Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

We have two deployments of Fortinet FortiGate at different sites. One is the SD-WAN, and the other is the next-generation firewall.

We secure our perimeter using Fortinet FortiGate. We are using it as a gateway device, and we have all the filters, such as the web filter, the intrusion detection and the anti-virus. We mainly use it to filter our traffic. Most importantly, it serves as our gateway device. That is how we are using it at the end of the day.

We wanted to see how Fortinet FortiGate SD-WAN can help us reach out to our branch, and that was the only reason for enabling it. It pretty much works for connectivity to the branch.

It is very user-friendly compared to other products. It integrates with many other technologies out there. It does not matter what technology you have deployed within your network, it can work with that.

We have not had an issue with the Fortinet FortiGate firewall. We recently renewed the licenses for the firewall and FortiNAC, and it has been working well. I have not had any incidents or instances since the last renewal.

Application control and the web filter are the best features of Fortinet FortiGate. 

Traffic control is available, and I have been using Fortinet FortiGate to allocate bandwidth also, so it helps me manage and allocate bandwidth to my applications. On that side, that has worked for me. Most importantly, it helps to filter unwanted traffic.

Its pricing can be better. I cannot think of anything else because it pretty much satisfies our requirements. I am comfortable with this product. 

The only issue that I have is with FortiNAC. The firewall is fine, but the FortiNAC interface is a little bit too jumbled or too complicated, not as straightforward as it is on the Fortinet FortiGate firewall and FortiAnalyzer. 

I have not faced any stability issues with Fortinet FortiGate. I would give it an eight out of ten for stability.

Fortinet FortiGate is scalable. I would rate it an eight out of ten for scalability.

I raise my tickets for Fortinet FortiGate, and they are handled well. The support is pretty good. I would rate the support an eight out of ten.

In this work environment, Fortinet FortiGate was the first one we had as our firewall. We had nothing before it.

I have previously worked with Check Point and Cyberoam. Those are the only two products that I can compare with Fortinet FortiGate.

From my experience, administration is a bit complicated on the Check Point side. Most of the concepts are similar, but configuring Fortinet FortiGate is a little bit easier for me compared to Check Point. Cyberoam was resource intensive, which I have not seen in Fortinet FortiGate.

The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was handled by a provider to implement it, but the knowledge transfer was pretty much straightforward. It took about two weeks to deploy Fortinet FortiGate.

We are not a business-oriented organization; our primary aim is to make sure that our assets are protected. We had some issues before having this firewall, and we have not had any incidents ever since we implemented Fortinet FortiGate.

When I look around at other products, such as Sophos, Fortinet FortiGate is 20% to 30% more expensive with our current cost.

The license renewal for Fortinet FortiGate has been a little bit costly. When we are paying, we renew both the warranty and licenses for Fortinet FortiGate. That is what makes the whole thing a bit costly.

We normally purchase and renew those licenses for FortiAnalyzer, FortiNAC, and Fortinet FortiGate firewall at the same time. When I look around, I would say Fortinet FortiGate is on the higher side.

The thing that I have not experienced with it is the web application firewall. I was trying to find out from the partner whether it is something that is licensed separately. When you look at the policies, it looks it is not active.

I would recommend using Fortinet FortiGate because of its usability. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

I use Fortinet FortiGate just for the data center to connect to it. I put Sophos on the internet and FortiGate on the data center.

For application filtration, I really appreciate many features of Fortinet FortiGate because it is more reliable, easy to use, and the reports are easy to read and understand. I have integrated Fortinet FortiGate with the database for reading the reports. I can recommend Fortinet FortiGate for enterprise-level because it has many features and solutions, though I would not recommend it for small companies or individual companies.

To improve Fortinet FortiGate, I think they need to improve the software and make updates more quickly, rather than taking a long time to update the software or firmware.

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate for approximately four to five years.

I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten, with ten being the best.

I would rate the scalability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten, as I think it is reliable and very dependable.

I would rate the technical support from Fortinet between eight and nine; it is a very good vendor, but sometimes there is a delay in getting information from us or maybe a delay for us to contact them.

I am using Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos.

In the beginning of my work with Fortinet FortiGate, the setup was difficult, but after many attempts, I became an expert on how to install and modify every command. For a regular user, I think it is very easy to understand and read the product documentation.

I use Sophos for firewall and Fortinet FortiGate for data center.

I really recommend Fortinet FortiGate. My overall rating for Fortinet FortiGate is 9 out of 10.

The main use cases for the product revolve around perimeter security, and it depends on LAN to WAN traffic, especially in work-from-home scenarios wherein the customer wants to access the local infrastructure remotely. It is also sometimes used in data centers, but many times Palo Alto is used.

Fortinet FortiGate serves as the first line of defense. It is robust and easy to configure, and I haven't seen any breaches happening when configured properly based on best practices. In the Indian market, clients have a lot of trust in this product.

The most useful functions of Fortinet FortiGate are SD-WAN, which is very easy to configure. Its user interface is also very good, making it easy for any engineer to explain configuration changes over the phone without needing to take remote access. Integration of SD-WAN capabilities with Fortinet FortiGate is simple to integrate.

They are already making improvements with the integration of AI and machine learning (ML). While I haven't personally used these features yet, I see that the focus is primarily on AI operations that fall under the umbrella of AI and ML. Additionally, they offer FortiManager with a signal dashboard that allows for the monitoring and configuration of multiple FortiGate firewalls, which is quite impressive. Moreover, they now provide a SaaS offering for FortiManager, which I believe is a good development overall.

If they can come up with a feature that allows scalability within the firewall itself, such as 'scale as you grow,' that would be a valuable improvement. Fortinet is already implementing AI and ML, although I haven't used it personally. AI ops are covered under it, and they also have FortiManager, which allows for monitoring and configuring multiple Fortinet FortiGate firewalls through a single dashboard.

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate for more than 10 years.

When it comes to stability, I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten, as I haven't seen any downtime wherever I proposed it.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate's scalability as an eight out of ten.

I would rate the support from Fortinet a nine out of ten.

We also work with Palo Alto solutions. Palo Alto has a distinct advantage because it offers some great features that are already available, such as DNS security, which we have a lot of experience with. Palo Alto is unmatched in a data center environment. This is why many people tend to trust Palo Alto firewalls more compared to FortiGate. As for perimeter security, FortiGate excels in that area.

In most small and medium enterprises and SMBs, we usually propose SonicWall, and for enterprises, we work with Palo Alto or Fortinet FortiGate, depending on the requirement. It makes sense to propose the Fortinet FortiGate firewall, especially if the customer is already using the SD-WAN feature.

The initial setup for Fortinet FortiGate is simple.

The only challenge with Fortinet FortiGate is the pricing model.

Currently, we are considering Fortinet FortiGate solely for perimeter security, and for SASE and other approaches, we go with other solutions. I have not used AI and ML FortiGuard services with Fortinet FortiGate yet.

Overall, I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

I am working as a presales engineer or system engineer, designing solutions for other clients.

The clients use this solution for their data centers and perimeter security.

The main reason customers prefer Fortinet FortiGate is that it's security-centric, allowing them to implement security features such as a next-generation firewall and translate this to the WAN or SD-WAN architectures, or as a base if they want to grow in more security features or other verticals such as ZTNA and SASE. It's a little baseline for the rest of the verticals or features that can be exploited.

Fortinet FortiGate compares favorably to others in terms of the technology. Second, it's about the relationship they build with their customers. I'm in Colombia, and I can say they have an excellent sales and engineering team that provides a great experience for their clients. They are very attentive and engaged. This company has a rich history; they grow alongside their clients. They take the time to show clients all the benefits and features of the technology they offer. It’s a much more personal experience for everyone involved.

Fortinet Unified SASE is strong for providing consistent security policies across multiple locations. Working with Fortinet in the SASE aspect has been easy. Customers appreciate the features we can offer with Fortinet SASE and ZTNA solutions. They particularly appreciate how they can integrate everything with the baseline of Fortinet FortiGate, and how they can easily apply all the features they need to secure access to different applications from a single console. Some clients use the Fortinet FortiGate data center solution for their data centers as a hub and the perimeter security service.

My experience integrating SD-WAN capabilities with Fortinet FortiGate is in the middle ground. Fortinet FortiGate, as a security-centric fabric, can implement an SD-WAN solution. It can be somewhat manual in some cases, but using other tools that Fortinet has, such as FortiManager, makes implementing an SD-WAN network easier with less effort.

The implementation depends more on the engineer's skill when integrating SD-WAN with Fortinet FortiGate. If you don't have extensive skills in implementing Fortinet FortiGate, it can be difficult, but with more experience, it becomes easier.

In the presales team, I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate for about five years, and as a customer, I worked with it for about two years between 2016 and 2018.

Fortinet FortiGate is very stable and secure for customers.

It's easy with Fortinet FortiGate as they have a very good solution for scalability. If we need to grow in branches or licenses, we can easily do it. The most important aspect of growing this solution is their strong enterprise-level account managers, who always help customers find the best solution and an easy path to grow their architecture with Fortinet.

I would rate their customer service around eight because not everything is perfect, but they have very good customer experience and relationship management.

Positive

It depends on the size of the company or the solution they want to implement with Fortinet FortiGate. Most companies could have another vendor or baseline products, so we need to depend on the scenario.

It is very straightforward to set up initially. The duration depends on the size of the company and the solution they want to implement. They might already have another vendor or a different baseline of products, which makes things more complex.

As for deployment models, we typically offer both on-premises and cloud options. We have been working with AWS, and it has been a very positive experience. They provide readily available machines, and everything is easy to find in the marketplace.

I believe it's a fair price for the kind of technology they offer their customers. Sometimes, I think they could apply more discounts to engage customers further. This approach would be beneficial, as it helps us expand the solutions available to clients. As for discounts, they do engage clients with them, particularly in strategic business situations, such as with large accounts in sectors like banking and big retail.

When comparing Fortinet to other vendors, Fortinet generally tends to offer better discounts. However, this does not imply that their solutions are of lower quality; rather, they demonstrate expertise in meeting customer needs.

Some users utilize AI and machine learning enhanced features, such as the FortiGuard services, though not all do as the AI features are relatively new. However, we have successfully positioned some features, particularly in areas such as AI. For example, the threat detection capabilities and the AI assistant available in the FortiAnalyzer service are noteworthy. Fortinet offers a license that can be utilized for AI features, especially in FortiManager. Users appreciate this feature because it helps them achieve better network configuration. If they encounter any issues within the network, they can easily leverage AI to find solutions to those problems.

Overall, I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten because while not everything is perfect, they're really doing their best and demonstrating it through their technology.

Majorly, I use Fortinet FortiGate for establishing SD-WAN in different remote locations. I also use it for segmenting wireless from LAN and implementing basic policy routing for departments. The next-gen features on Fortinet FortiGate permit proxy access, where URLs can be specified for specific users or departments to access.

Fortinet FortiGate has several valuable features. The configuration and policy setup are easy to implement. There are embedded features in Fortinet FortiGate, including DLP features, WAF presence in the firewall, and proxy capabilities. It has security profiles that can be set for various functions. In terms of security, it is particularly strong.

SD-WAN offers better reach, good reachability, and enhanced performance for network optimization. People implement SD-WAN today because of reachability and network optimization capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is effective in protecting against malicious access. It has a robust security architecture, which is something I truly like about FortiGate.

The SD-WAN integration is very simple. I appreciate the simplicity of the FortiGate system. It's one of the things I like most about it. With FortiAI, it's very easy to input your queries, and the system helps you set it up. If you prefer to do it manually, there is excellent documentation and step-by-step guides available to assist you. For me, the experience has been seamless and straightforward.

I cannot think of many improvements needed for Fortinet FortiGate. However, the pricing compared to competitors is quite high, though you get value for what you pay with Fortinet FortiGate.

With FortiSIEM, I have experienced some challenges. It has been suspended and is not available for utilization now. They should work on improving FortiSIEM.

I have worked with both virtual appliances and physical devices, primarily with hardware devices, for over five years. The models I have used include 60, 100, and 201 series.

Fortinet FortiGate is one of the best firewalls available. There are no crashes or performance issues. It is very stable and reliable.

The solution is scalable.

I have worked with Sophos and Check Point firewalls. Fortinet FortiGate leads compared to other solutions. Based on customer requests, we provide different options. I recommend people should consider Fortinet or Sophos, depending on their needs. Fortinet FortiGate performs well against other firewalls in the market.

The hardware is easy to set up. I have only had issues with the activation of the evaluation license. 

There has definitely been a return on investment with Fortinet FortiGate.

The pricing depends on the capacity required. There are 100 series, 200 series, and 500 series options. The prices are moderate and reasonable for each series.

For organizations using Fortinet FortiGate, it is important to utilize the security profiles properly. Make sure anti-spoofing is set up and networks are well-segmented on the Fortinet. Ensure proxy configuration is based on URL access stability.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use Fortinet FortiGate for the firewall as well as for the VPN. Any of the users outside the organization use the VPN. Any staff members working outside the office headquarters or our office location use the VPN.

The main aspect that I deal with is URL blocking and web access. I don't work with other aspects of this firewall.

It has upscaled our security posture, especially regarding external connectivity, because any access or connection from the company has to go through the Fortinet FortiGate firewall. It's doing a pretty good job. We do not have any complaints there.

Anything that we don't want to allow is not coming in. Anything we want to allow is not being blocked. We always have the granular control where we can block malicious IPs or subnets if needed.

Geofencing allows us to limit the countries from which we allow IP connections. There are many features that I may not even know or haven't explored, but in general, Fortinet FortiGate is doing a pretty good job for us. 

The web controls are what I appreciate about Fortinet FortiGate. We have extensive controls over areas where we could block external-facing IPs, external URLs. We can do geo-fencing with the firewalls, which is a good feature. 

There are too many updates coming for VPN, and the VPN keeps disconnecting frequently, which I find problematic. It does what it's supposed to do, but I practically face reconnection issues with the VPN. 

Regarding the Fortinet FortiGate firewall, I don't have any input. My scope is limited.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for around three years.

Fortinet FortiGate is stable. We haven't seen any latency issues related to it, though we do experience latency from ISPs.

I would rate the scalability as eight out of ten based purely on my exposure to security controls relating to URL blocking and website access. 

I haven't had a chance to work with Fortinet FortiGate technical support, but from my colleagues' experience, they say the Fortinet FortiGate people are easy to reach but hard to schedule time with. It's not as easy as having the Fortinet FortiGate engineer on the call and getting other teams involved; it requires careful arrangements to join in with the Fortinet team. I would give their support a neutral score of maybe five.

Neutral

I don't know why we switched to Fortinet FortiGate from Juniper; it's a management decision.

I was not involved in the deployment. I think it's not that difficult; there's no complexity involved as long as we are clear on what we want to do.

We have it on both cloud and on-premises.

I was not part of the team that implemented it. I don't know how much they invested, but it would be worth the investment.

My overall experience with Fortinet FortiGate rates as eight out of ten. 

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.

Neutral

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.