there are false positives that are hard to identify. Generally, it's difficult to access the documentation of the APIs as it requires an invitation via sponsorship from a Fortinet employee. We had some long-running issues, but that's perhaps because our configuration is not mainstream.

I've been using this solution for over a year. 

We haven't had any crashes, so the product is stable. We have problems with the stability of the VPN connection which tends to disconnect, but my impression is that it's just sensitive to network disruptions and is not related to the solution.

It's hard for me to comment on scalability because we are a company of 50 employees. We have one person who deals with maintenance for a minimal amount of time.

The technical support could be improved because it takes time to get through the first level of support, where you have to prove your case. When you get to where you need, it gets better, but just to get to someone who understands the problem can be tedious. We had some technical problems that they were never able to resolve.

The solution can be set up manually which can be quite complex on some operating systems because it requires a lot of manual settings. It can also be set up on Linux but they only support some distributions. 

I believe that licensing costs $500 per year for a 25-seat pack. It's a reasonable price although for small businesses, the disadvantage is that you have to buy a minimum 25 licenses.

I rate this solution six out of 10. 

We are using the latest version.

We use the net UTM feature, which synchronizes with our office UTM and allows us to block URLs. It allows us to block the USP. 

It would be nice to see more in hand features in terms of the DLP, so that the solution can be integrated with the DLP, as well as more reporting features on the end point. 

We have been using Fortinet FortiClient for the past three to four months.

The solution is quite stable.

The solution is quite scalable. 

Installation was easy.

I use the tool to connect server to an ISP Data Center. 

The product's performance and pricing could be better. 

I am using the product for three to four months. 

The product's connections drop all the time. 

The tool is scalable. We have four users in the company for the product. 

The solution's initial setup is straightforward. The product's deployment tool 20-30 minutes to complete. 

The solution is not worth the investment. 

The product's licensing is yearly and expensive. 

I would rate the product a five out of ten. We plan to discard the product and use OpenVPN. I wouldn't recommend this product to other users. 

The solution is good. I like it very much. It has inexpensive scalability, works very well and can communicate with other Fortinet devices.

While I cannot think of new features to add, it would be nice if the reports were improved, to have these sent automatically. 

I currently use Fortinet FortiClient on my computer and have been doing so for around three months. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is very scalable. It is inexpensive and works very well. 

Based on my past training, I have not yet had need to contact technical support. 

The EMS is very simple to install. The product is very simple. 

For the moment, I only use a fraction of the features offered by the solution and these are very good. For someone like me, who is in Africa and has a small company numbering 500 users, the current features are more than sufficient. I do not use all that is provided by EMS. 

When it comes to the competition, I can only wonder how Fortinet stacks up. I would be interested in knowing if it has the Data Lake feature offered on Palo Alto or machine learning about prevention. 

The solution is on-premises and we have our own server. 

We have a database server and, for the moment, I don't have any issues with its resources. Perhaps, in the future, this will change. 

I would recommend the solution to others without hesitation. It works very well. The EMS is very nice. 

I rate Fortinet FortiClient as an eight out of ten. 

We typically use the solution for remote access. We do not typically use any of the other features.

This solution has improved the way our organization functions.

We find the VPN features valuable.

SAML authentication was newly introduced (Post 6.2) but the free customizable version (Forticlient Configuration tool) from FNDN is still at 6.0.10. I would like to see in an upcoming release the free version of Forticlient Configuration tool supporting authentication and customizable for the customers. This is available in the FortiClient developing networks, but it is only available without SAML authentication. 

Also would like to see more descriptive error messages when authentication fails in Forticlient specially when using forticlient VPN connection from Windows Login with Fortitoken as a 2FA

I have been using the solution for three years.

There are some stability issues with the solution, compared with other solutions such as Cisco. We were having glitches, bugs, and sometimes crashes.

The bugs that I received was on a PC on the client-side, the authentication would almost never provide feedback about what the cause of failure was. This was a usability related issue, it is not built on the actual firewall. We need to look at the application level to see what is really happening on the user level.

The solution is quite scalable, there are approximately 60 people using it.

I used technical support for FortiClient and I would say that they are good. They are knowledgeable and responsive. The product quality itself or the way in which it debugs is relatively complex to other solutions. This could be the reason why support is needed.

I rate Fortinet FortiClient technical support an eight out of ten.

We've used OpenVPN and it is quite limiting. However, It is free. We wanted to have a solution that was more scalable towards high-level deployment. In some countries, where we operate as well, OpenVPN is censored. We also used Cisco Anyconnect (As clients only with our customers)

FortiClient is excelling there because they are not censored or have features blocked.

Relatively straightforward 

The install is not straightforward. It was complex and the guidelines are not straightforward. If you want to have something secure and segregated, it is advanced.

The base price should include basic VPN support in addition to Vulnerability scanning, and I think this is beneficial against other solutions. The price is reasonable compared to competitors, it is very good to upgrade to paid EMS + forticlient for the additional features covering Endpoint protection.

OpenVPN was our primary VPN solution for internal usage

I would advise looking into the EMS feature we are considering it right now, it is worth investing into. In the free base solution for FortiClient, you do not get to customize your VPN solution in the with the client. The current versions that are available for FortiClient they are quite old. If you want to use the solution to its potential, get the Enterprise Management System (EMS). Additionally, purchase the customization of the FortiClient tool, it is also beneficial.

I gave this solution a seven out of ten because I would say its stability needs serious improvements, but on the upside it is relatively cheap to implement and free for basic features also well integrated into the Fortinet solution. To get my scoring up to a ten they need to have better stability.

I rate Fortinet FortiClient a seven out of ten.