Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

Our primary use case of this solution for our clients is for protecting internal networks with data center firewalls, internal segmentation and next generation firewalls. 

We are a gold partner of Fortinet.

SD-WAN, Security fabric integration, two-factor authentication, ADVPN, Dynamic routing, single pane of glas managements are great features. FortiGate is very easy to use, and to configure.

I think some improvements could be made in vulnerability scanning. I'd also like to see additional features in the authentication. They support RADIUS, LDAP  but the solution doesn't have API integration with other solutions. They have API in FortiAuthenticator, but not in the firewall and not all customers want to buy another solution. 

I've been providing this solution to clients for seven years. 

This is a very stable solution. 

This solution is scalable. They have now built hyperscale firewalls and it's very easy. Also VMs, for example, is very easy to scale, you just need to adjust the licensing. 

Technical support is very, very good. They respond quickly and provide the solution to the problem. 

I have previously used Check Point and Cisco ASA. In terms of cost and security features, Fortinet has the advantage and it's also easy to implement. Cisco and Check Point are a little bit more difficult in that aspect. 

The initial setup is simple, as with all Fortinet technologies. Deployment time depends on the situation. For small customers it takes about one to two hours. For larger companies with different kinds of firewalls in their infrastructure, it may take a day or two, it depends on the complexity of the network, the infrastructure and the size of the business. The solution is suitable for any size company. Maintenance depends on the contract with our customers, but Fortinet includes support with every license. If a customer wants support from us, we provide it. 

Fortinet offers four types of licensing - Advanced Threat Protection, Unified Threat Protection and Enterprise Protection and 360 degree Protection.  Licensing costs are dependent on the VM  or Hardware model, not per features. For example if vm or Hardware model supports 200 IPsec tunnels you can setup 200 IPsec tunnels, it doesn't matter what kind of license you have. 

I would definitely recommend this solution. 

I would rate this solution a 10 out of 10. 

This Fortinet product is a firewall system, acting as our perimeter firewall. Generally speaking we use this system as a security product to defend from any attacks and to protect our internal network. We are very happy with the security features afforded by this product.

The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, IPS, and even SD-WAN.

In terms of what could be improved, the FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment

In terms of the FortiGate IPS, we haven't gotten additional tools because they are not free, and we have to purchase them to maximize this IPS feature. As long as they can perform some basic functions to meet our business needs, that is okay. I'm okay with this feature right now, so far.

In the next release of FortiGate the price could be better.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate since May of 2018.

This product is very stable.

Fortinet FortiGate is a very scalable product.

It is managed by the IT department, so only they use it.

Their support is quite good.

The initial setup is quite simple.

Not including the preparation, setup took about three days to just unpack them, connect it to the power, power it on, and do some initial configuration. That's just the three days, but we took about two weeks for the preparation and planning.

We had an external partner to help us and to work together with us to do the initial setup.

On a scale of one to ten I would give Fortinet FortiGate an eight.

We use this product as a perimeter firewall and also in the role of a firewall as a service for our cloud.

FortiGate is flexible and easy to use.

Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services. When it comes to large deployments, I don't think it's a good plan to have all of these services in a single box.

I think that they should introduce in-line security at the packet level, where they can do filtering and other firewall functions. It should not comes down to the infrastructure level but rather, offer services at the ISP level.

We have been using FortiGate for the past four to five years.

This is a stable product.

This product is scalable and as a service provider, we extend our usage to external customers. There are many users on the platform.

We have premium support from Fortinet and it is quite good.

We used their Professional Services for the initial installation.

We have a large in-house team for maintenance, although I am not sure how many are dedicated to this particular product.

The price of FortiGate is average and I would say that based on the top five products available on the market, it is in the affordable range.

This is a product that I can recommend to others.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

1. The prompt and knowledgeable support behind them. 
2. Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed.
3. The simplicity and clarity of their user interface and documentation.
4. Their 'cookbooks' that walk you through the most common installation scenarios.

I am a one-man show, so there is not much that can be done to improve the way that I function. However, these products provide best-in-class security at reasonable prices. 

One of the most helpful features is their VPN, the client could not be any simpler to set up and use.

I can't think of too much which they can improve upon. I just have not come across any situation where they have fallen short of expectations.

I am a consultant who supports these units for my clients who use them. I have had over 10 years of experience with Fortinet products.

The products are extremely stable. I have only had one instance where a unit did not function as expected, and Fortinet replaced the unit, despite the fact that it was still operational.

Scalability is the one area where there is room for some improvement. Currently, customers need to purchase more powerful units as their network traffic and requirements grow. Fortinet will occasionally offer trade-in credits in such situations, but this is not always the case. Their product line allows customers to scale from SoHo through enterprise-level requirements, which is what I like about them so much.

Their tech support is outstanding.

I have sold and supported other solutions in the past. Fortinet is not always the least-cost solution available, but from a value standpoint, I find them hard to beat.

Initial setup complexity will vary with the complexity of the installation. It is relatively straightforward and simple to set up basic configurations. More complex requirements entail reading through a lot of documentation in order to complete the firewall configuration because of the myriad of features and options that are available in their O/S. The 'cookbooks' are a big help in these instances.

Pricing and licensing have to be taken in context with value. Fortinet is usually not the least expensive alternative when considering an upfront investment, but if you take into account the support costs over several years, they are often as cost-effective as the 'cheaper' solutions.

In this particular instance, Fortinet was evaluated against an equivalent solution sourced from D-Link. I also evaluated a solution from Xirrus (now Riverbed) which promised better signal strength. However, when I ran the various WiFi planning tools from each supplier, the coverage differences did not merit the more expensive Xirrus solution.

Anyone evaluating this product should consult the documentation available and plan out their solution before making a decision. From personal experience, I find that I am able to save hours of planning and implementation time because Fortinet's documentation is so helpful.

These devices allowed my organization to connect a network of gas stations and convenience stores nationwide. The VPN capabilities provide a reliable connection to our corporate network over very low cost internet services (basically, any Internet service locally available can be used for this connections).

We also leverage the NGFW, UTM and WLAN controller features to provide security for corporate network traffic, and secure, content-filtered guest internet access for customers in the convenience stores. All this at a relative low cost.

• LinkGreat firewall capabilities
• Great IPS and web filter for small remote locations, with VPNs for tunneling to the corporate network, makes this device a solid choice for many sites.

Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet.

We’ve had cases of unexplained bugs that go away with a simple device reboot. Software updates usually help with these issues.

I have personally found that Fortinet advertising can be misleading. The devices will usually fail way before reaching the capacity advertised in the data sheets, especially when you activate several of the features the device can handle. This is not a dealbreaker for me, especially because of the cost. But I would advise care when dimensioning the devices you’ll need.

Customer Service:

Customer service in Fortinet is OK. Lately they've been making efforts in this area. They actually call you when licenses are about to expire which is a nice touch on their part.

Technical Support:

I would say technical support is 6/10. I’ve found tech support to vary, sometimes being decent, sometimes painfully inefficient. Much room for improvement here IMHO.

We still use Cisco for some cases. However, where we need the advanced security and UTM features, Cisco’s prices can be very restrictive. Fortinet is a much more cost-effective choice for those cases.

Initial setup was very straightforward. Interface is very friendly and easy to comprehend.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated Cisco.

Be careful with dimensioning. Don’t expect the device to handle ALL the features. Usually firewall, Web Filter and the WLAN controller work well. But if you need IPS, app control and AV, I would advise over-dimensioning the device a bit (taking Fortinet data sheets as the reference).

My primary use of FortiGate is for general enterprise modeling.

The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface.

The cloud features and integration could be improved. There are also sometimes problems connecting the endpoint protection to the firewall.

FortiGate is a stable product.

FortiGate is scalable.

FortiGate is very easy to set up

If the customer is looking for SD-WAN, it comes free with FortiGate.

I would give this solution a rating of nine out of ten.

We use Fortinet FortiGate as a transparent firewall, it is covering the LAN. Whereas, I have a Cisco firewall, which is covering the internet outside. We have two layers of security. FortiGate focuses on the LAN traffic, which is outgoing from the servers in the LAN.

Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate.

Fortinet FortiGate should provide firewall certifications training for NSE 1, 2, and 3. 

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for approximately four years.

Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution.

I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable.

We were satisfied with the technical support from Fortinet FortiGate.

The main reason we chose Fortinet FortiGate was that the price was better than the competition.

We evaluated many other firewall vendors, such as Juniper, Sophos, Palo Alto. and SonicWall.

I would recommend to everyone that wants to implement Fortinet FortiGate to always have a support contract.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

I do not give a score of ten to any vendor because there is always room for improvement.

The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy.

In terms of what could be improved, the SD-WAN is quite difficult, because if you install in the new box, 15 is okay, but if you change from an old configuration, if there is already a configuration and a policy when you change to SD-WAN, you must change the whole policy that you see in the interface.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for about two years.

Fortinet FortiGate is stable so far. We had a difficulty, but after we opened the support, we found out that it was only from having the wrong config. But so far, it is stable.

So far our biggest client is only FortiGate 400, a small-medium business.

Their technical support is very helpful, although they only have it for their in-the-box and sometimes we have difficulty with the out of box, with the ISP or other things. So we must find a solution for the customer. But if it is the wrong product or if there is a configuration issue in the product, yes, they're very helpful.

I have also worked with the Hillstone network, with Palo Alto and with Barracuda.

In terms of support, so far FortiGate is helpful whereas with Barracuda I didn't get the support like FortiGate.

The initial setup and new configuration are very easy. It is very user-friendly. It's only three clicks from the menu, two or three sub-menus and we already have it configured. It's not difficult because we have experience with the SonicWall, Palo Alto, etc.., but Fortinet is user-friendly.

In terms of price, FortiGate's price is reasonable. Most of the customers stand by it, and are aware that the price is worth it for the performance.

In terms of advice for anyone looking to use FortiGate, you need to learn about trouble-shooting, because sometimes you find out you have the wrong configuration, not because of a FortiGate problem or FortiGate config, so you are responsible to handle the trouble-shooting.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Fortinet FortiGate a nine.

One thing they could offer is a version that already has the configuration. This would make it easier. This is something that I would request. I worked with Barracuda, I worked with Palo Alto. If you want it easy. It's very easy. But FortiGate needs to have something more like that, to do it faster.