E-commerce environment, enterprise data center.
It has improved the security posture and visibility of our traffic
Pros and Cons
- "Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."
- "I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
It has improved the security posture and visibility of our traffic. The OS and the firmware updates are very straightforward.
What is most valuable?
All the features are very good, straightforward licensing, Fortinet product integration, standardized FortiOS and automatic uninterruptable firmware upgrade. Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting. I would also like them to consider offering more predefined security templates.
Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiGate
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiGate. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
838,737 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No issues.
How are customer service and support?
Customer Service:
An eight and a half out of 10.
Technical Support:
They are able to identify an issue and resolve it within a pretty short period of time.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Cisco ASA. We switched to Fortinet Fortigate because it was easy to manage, and it uses a Single OS for the whole product. We were also able to learn how to use it very quickly.
How was the initial setup?
It is very straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented it ourselves with some assistance from vendor. Because of the limited assistance from the vendor, we do not know what the level of expertise was.
What was our ROI?
No
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
They have very competitive solutions across the entire product line.
They also offer very clear licensing and pricing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Checkpoint, Cisco, Palo Alto, Sonicwall, Huawei, and Sophos.
What other advice do I have?
I found that the memory usage for the Fortigate firewall are relatively higher than other firewall brand when compared to same traffic volume. It might be the scan engine do their job well or the scan engine not well tuning. If there is a details information about this would be good.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Works at a non-profit with 51-200 employees
Good support, simple to manage, and comes with lots of functionalities
Pros and Cons
- "It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
- "We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
What is our primary use case?
It is mainly for the SD-WAN network.
What is most valuable?
It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box.
What needs improvement?
At the moment, we are having some problems with IP multicast.
We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. We didn't have any performance issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Their support is good.
How was the initial setup?
Its setup is easy.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this product. We are very satisfied with this product.
I would rate it a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiGate
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiGate. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
838,737 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Sr. System Administration (Grindmaster Machines Pvt Ltd) at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Great support, easy to handle, and stable
Pros and Cons
- "It is quite easy to handle."
- "Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports."
What is most valuable?
It is quite easy to handle.
What needs improvement?
Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for the last two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Its stability is quite good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is quite scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Their support is great. I would rate them a five out of five.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we were using a different solution, and as compared to that solution, it is very easy to handle.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it a nine out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Infrastructure managerInformation an Communication Services Manager at a agriculture with 5,001-10,000 employees
Great load balancing feature, secure and stable
Pros and Cons
- "Good load balancing feature."
- "We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."
What is our primary use case?
We've used this solution for the guest portal for our client and we also use it to secure the network of our firm. I am the IT infrastructure manager and we are customers of Fortinet.
What is most valuable?
I like the fact that we don't have to use our IP address and that it roams. I also like the load balancing feature which allows you to attach several internet connections and load balance.
What needs improvement?
We have an issue with the license when it expires because we're unable to use the computers. We are in the hotel industry and there's an issue with vouchers when guests come in wanting to use them.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution. We had some issues after we upgraded but on the whole it's stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We don't have scalability requirements so I can't comment.
How are customer service and technical support?
We had some issues with the local support, particularly with regard to purchasing the subscription. It took a very long time and at one point the license had expired and it took a while to sort out.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is simple and doesn't take much time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This is an affordable solution.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
FortiGate is the most effective solution for us and it's a cheaper option to Check Point or Palo Alto which we looked at. They are both very expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Branch Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
User-friendly with an easy setup and a good user interface
Pros and Cons
- "The initial installation is very straightforward."
- "There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for network security and security next-generation firewalls.
What is most valuable?
The solution is quite user-friendly.
We find that the system interface is simple to navigate.
The initial installation is very straightforward.
What needs improvement?
There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are.
It's my understanding that they are currently working on improving the cloud solution quite substantially.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. It doesn't have bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We find the solution to be quite scalable. If your organization needs to expand this solution out, you shouldn't have any problems doing so.
We have two or three different locations and have between 50 to 200 users amongst those locations.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is very good.
Most of the time, whenever a ticket is opened and we reach out to support on behalf of our customers, they offer good advice and are very responsive. We're satisfied with the level of service we're provided.
How was the initial setup?
The implementation is not complex. It's very straightforward to set up and does not take a lot of time to deploy everything.
That said, I did not handle the implementation myself, so I can't speak to more technical aspects of the job.
We had four or five resources that assist in network security and they all helped with the deployment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't handle the pricing side of the product and therefore can't speak to anything in regards to the licensing or costs.
What other advice do I have?
Although we largely handle on-premises deployment models, we have suggested cloud versions to our clients recently.
We are a solution-providing company, and we are offering products to our customers.
Although we really enjoy the solution, there's a lot of very interesting competition in the market. The competition is huge. As a partner of the product, we get a lot of questions we have to answer, and, to be honest, this solution isn't as strong in some areas as others.
That said, we would recommend the solution to others.
Overall, I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Consultant at WorldNet ICT Solutions Limited
Provides good security features, and generating FortiCloud reports is helpful to us
Pros and Cons
- "The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
- "Technical support for this solution can be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for our company firewall.
What is most valuable?
This solution has many good features. The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere.
I really like the fact that I am able to generate FortiCloud reports.
What needs improvement?
FortiWAN was supposed to help in doing intersite linking, but we've realized that most of the ISPs use BGP. FortiWAN supports OSPF but does not support the BGP protocol. This is a problem for us because without BGP they are not doing anything, and we've had to pack them up. I would like to see the BGP protocol supported on FortiWAN.
Technical support for this solution can be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using this solution since 2017.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of this solution is fantastic.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've been in contact with technical support a few times and it is good. It might be better, but as far as I'm concerned, it's good.
How was the initial setup?
The challenge for the initial setup was at the ISP level. We have the Fortinet firewall running, but between the various sites, we wanted to implement FortiWAN. It didn't work because of the BGP issue.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing for this solution is good.
What other advice do I have?
This is a product that I recommend.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
ICT Administrator at a mining and metals company with 11-50 employees
Enables us to bring security into compliance with our policies
Pros and Cons
- "I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
- "Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is for our company firewall. We use it for intrusion prevention and anti-virus.
How has it helped my organization?
The internet filtering feature has really benefited my organization because we have a lot of things that go on illegal sites like auto torrents sites and a lot of streaming and downloads. We've been able to minimize the impact of bandwidth by filtering out media sites. This solution has also benefited us by bringing security into compliance with our policies.
What is most valuable?
I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good.
What needs improvement?
Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area.
There is a feature that Palo Alto has called Traps. It helps to prevent attacks on the system. A feature similar to this would be worth adding.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's very much stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. We have around 200 users.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was not complex.
What about the implementation team?
We have had experience with enterprise firewalls and notably, we had experience with Fortinet, so the deployment was done in-house. We require four people for deployment and maintenance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Compared to Palo Alto, which we have used in the past, pricing and licensing are okay.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise someone considering this solution to learn the product. You have to get to know the product, don't just look at it from outside. Get to know the product, the ins and outs and see how you can actually use it for your scenario.
I would rate it an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Consultant Information Technology at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Delivers what it promises when it comes to performance, stability and security functions.
What is most valuable?
The web content filtering and application control allow us to control which websites and online applications our users can access and those they cannot, thus preventing access to pornographic sites, online gaming sites, social media and many others during office hours.
The application control reinforces the blocks, preventing, for example, users from using specific applications to bypass the web content filter blocks. An example is a user running the UltraSurf proxy, attempting to access banned sites. With the application control function, FortiGate is able to prevent the operation of this application.
IPS - Intrusion Prevention System: It is the main component that detects and blocks hackers and malware attacks.
Other valuable features are SSL VPN and WAN link balancing.
How has it helped my organization?
It provides real security for business customers.
What needs improvement?
The reports provided by the equipment could be more detailed, and not so dependent on the FortiAnalyzer.
The FortiGate internal reports are good, but could have more details and options for viewing certain network data. For the client to get the richest reports, they need to buy the FortiAnalyzer appliance or hire FortiCloud service. These two aim to catch all of the FortiGate logs and turn them into friendly reports, many of which are not present in FortiGate itself.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been installing and configuring this product for at least 10 years with different companies, including other models such as the Fortigate 60D and 80C.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product has always been stable and performed quite well.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have not encounter any scalability issues.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is very good. Fortinet professionals are well trained.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
For commercial UTM solutions, I have always worked with Fortinet; I had no reason to trust another third-party solution.
How was the initial setup?
It's simple: Just turn it on, access your Web console via the default IP address and then perform the settings.
What about the implementation team?
I installed and configured the 200D for one of my clients.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The full license is UTM Bundle Full Guard. The license fee varies according to the Fortigate model; prices can be low or too high.
What other advice do I have?
If you need real and effective security for your network, do not hesitate to buy a Fortigate appliance. It is no wonder that it is the best according to Gartner, for several years running. It delivers what it promises and more when it comes to performance, stability and security functions.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Fortinet FortiGate Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: February 2025
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In fact I only apply on our DMZ firewall rules I only get the same result.