Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

I use Fortinet FortiGate SWG in my company for security purposes and the SD-WAN in our networks.

The network load balancing is one of the best features of Fortinet FortiGate SWG. Fortinet FortiGate SWG's SD-WAN compatibility with any of the providers is also one of its good features. The security devices work well with the solution, and it works well for anything pertaining to security, including the HTML files and VPN, which is beneficial for our company.

The graphical user interface of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is an area of concern where improvements are required.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate SWG for three years. I use the solution's latest version, which is Fortinet FortiGate 100F Series. I am an end user of the solution.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight and a half out of ten.

My company uses Fortinet FortiGate SWG in around 350 locations spread across India, and we have a user base of over 5,000 users.

The response from the technical support team has always been excellent. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

There were no issues with the product's installation phase. In our company, there were some initial things like checking the networks and managing the area of whitelisting in the firewall.

The solution's installation process doesn't take longer than an hour.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model since my company has security gateway appliances across the company for 350 locations.

There was a team of six engineers in my company to take care of the implementation part of the product.

I was a part of the design and implementation team of the solution in my company.

Earlier, in my company, we had constraints in regard to the link load balancer and the site getting isolated because of the internet. Now, the good part is that the failovers and integration have become entirely seamless, and the site remains connected, meaning, in our company, we don't see the site getting isolated.

I rate the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG a seven and a half out of ten since it is not a cheap solution, though I feel it is a good product for the money one pays.

There were no additional costs apart from the licensing charges of the product, and the extra payments were related to the shipping charges so that it could be shipped to multiple cities.

My company plans to use FortiAnalyzer and FortiManager.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

The firewall system we have implemented in my company serves as the gateway to access the internet. We have different VLANs set up on the firewall for various networks. 

We enforce security measures based on policies. When it comes to security, we have web monitoring, application filtering, and MAC address filtering implemented on the firewall. We also utilize VPN and SD-WAN architecture. Everything is functioning well. 

Additionally, we have two ISPs connected for load balancing. We send the logs, and audit logs to FortiCloud for analytics and statistics. 

Moreover, we have an alerting system for FortiGate, which is also functioning properly. The firewall operates in question mode, using round-robin connections, and handles routing as well.

FortiGate is a very good product. It offers a wide range of features, and its availability is almost everywhere. The support, both local and international, is good. Also, they provide certification programs for the next-generation firewalls, which is beneficial. 

The product speaks for itself and holds a strong position in the market. In our company, we highly recommend FortiGate to our colleagues and other IT professionals. Furthermore, it offers cost advantages compared to other products.

The improvement that I would like to see is in the licensing. The licensing process is a bit high. 

Additionally, there have been several vulnerabilities in the firewall. It is hackable, some of the images are hackable. So, upgrading to the latest patch, but these improvements would be more profitable for companies like ours.

I would like to see improvements in license costs and the handling of vulnerabilities.

I have been working with FortiGate NGFW for ten years. I currently use the FortiGate 101E model at a customer site.

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. It provides a stable network, and I can connect to remote sites as well. I find it reliable because we use SD-WAN. There are no major issues, except when there is an Internet outage. But overall, no significant problems.

The scalability is very good. I would rate the scalability of the solution a nine out of ten because I have encountered no issues so far with the product. The scalability is excellent, very good.

We have 150 users using this solution. Moreover, we have plans to increase the usage. Maybe next year, I plan to upgrade to a newer version of FortiGate, and we have a plan to increase our user count by ten percent by next year. So I'm considering a more powerful firewall for better performance. That's the plan.

In terms of support, they are very responsive. If you reach out to them, they will contact you within 15 minutes. Managing FortiGate is easy and simple compared to other products. It's not too complex. 

Even if we miss renewing our licenses, FortiGate provides a grace period of 90 days, which is exceptional. Most products only offer 30 days. That's the best part, in my opinion.

The support is excellent. I've had very positive experiences with FortiGate's support team. They are friendly and always available. Their support is available 24/7 via phone, email, or chat. 

They even offer remote access if we need help with configuration or auditing logs. Their support is reliable both locally and internationally.

Positive

The availability of product support and its manageability were important factors for me. I found it easy to manage, not too complex. 

Additionally, the product is readily available in my country. Based on the information I found on the Internet, FortiGate seemed to meet my requirements.

The initial setup is straightforward. The setup is pretty simple. However, it acts as an authentic gateway between my routers and the internal network. All the traffic goes through the firewall in cluster mode. If one firewall goes down, the other one takes over until we have time to replace the faulty one. We typically use the firewall for a period of five years before considering a replacement. 

The device is connected to the server room on-premises. We configure it locally, but we utilize FortiCloud for logging and analytics. We manage the number of assets (FortiGate assets) we have, which is manageable through the cloud. That's all.

I have used Barracuda, Sophos, Palo Alto, and more.

My advice would be to start by conducting a Proof of Concept (POC) and test FortiGate NGFW in your own environment. Go through all the necessary configurations and spend around one or two weeks to become familiar with the solution.

After that, you can proceed with the purchase. But if I were to advise someone instantly, I would simply say, go ahead and give it a try.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

Our primary use cases for FortiGate are SD-WAN and the next-gen firewall.

Most clients in the Philippines seek a cost-effective solution that can secure their network, and FortiGate is often their first choice. If your network is secure, there's less downtime and threat exposure, increasing overall efficiency. 

Fortinet's secure SD-WAN helps us remedy threats faster. It's user-friendly, and you can see everything on the FortiGate dashboard through a single pane of glass. Secure SD-WAN has reduced our mean time to detect. We haven't had any significant issues so far. 

SD-WAN has reduced our help desk tickets by making us secure. Many of our clients switched from other brands to Fortinet, and they feel that the FortiGate box and the added security FortiGuard provides have exceeded their expectations. 

FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features. 
FortiGate has always had good interoperability. Their fabric enables you to integrate a lot of products into one vendor. 

The secure SD-WAN gives you a tool for failproof your connections, especially with a branch-to-branch setup. FortiGate also comes with FortiGuard, which is an excellent threat-detection service. They have their own R&D and threat intelligence for FortiGuard.

While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up. 

We have been using the solution for more than two years.

I rate FortiGate an eight and a half out of ten for stability.

I rate FortiGate a nine out of ten for scalability. 

I rate Fortinet support a nine out of ten. 

Positive

We also use Meraki. FortiGate has advantages in terms of usability. Also, if we don't pay for the Meraki license, it becomes useless. 

Deploying FortiGate is straightforward. It typically takes about three days to deploy and configure the solution. One person is usually enough to deploy it. 

Most of our clients are still using the FortiGate D Series, so they have gotten their money's worth. 

Fortinet is much cheaper compared to the other leading platforms. However, most of our customers are asking for bigger discounts on license renewals. 

I rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten. 

First, we use the solution as a native firewall. After a native firewall, we use IPS. We also use NGFW features like antivirus, IPS, and shaping, which are very important features for companies. We also manage all of my products with FortiManager or FortiAnalyzer and collect online data. For another feature, we try to use SD-WAN products. The SD-WAN feature on FortiGate was implemented for a company with thirty or fifty branches. We had a good experience with the conversion between Cisco and FortiGate for secure access points because Now I'm a consultant for network administration, and we have a challenge with choosing one of these, and so for example, someone, if I actually choose a Fortinet product, SD-WAN based on Fortinet, sometimes someone chooses SD-WAN based on Cisco, but because my special is Cisco, I prefer SD-WAN based on Cisco.

One of the weaknesses of the solution is something we noticed, especially after comparing the tool with SD-WAN features, since, unfortunately, in a massive scale size environment, the solution is not good. It cannot be recommended for massive scaling in terms of size, especially for businesses with more than 1,000 branches.

Cisco is very stable, especially on the larger scale side, and it's very important for SD-WAN features. If you try Next Generation Firewall for a big company, then it is good to purchase a Cisco product. However, Cisco's price is a little high and more than Fortinet's prices. But for small companies, it is better to choose Fortinet and FortiGate products, which is important.

A company needs a tool for accounting. Unfortunately, now we don't have any accounting, especially for the quarter and control side. We don't have any solution in FortiGate. However, Sophos Firewall has it, so it is good for Fortinet's next version.

I have been using FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) for more than eight years. I am just a technical person, so I'm a solution designer, a network architect involved in network security.

In FortiGate, after FortiOS Version 5.6, it is stable, and there is no problem. However, we had many problems with FortiOS Version 5.0.5 in FortiGate. Now, when we use FortiGate's FortiOS Version 7, we don't have any problems. The solution has improved, and it is a good product now. For a larger scale, my recommendation is to choose a Cisco product like Firepower Services because, in a massive-scale business, stability is very important.

When I survey FortiGate and FortiGate products, I see that they have a good performance, especially in terms of next generation firewalls. In the future, improving such features and performance is absolutely better. Juniper has a better performance compared to FortiGate.

Speaking about technical support, I have a good experience with design, especially in terms of security design and security architecture.

In level one support, they connect to customers directly, which is a part of our work, and we should solve customer problems. But I prefer staying in level two, where we develop, implement, and solve huge and complex problems, because I have had a good experience with this for more than ten years. Also, I think I have good behavior when under heavy pressure.

I think price-wise, the solution is totally reasonable since it has many products to serve, starting from small homes to massive scale sites. A company can choose from one of the offerings by the solution company. Also, it's very important to choose a contract support level. Some companies may choose RMA with support twenty-four hours and seven days a week. So, it depends on the contract support, I think. The Fortinet appliance is a reasonable purchase for companies.

Regarding the license costs, when you choose the 100 series, it is completely different from the 1000 series. It's very important, and so when you choose one-year support or five-year support, or seven-year support, the pricing depends on which one you choose.

In Iran, we have a massive sanction, so we don't use direct support. We don't talk about this. But, concerning my country and direct support from Fortinet, I can't speak about this event. So, in Iran, I don't have an idea about the use of support since we don't use direct support, but we do get indirect support.

When planning to choose FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), the scope of the company is very important. Also, it is important for a company to consider if they want one gig, ten gigs, or another concurrent pair concurrent session. Totally, a company's scale and size are very important. After that, for example, we use a prototype with a five gigabit per second, including the performance. However, if we compare Cisco, Fortinet, and other things, Firepower is very good because Cisco's Firepower is a big and active solution which is very strong compared to Fortinet. However, it's very important for a company to have a native firewall, so such companies can't choose from Fortinet series. So, it very much depends on the situation of the company. So, before that, we review a company's requirements and survey network. After that, usually, I recommend the solution. Also, it is very important to have a budget. For example, a company can first tell me about its budget, like, one billion dollars or whatever. After that, we choose a guide and recommend choosing one of the solutions.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

We have deployed this firewall for many companies. Our clients are financial and medical companies.

It enabled our clients to reach locations and access their applications easily with no latency. It provided ease of access.

Its threat prevention capabilities are most valuable. 

It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall. 

The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI.

I faced a lot of issues when I was trying to deploy the firewall through FortiManager. The firewall is stable, but FortiManager is too buggy, and it doesn't work properly. It gives too many errors.

There are some issues with Fortinet SD-WAN. It's quite complex.

I've been using this solution for more than four years.

It's a very stable product.

It's scalable. We have plans to increase its usage.

Most of the time, they are helpful, but there are times when they don't resolve an issue right away. They take the log, and then they take their time to give input on the issue. Most of the time, they take one or two days to get back after analyzing the logs. Instead of that, they can just schedule a session to resolve the issue right away because sometimes the issue impacts the production environment, so we need to resolve that issue as soon as possible. Overall, I'd rate them a six out of ten.

Neutral

I have worked with other firewalls. Fortinet FortiGate is better than Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls. It's more user-friendly.

I have deployed it for a bank at a core level. On the perimeter, there was a Palo Alto firewall, and at the core level, we deployed the FortiGate firewall at DC and DR locations. After that, we deployed SD-WAN. We replaced the MPLS switch with the Fortinet SD-WAN device, so the whole branch traffic comes to the SD-WAN box, and from there, it comes to the FortiGate firewall, and then it goes to the Palo Alto firewall for the internet access and resource access. While migrating branches from MPLS to SD-WAN, we did require a maintenance window.

There was no difficulty. It was very user-friendly. I have had many difficulties with the Check Point firewall. I have deployed major projects on the FortiGate firewall. I migrated more than a thousand branches on Fortinet SD-WAN and implemented FortiGate super massive firewalls at DC and DR locations. There were no complexities. Only at one location, I had an issue related to SD-WAN, but my query was resolved by Fortinet's local team.

It's an on-premises firewall for the DC and DR locations. I have never worked on cloud projects, but if there is any opportunity to deploy it on the cloud, I will do it. I have only done on-premises deployment.

I am an implementation engineer. I deployed and configured the whole firewall. I also troubleshot any issues. When I had any queries, they were clarified by Fortinet's engineers.

Its pricing is good. It's average or normal as compared to Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls. 

I didn't evaluate other options.

I'd recommend this firewall to others. Most of the time, when I do PoCs, I recommend Fortinet FortiGate. It's quite easy to manage and deploy.

I'd rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case is for social network blocking and for unusual applications in our network as well as for intrusion prevention. We are a department store. 

This product has made it easier to secure our network. 

The pipe filter application is an outstanding feature. The hardware processors are also very impressive. In general, this is an easy-to-use application, with a user-friendly interface. If you have any issues, Fortinet has a support library where you can search for videos and documentation. If you want to configure anything and you're unsure about it, the solution is in the videos. If a single link fails, it automatically connects to a secondary one and that's saved me a lot of time as I would have previously had to deal with it manually. Fortigate blocks unusual traffic and therefore secures our network. Third-party integrations are good.

The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable. We have to check everything thoroughly before any upgrade.

We've been using this solution for seven years. 

The solution is very scalable. The processor, the microprocessor and the security processors are very intelligent so they can scale significantly and manage that well. 

The initial setup is straightforward and easy to manage. There is no maintenance required. 

We've seen a return on our investment. 

This is a very comprehensive solution but the cost is quite high. 

We evaluated several options before going with Fortinet. 

I think this is the best solution of its kind on the market and I rate it nine out of 10. 

This solution is configured as our primary gateway to the internet in and out of the network.

Fortinet delivers high-performance network security solutions that
protects our network, users, and data from continually evolving threats.

The features I found most valuable are the high availability rollover/fail-over capabilities. The integration with other Fortinet products is worth a look at the lineup.

I have been using this solution for about two years.

I would say that the scalability possibilities of this solution are first-rate.

In the past, we have used Cisco and WatchGuard Firewalls.

Our model of deployment is on-premises. I would say the initial setup process was complex. Integrating the security fabric with multiple firewalls, FortiClient, and FortiMail was slightly more complex than originally anticipated. The results are great.

Our implementation strategy was to hire vendors with expertise. 

I use it for a VPN. I use it as a gateway between locations. That's what I use it for.

They're Point-to-Point Networks, Metro Ethernet Networks, and over across the internet. We set it up with an AD VPN tunnel in between the various connections.

We use it for interconnectivity between the various sites to provide VPN tunnels. In contrast, service providers, even on Metro Ethernet and Point-to-Point Networks, cannot provide a secure connection between two points.

We've actually replaced 30 or more Cisco routers that were doing these VPN connections, and we replaced them with the FortiGates in order to provide Point-to-Point connectivity. It increased throughput on the various links, and it increased security.

Their VPN connection, their routing capabilities, their layer three throughput, and their firewall management capabilities that limit access from one VLAN to another are all the most valuable aspects for us. 

The solution is stable.

It can expand easily.

Support is helpful.

The product is significantly cheaper than, for example, Cisco. 

The user productivity has been good as they can, for example, transfer files easier. There is no slowdown. 

In their IPS Web Security Gateway, the reporting functions need to be a little bit more user-friendly for how to get the reports from it. That's one of the reasons why we don't use that function.

With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic.

I've been using the solution for two years. 

The stability is very good. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

We've been able to scale pretty well. It's not a problem of you need to expand. 

End users will be passing through it. Most of the accounting passes through it to various other locations. We have about 1,500 people on the product, technically.

We do have plans to increase usage. We have not completed the entire County yet. We've done 80% and still need to action the last 20%.

Technical support is very helpful. 

Positive

We used to use Cisco. We switched to FortiGate due to its throughput, ease of use, and cost.

Our needs are a little bit more complex than others. That said, overall, I would say it's about average in terms of the ease of setup. We got to do a VPN tunnel across, and it was AD VPN, it was something brand new. 

When I set things up now, it's pretty straightforward. When I first started, it was different as I'd never seen the technology before. When I first started, I'd never seen this technology, I didn't have a clue. Others may be in the same boat. 

Now that we're familiar with technology, this is very easy to set up. We've deployed 30 of them. I've got junior engineers that can follow my instructions and set up the FortiGate, and we're up and running. It gets easier over time. We've been doing this over the last two years.

We have up to two people needed for deployment and maintenance tasks. 

The deployment is completely done in-house. We didn't have any outside assistance. 

We did use Fortinet's tech support when we came into some problems. However, we didn't use any extra vendor.

Licensing is renewed every three to five years. They are less expensive e than Cisco. It has reduced the overall cost of maintaining a Cisco environment.

It's a package deal. There are no extra costs. 

We did not look into other solutions. 

I'd advise potential users to just implement the right size for you and what your needs are.

I'd rate the product nine out of ten. 

We are just a customer and end-user.