Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

We don't have any issues regarding security, and our web server is running fine with protection from all threats.

The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are that it does the job effectively and protects our environment. It has a VPN and can create a virtual IP for a web server and functions as a standard firewall.

We faced difficulties with the configuration because there are many features we could optimize using Fortinet FortiGate, but our reseller didn't have a good understanding of it. So, we just use it on a basic level, not with the best practice for using FortiGate.

We have been using Fortinet FortiGate for around five years.

Overall, I find Fortinet FortiGate to be very stable. Fortinet FortiGate demonstrates consistent stability.

In my case, the 101F is not scalable. I faced problems with scalability related to memory. When we hit 100% memory usage, it stops the internet connection, so we need to control the traffic. We cannot increase the memory.

We have about 350 users and only one admin.

My experience with Fortinet's technical support is good and helpful. The response time and overall competence meet our expectations. I would rate their support a seven out of ten.

We used Juniper before Fortinet FortiGate. We switched because it was an old one and reached the end of support. We had to change.

We were supported by a third party and the reseller. During deployment, it was not a good experience because of the reseller. We had challenges with the optimized configuration. 

The deployment took around three months.

The reseller helped us with the implementation. It has been a long time since the implementation, so I don't remember the name of the company that helped us.

Our IT has six people for deployment, and we used two staff members.

We have seen a return on investment with Fortinet FortiGate. The ROI calculation is based on potential loss prevention rather than traditional ROI metrics.

Its pricing is good. The advantages of Fortinet FortiGate over its competitors include good pricing and meeting our requirements at a lower cost. Palo Alto's features are superior, but too expensive.

I compared other brands, such as Palo Alto and Sophos, and chose Fortinet FortiGate. Palo Alto is the best, but it is significantly more expensive. Palo Alto has better capabilities than Fortinet FortiGate. Their protection is much more secure, and they excel in detecting intrusion and reading information. 

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

There is a tool called FSSO, which is a single sign-on user ID agent that works perfectly. You can configure anything on it, and it is better than Palo Alto's version.

The GUI is written in JavaScript, so when you move any object or policy to another one, it becomes easy to use. It is user-friendly and not complex for network configuration.

Run Script is the best tool to use in Fortinet FortiGate with multiple environments. You can perform multiple tasks at once with the script functionality. It is available through the GUI, whereas in Palo Alto, you need to run it in a separate tool, such as Python.

I prefer Palo Alto over Fortinet FortiGate. Its IPS engine is not better than the Palo Alto version. The monitoring tool needs improvement, and the syslog configuration needs enhancement.

The management plane and control plane are not separated as they are in the same hardware devices, whereas in Palo Alto, everything is separated. So, if the CPU and GPU usage gets higher in the data plane, the admin also becomes unreachable.

The web filter in Fortinet FortiGate is not very useful. While you can add web filters in security policies, it is difficult to understand and not flexible to use.

Fortinet FortiGate frequently experiences IPS engine problems. 

I have been working with it for four to five years.

In most cases, the IPS engine uses too many resources, which makes Fortinet FortiGate devices unstable. When clients encounter different issues, the IPS engine is usually the problem because it consumes excessive resources.

I have not worked directly with technical support, but I am familiar with the distributor, partner, and vendor. People who work with Fortinet provide adequate service.

Positive

I mostly migrate from Fortinet FortiGate, Check Point, and other solutions to Palo Alto. For migrations from various solutions to Fortinet FortiGate, it takes a few days, depending on the environment.

Fortinet FortiGate is cheaper than Palo Alto. It is about 20% cheaper. 

I prefer Palo Alto over Fortinet FortiGate. Fortinet FortiGate is not the best firewall, but it is acceptable. If you have a budget to buy a firewall and Palo Alto is too expensive, then Fortinet FortiGate can be usable. As an instructor in Palo Alto Networks who knows all the techniques, I naturally prefer Palo Alto.

For a small company or branch, I would choose Fortinet FortiGate because it is cheaper and the features are sufficient. However, for more critical environments, such as government institutions or banks, where privacy and security are paramount, I would opt for Palo Alto.

In a hamburger topology setup with the internet side and internal side, I prefer using Palo Alto Networks on the internet side and Fortinet FortiGate on the internal side. This creates a multi-vendor environment, avoiding dependency on a single vendor. The internet side requires more security, hence I would go for Palo Alto, whereas the internal side would benefit from Fortinet FortiGate's flexibility and ease of use.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

I have experience working with Cisco, Catalyst SD-WAN, Fortinet FortiGate, and Juniper technologies. We have a multi-range of vendors including Cisco, Juniper, VMware, and Palo Alto. We use Palo Alto firewall and Fortinet FortiGate firewall for wireless security and network security, including proxy and next-generation capabilities.

Most vendors are providing almost the same functionalities in terms of firewalls. Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Juniper are all offering similar capabilities, but they have a wide range of services or products such as SD-WAN and SASE. Currently, we are a big enterprise and one of our products is Fortinet FortiGate.

Fortinet FortiGate has reasonable pricing and is easy to operate. It is efficient and represents the future for security, including cloud security and branch-to-cloud security.

We have threat intelligence detection, response, and action capabilities. Fortinet FortiGate products are stable, and they offer a wide range of security capabilities.

We did not use Fortinet SASE, and I do not remember if our data center team utilizes it. Currently, I think Fortinet should enable more cloud, virtual, or unified solutions. One point against them is that their solution lacks a unified approach. Sometimes the licensing is not clear, and when you purchase a product, you find that you need certain licenses or additional products. There is not one comprehensive solution.

Three years.

Fortinet FortiGate is stable. We have been using it for three years and did not face any stability issues.

We have been using Fortinet FortiGate for three years and did not face any scalability issues.

I do not have good visibility about Fortinet FortiGate's tech support because it is similar to other vendors. There is tech support available, and if there is an operational issue, the operations team opens a ticket with tech support.

We work with local companies and local partners. Both the vendor and official channels work with local partners for implementation.

I do not remember there being challenges or complexity in the deployment of Fortinet FortiGate.

We work with local companies and local partners. Both the vendor and official channels coordinate with local partners.

Fortinet FortiGate's price is reasonable compared with other vendors.

Fortinet FortiGate is in a good position. In Gartner, they are leaders, but they may come after Palo Alto and are better than Cisco in the firewall field.

We are deploying micro-segmentation technology and methodology in our cloud and private cloud deployment. I can assess that Fortinet FortiGate is good overall. My review rating for this product is eight out of ten.

Fortinet FortiGate is mainly used for next-generation firewall features.

Most of our customers primarily use FortiGate as a general-purpose firewall and for remote work. During COVID, they needed to enable the SSL VPN licenses, which was a straightforward process, and they benefited greatly from that. However, apart from this, I don’t see a significant differentiator between FortiGate and other firewalls.

Most of our implementations are standalone. We have a few integrations as well with Active Directory and other things. It is pretty straightforward, and we have not had any issues.

The main value comes from the simplicity of the product in terms of configuring and managing. 

Their user interface could be improved from a configuration perspective.

I have personally used it for about five years, but the organization has been using Fortinet FortiGate for the organization and customers for about 10 years.

Stability is excellent. We have not had issues from the product itself.

We have deployed Fortinet FortiGate from 50 user locations to 100-200 user locations. We have not had any issues with any of those models.

I would rate their support an eight out of ten. There's always room for improvement. 

Positive

We are a small system integrator and an authorized partner for Fortinet FortiGate, Cisco, Cisco Meraki, Palo Alto, Sophos, and Check Point. We cater to the SMB and upper SMB market and some enterprise customers. Most customers do not require fully fledged integrated solutions.

In Sri Lanka, there is about 40% market penetration for Fortinet. They have partnerships with two telcos, so most corporates with MPLS links who wanted to move out with the operator are offered managed SD-WAN solutions using Fortinet FortiGate.

We have Cisco customers as well, including local customers and global customers whom we support using Cisco firewalls. Comparing Cisco and Fortinet firewalls is challenging. You cannot compare a Ferrari with a normal Nissan sedan from a product and feature perspective. The SMB market segment and the upper SMB market segment are very price-conscious. Cisco does not offer firewalls that are competitively priced for this market segment, especially compared to Fortinet's offerings. They only recently released the 200 series, which can compete with the FortiGate 50 models that we sell.

Fortinet FortiGate is pretty straightforward compared to Cisco.

It is mostly on-prem. One or two clients are using it on the cloud.

Our customers get their ROIs on the price points that we sell in this market.

For the market and the segment that we cater to, the FortiGate pricing structure is sufficient.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.

My typical use case for Fortinet FortiGate involves it being one of the best solutions for next-generation firewall. In terms of simplified control and in-built SD-WAN solution, there are no licenses for VPN. From a commercial perspective, it is beneficial. Technically, it has successfully stopped attacks, which is the reason the customer was using Fortinet FortiGate.

The dynamic segmentation feature in Fortinet FortiGate has an in-built switch and wireless access point controller. Fortinet FortiGate has a feature called VDOMs, virtual domains, where you can create multiple virtual firewalls within a single hardware, which is one of the fantastic features.

In terms of effectiveness, Fortinet Unified SASE covers all three use cases: Secure Internet Access, Secure Private Access, and Secure SaaS access. For any security implementation, networking is essential, and Fortinet FortiGate provisions that through FortiGate's SD-WAN. The integration with FortiSASE and Fortinet Forti-SD-WAN is very simple and straightforward.

In terms of improvement for Fortinet FortiGate, I don't find any needed improvements regarding hardware because it is very good. The operating system has most of the features. 

At this moment, I'm not finding any other improvements in this case. They are advanced in this segment. Fortinet FortiGate has in-built automation features and cyber risk assessment.

One suggestion might be to increase the storage size in the hardware for local reporting.

I have nine years of experience working with Fortinet FortiGate.

Fortinet FortiGate is a very stable solution.

In terms of scalability, Fortinet FortiGate provides more throughput compared to other OEMs, so the value for money is very high. If it is a VM, it can be scalable. In terms of hardware, it's all about scalability, throughput, and managing the number of sessions based on the hardware sizing. If the team sizing the firewall does it properly, then the solution is easily scalable.

I would evaluate customer support from Fortinet FortiGate as seven or eight out of ten. The reason I do not give 10 out of 10 for customer support is that while they follow the SLA and there is no issue with that, for them it might be P3, but for us, it might be P1 or P2 case. Remote assistance requirement should support them.

After implementing Fortinet solutions, I evaluate the return on investment as providing more throughput performance. The performance is very high in terms of packet inspection and handling the traffic. It is one of the best solutions in that case. The total cost of ownership will be low because there is no extra additional license for SD-WAN, VPN, or the VDOM feature. Considering all those things, it is a very cost-effective solution.

My advice to others looking into Fortinet FortiGate is that they can consider the return on investment or total cost of ownership. Fortinet FortiGate is definitely a good solution, not less than a better solution. It's very good compared to Palo Alto or Check Point. Those using the Fortinet FortiGate firewall should start using the features part of the solution, either it can be a WAF solution or a security rating or automation features. They can directly integrate with the cloud firewall. Operation technology is doing very well because there are many features where the network and security administrators should start enabling and making use of it. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate this solution nine or ten.

We are using Fortinet FortiGate to block or deny malware and to administrate the network to control the traffic inside and outside.

It has significantly contributed to the effective control and monitoring of the network infrastructure. We could see its benefits immediately after the implementation.

It is complemented by other equipment, such as the Fortinet switch, and it is integrated with other tools that help to prevent cyberattacks, including a web filter, IPS, and application control. 

The user interface of the Fortinet FortiGate management console could be more intuitive and user-friendly, and the log analysis and reporting features could be enhanced to provide more flexibility and customizable insights.

I have had experience with Fortinet FortiGate for one year so far.

Fortinet FortiGate is very stable. I would rate its stability a ten out of ten.

It is scalable. I would rate the scalability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.

We are a medium-sized organization.

I would rate Fortinet's customer service as very good. They are good because they provide solutions to problems that we encounter and help us make new changes or meet requirements, and they have the ability to work with us to make the changes that we want.

Positive

We previously used Sophos for web filtering. We now use Fortinet FortiGate for web filtering as well. We switched from Sophos to Fortinet FortiGate because we chose to adopt a Fortinet ecosystem to achieve better centralized control. We wanted to streamline security management while integrating firewalls, switches, endpoint protections, and wireless. 

We used Sophos only for web filtering control applications, but when we switched to Fortinet FortiGate, we achieved better integration with other devices in the security management.

I was involved with the initial setup and deployment of Fortinet FortiGate. It was of medium complexity. It was easy because the tools we were integrating were well-documented, but somewhat difficult due to the learning curve and the need to adapt our legacy system to the new environment.

It took four technical people to deploy Fortinet FortiGate. 

Only two people maintain it; for implementation, we used four people, but to maintain it, it is just two. 

It doesn't require a lot of maintenance. The job roles of those who maintain it include making changes, adjusting web filter configurations, and switching ports. The people who maintain it are network administrators.

I would advise people considering using Fortinet FortiGate to carefully plan the network structure and train the team; Fortinet is powerful, but its full potential comes with understanding the platform. I would recommend starting small, documenting everything, and using its centralized tools to stay secure and efficient.

Overall, I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.

The typical use case for Fortinet FortiGate is perimeter security, which is why our clients use this solution.

We are an implementer of Fortinet solutions.

It works well to protect the edge. For protecting the edge, Fortinet FortiGate secures any data traversing the network back to the cloud or data center through encryption. I have found it easy to configure, which results in no problems.

The security services provided by Fortinet FortiGate firewall are among the best. They have been in Gartner's quadrant for a very long time, which always helps.

Fortinet FortiGate has been able to secure mission-critical data effectively. It secures our customer's network properly, so that's always beneficial.

The ability of Fortinet FortiGate to provide network and security convergence is impressive, as they have stable features including application control. They also have advanced routing policies that set themselves apart in network security. Their solutions gel effectively with a single console for management, which is a significant advantage.

FortiOS is quite good in my experience with Fortinet FortiGate, and it works very effectively and is stable for companies. The customers have given feedback that FortiOS has been very stable for a long time. 

From a feature standpoint, it's easy to set up if people want to try and set up VPNs and other configurations. Policy control is quite nice, and we have a lot of experience with this solution, which helps us a lot.

Their support can be better, and there should be better policies for immediate replacement in critical situations. Their replacement policy varies depending on the type of support subscription. With the standard support subscription, if the device goes down, the customer has to first ship the box, and then Fortinet sends the replacement. With the higher support, the customer has to ship the device after they have the replacement. It would be better for customers to get immediate replacements even with a standard subscription.

I have more than 10 years of experience working with Fortinet FortiGate.

It is very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

If you size the solution correctly based on the customer's network, number of users, and throughput required, there is no problem regarding scalability, so I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

We have small, medium, and large customers who have opted for Fortinet FortiGate.

I would rate technical support from Fortinet an eight out of ten. Their technical support can be improved slightly as we sometimes experience delays in support for urgent customer needs.

Positive

The typical deployment model for Fortinet FortiGate is mostly on-premises. However, there is a virtual appliance available for cloud setups, but in India, most of the sales are for on-premises appliances.

Fortinet FortiGate definitely reduces the total cost of ownership because it offers better management capabilities through a single platform. Its widespread use makes skill sets more available, making it much more cost-effective for customers than other products which may require higher resource costs.

It is more affordable than Check Point and Palo Alto. Another thing is that all the features and the OS remain the same irrespective of the size of the device.

Pricing-wise, Fortinet typically provides one-year support with the firewall appliance. There is also an option for three years which is how their licensing works. They also offer add-ons for features to keep more logs or data, which is standard across their competitors as well.

The price-to-performance ratio for using Fortinet FortiGate is always better compared to any other competitor, so they are rated better than the likes of Check Point or Palo Alto.

The network availability improves when implementing a Fortinet solution; it's definitely much better for a customer compared to having no solutions in place. They are affordable overall.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.

We use FortiGate as the edge firewall. We integrate it with our APIs over Microsoft Azure. We work in the VOIP industry, and our services are prone to latency. Security is a major concern for us as a U.S. research company, where we frequently test attacks. FortiGate handles these attacks well.

FortiGate has led to a reduction in our security budget. Our management decided to switch to FortiGate because it offers all the necessary features and even improved features within our budget.

I'm looking forward to FortiGate's dashboard features, insights, application oversight, and monitoring, which could help us significantly.

As of now, I haven't identified areas for improvement. However, once the firewall is in production and all traffic is shifted, I might be able to provide more feedback. The configuration part was challenging, especially converting configurations from another OEM to FortiGate.

I have been working on FortiGate devices for around four years. In my previous role, we used FortiGate based on the requirements and budget constraints. Currently, my organization is transitioning to FortiGate in the Azure environment as part of the migration phase.

I rate FortiGate's stability as a nine out of ten, reflecting that there have been no major issues with stability so far.

FortiGate's scalability is rated eight out of ten. We expect network expansion both over the cloud and on-premises, and we believe FortiGate will perform well in this scenario.

We had a single instance requiring FortiGate's technical support, which was effective in solving the problem. I rate their support as eight out of ten.

Positive

We used other vendors, like Cisco. FortiGate was chosen due to its cost-effectiveness and its ability to offer improved features within our budget.

The installation process does not take much time, but the migration phase from Cisco to FortiGate is expected to take about ten days.

We have a separate team responsible for deployments over the cloud, while our networks and security team manages migrations and operations of the devices.

There has been a cost reduction in our security budget after implementing FortiGate, attributed to its offering of essential features at a reduced cost compared to previous vendors.

We pay for additional services like perpetual licenses. Despite this, FortiGate is considered a cost-effective solution. I rate the pricing as a five out of ten, reflecting a balance between cost and benefit.

We also use other vendors like Cisco, Netgate, Ubiquiti, and others in our environment.

I recommend this product. In future updates, it would be beneficial to see automation features, such as real-time alerts via phone, which we currently get from other OEMs.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.