Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

Our primary use case is for our company firewall. We use it for intrusion prevention and anti-virus.

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.

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.

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.

It's very much stable.

It is very scalable. We have around 200 users. 

The initial setup was not complex. 

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. 

Compared to Palo Alto, which we have used in the past, pricing and licensing are okay.

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.

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.

It provides real security for business customers.

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.

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.

The product has always been stable and performed quite well.

I have not encounter any scalability issues.

Technical support is very good. Fortinet professionals are well trained.

For commercial UTM solutions, I have always worked with Fortinet; I had no reason to trust another third-party solution.

It's simple: Just turn it on, access your Web console via the default IP address and then perform the settings.

I installed and configured the 200D for one of my clients.

The full license is UTM Bundle Full Guard. The license fee varies according to the Fortigate model; prices can be low or too high.

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.

• Performances
• VDOM
• UTM
• Consolidated Management
• FortiGuard

• Endpoint control of mobile devices with Security Profiles compliancy checking, captive portal redirection, Antivirus, IPS and Web Filtering enabled on outgoing traffic (coupled to FortiClient solution)
• Identity-based policies used to authenticated and profile users and guests whatever the media used to access the network (ie. Wired and WiFi)
• Dynamic BGP routes injections to divert traffic requiring UTM inspection or DDOS mitigation
• Two-Factor Authentication VPN SSL for itinerant users (coupled to FortiToken solution)
• Active/Active cluster load-balancing http/https traffic
• GTP tunnels inspections over GPRS backbones for pure-player telco operators
• Distributed WiFi infrastructure with UTM enabled and managed from the central console like signatures and firmware updates
• Classical IP/IPv6 Firewall with consolidated-management

• Fix all pending bugs present in 5.0.x branch
• Improve the testing process of newly published firmware like using real and representative configurations submitted to consequent traffic load during a while
• Support SNMPv3 INFORM requests
• Uniform the scheduled backup between FortiGate, FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer
• Integrate graphical troubleshoot tools for policies based on devices or user identities

4.5 years

Some few non-blocking bugs present in the latest release and which are now solved. In the past I encountered serious bug regarding SCTP and GTP supports. Fortinet helped me to qualify the bug, implement a temporary workaround and then published appropriate patches rapidly.

No. I always used the latest qualified-stable firmware recommended by Fortinet and check by own testing methods the stability of HW and SW before deploying anything into customer premises.

With design and dimensioning parts well achieved I never encountered scalability issue. However it happened I had to troubleshoot some slowness and latency issues on existing projects already running live. Most of the time they were due to some design issues and non-optimized configurations like for instance “in” and “out” ports not handled by the same NP, policy rules non-optimized and non-used features enabled.

Very good.

Very good.

• CISCO ASA: Too expensive, performances issues, non-consolidated management between traditional ASA and inspection ASA CX, not the best security engines
• Checkpoint: Very expensive but good solutions, not the leader in UTM segment
• Juniper: Expensive but good solutions, not the leader in UTM segment
• Cyrberoam: Attractive prices but not yet tested, looks like promising
• Arkoon/Netasq: Obsoletes (Stormshield not yet tested)

It was quite simple if you have at least a minimum of experiment with Firewalls integration. It is now even simpler thanks to the FortiExplorer application.

In-house.

Taking into account the price criteria, nowadays Fortinet always wins offers in front of competitors like CISCO and Checkpoint. Mixing this key-point with other success keys like UTM features and performances.

Contact Fortinet or Fortinet’s partner and ask for a POC.

The unlimited VPN licensing. All of our remote locations (1000+) used IPSec VPN and SSL to connect to the cluster.

We went from being terrified about our firewalls screwing up to completely forgetting we had firewalls. I slept better and so did my manager.

A real-time log viewer in the GUI with the capability to filter traffic displayed. Cisco ASA's have this and it's fantastic.

I used it for four years. We had two devices that were clustered together in a high availability pair as the front end of an country wide, high visibility solution.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Customer service was decent with Fortinet - they were helpful and got the product to our doorstep quickly.

This is where Fortinet stumbles. The support is farmed out overseas to techs that are not very knowledgeable about the Fortinet products. The response time for a critical priority one issue was over four hours and they only responded because we threatened legal action for them violating our support contract.

They used to have Juniper products, which are terrible. The enterprise class firewalls do not support any sort of packetflow gathering such as netflow, and the devices didn't even support Juniper's proprietary jflow. Their SRX series routers, meant for home office use, had more features and capabilities.

It was very straightforward and we encountered very little problems. Fail-over occurred within a second with zero outages or anyone actually taking notice. Firmware updates were easy to apply in a live environment if required, and the GUI was very easy to understand.

I deployed it - I'm FCNSA certified.

If we used a similar solution that required a "per seat" license per VPN, we would have literally spent over 100x what the solution cost us.

We implemented the clustered firewalls for around $30,000, and each office had another Fortigate device at a cost of around $1,000.

Cisco was evaluated but we didn't want to pay for the VPN licensing.

It's an absolutely fantastic product. Just get your support contract clarified, and confirm the response times.

• GUI
• Flexibility
• Easy to configure
• UTM

• Option to control application = increased productivity
• Data leak prevention = increased security
• Anti-virus & IPS = increased security

I'm happy with the product, however the licensing fees could be lower.

I've used it for six years.

No issues encountered.

There is a specific way of deploying a Fortigate product, and the scalability is related to the new unit deployment so there are no problems here. If you need more power/space, you just have to add a new box.

It's very good, I've never had any problems with customer service.

It's very good, I've never had any problems with technical support.

I was using Cisco ASA, and I switched due to a lack of features (e.g. poor SSL VPN support).

It's a very simple setup as everything is well documented online and via the Fortigate channel on YouTube. Also, I posses a large amount of knowledge gained during the years that has helped me to deploy all my solutions. Even from the the beginning, it was easy as Fortigate has a great GUI and good online help,

We did an in-house implementation, with no third party involvement.

The product is deployed as part of, and an add-on to, the MPLS solution for the majority of my customers. There is no ROI as this is not the major expectation, as the ROI is coming from the whole solution, not just this product.

All the costs are for the annual licenses. The cost of the original deployment fell below £5,000, and licenses are priced at around £3,000.

We considered Cisco, however we decided to go with Fortigate as it provides a good set of the features for the price paid,

Enjoy it. The product is easy to implement, easy to manage, and easy to develop and grow.

Fortinet FortiGate is used for the overall protection of companies.

All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good.

The security of Fortinet FortiGate could improve.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for approximately one year.

Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution.

The solution is scalable. We have 11 clients using this solution.

The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate is straightforward.

Fortinet FortiGate allows you to purchase licenses for hardware and software.

I have evaluated Cisco solutions.

I would recommend this solution to others, it is a good solution.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate a seven out of ten.

I am using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall.

The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS.

Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more capabilities for troubleshooting VPN connections. For example, I do get some feedback about the current status, but I could use some history and logging of important events. The information is logged in our Syslog server, but I could use that information from the device. If they could provide a GUI to have some more insight on what's going with my VPN would be useful.

The way Fortinet FortiGate handles the phase two connection of a VPN setup could be better. For example, if I have to make a phase two traffic selector input, I cannot add more ports. For example, on a specific IP address pair, if I have an IP address pair source and destination, then I can only add one port. I'm not sure if I can do that through the command line, but on the GUI, I cannot, and this is a problem. I have to select another IP address pair to allow another port and this means new traffic selectors and a new set of tunnels. This causes more tunnels to need troubleshooting. 

I would like to be able to pass more diverse information through the same tunnel, and it doesn't seem to be possible if you want to limit the traffic through the tunnel and not allow all protocols between the same IP address pair. If we want to limit the ports, then I find there is a problem.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for approximately a year and a half.

We have a contract with a Fortinet partner, and they're very good at providing support. We don't have the communication directly with Fortinet.

I have previously used a Cisco firewall, the 5520 model. It was not a next-generation firewall and did not have IPS integrated, and it was quite difficult to manage and to find features and implement them. Fortinet FortiGate is very good at this.

The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate is straightforward.

I do not have first-hand experience with the rice of Fortinet FortiGate, but I have heard the price was reasonable.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.

We are using Fortinet FortiGate for our security needs in an organization. You can have application and transport-based security. It functions according to the needs of the customer and there are additional add-ons that can be provided. Overall it is a good product.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for a few years.

Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution.

The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate.

We have approximately 2,000 users using Fortinet FortiGate.

The solution from Fortinet FortiGate is very good. Our experience has been very good.

The implementation of Fortinet FortiGate was simple.

If the price of the license in Fortinet FortiGate was less expensive it would be better.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.