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reviewer1457130 - PeerSpot reviewer
CIO at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Scalable and stable, fair pricing, and the VPN helps us with global site connectivity
Pros and Cons
  • "I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."
  • "The user interface could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We are using this solution to filter communication to and from the website or our site. 

We also use it to create a VPN connection for all of our sites in the world.

What is most valuable?

I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price.

What needs improvement?

The user interface could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with FortiGate for more than ten years.

Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiGate
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiGate. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable solution, we have not had any issues. It works.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a scalable product. We have 600 users in our organization.

How are customer service and support?

We have not contacted technical support. We have been fortunate in that we did not have any issues that needed it.

How was the initial setup?

I am working as a manager, and I am not doing any of the configurations.

We only require one person for the maintenance of this solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is fair.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it. That said, nothing is perfect and there is always room for improvement.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Security Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
Their response and resolution times are good
Pros and Cons
  • "Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
  • "They need faster serviceability and more security features."

What is our primary use case?

It performs well.

How has it helped my organization?

We have a lot of bandwidth.

What is most valuable?

  • Box stability
  • Security features, like SSL scanning. 
  • Their service: Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal.

What needs improvement?

They need faster serviceability and more security features.

For how long have I used the solution?

Three to five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has good stability compared to its competitors.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. We are making a cost savings on the scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have been using technical support. Their response and resolution times are good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Our previous solution had performance issues.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward and easy.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Cyberoam and Cisco.

What other advice do I have?

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: stability and service.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiGate
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiGate. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user375528 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT NETWORK ENGINEER at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
The most valuable features for us are VPN, WebFilter, and Firewall.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features for us are

  • VPN
  • WebFilter
  • Firewall

How has it helped my organization?

It's features are highly customizable. This means that when our different business groups have different needs, the implementations can be customized to meet the demands of those groups and needs.

What needs improvement?

I'd like to see an improvement in the Bandwidth Management and Traffic limit control.

Also, the licenses are expensive, turning off some users.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've used all units for five years, except the FortiGate 200D which has been in use for one year. Alongside FortiGate, we also have FortiAnalyzer 1000B and the FortiManager 200D.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There have been no issues with the deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There have been no stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It has not been a problem to scale it.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Customer service is very good.

Technical Support:

Technical support is very good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I depend on different products from different vendors depending on the required function.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is simple in the CLI or Web GUI.

What about the implementation team?

An in-house network engineer implemented it using the best practice recommendations from the vendor.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The appliances and licenses are expensive, and I know some people use other vendors because of this.

What other advice do I have?

You should know the customization you want from the beginning, and plan your requirements appropriately.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user326337 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user326337Customer Success Manager at PeerSpot
Real User

How would the improvements within bandwidth management impact your User Experience/productivity?

reviewer1238931 - PeerSpot reviewer
Junior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Stable and straightforward to deploy, but technical support needs improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "This is an easy solution to deploy."
  • "Technical support needs to be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We are a solution provider and FortiGate is one of the security products that we implement for our customers.

What is most valuable?

This is an easy solution to deploy.

What needs improvement?

Technical support needs to be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for almost two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, FortiGate is good. We plan to continue working with it in the future.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

FortiGate is a scalable product and our customer has approximately 2,000 users.

How are customer service and technical support?

The customer support is expensive.

We have had difficulties with technical support from Fortinet.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I also have experience with Cisco, and FortiGate is the cheaper solution.

How was the initial setup?

The installation is straightforward and it took about two months for us to deploy for our last customer.

Some customers have this deployed on-premises, whereas others have a cloud-based deployment. The choice depends on the environment.

What about the implementation team?

We have an in-house team to deploy this product for our customers. We also give them technical support. Relationships with our customers are very important.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of FortiGate support is too expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We try to help our customers evaluate and choose the best solution for them. Sometimes, they implement Cisco products.

What other advice do I have?

Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall product that I recommend.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1462002 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
A highly-effective firewall but some evolution is required
Pros and Cons
  • "It's great for capturing the traffic and troubleshooting it."
  • "We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."

What is our primary use case?

Foremost, we mainly used it as a firewall. we also use it for low sharing between circuits.

What is most valuable?

It's great for capturing the traffic and troubleshooting it.

For how long have I used the solution?

We used Fortinet FortiGate for one year.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Fortinet FortiGate is both scalable and stable.

How are customer service and technical support?

We used a different party for support — they were pretty good.

How was the initial setup?

Deployment was very easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I think the price of Fortinet FortiGate is very reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Fortinet FortiGate a rating of seven. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1254792 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Real User
Good performance and web filter capability
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the web filter."
  • "Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."

What is our primary use case?

This firewall is an antivirus, protects against spam, and is an IPS.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the web filter.

The performance is fine.

What needs improvement?

Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface. We have problems with that.

Log retention should be greater than 24 hours.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using FortiGate for about eight years.

How was the initial setup?

The complexity of the initial setup depends on the implementation. There are some that are very simple, whereas others are complex.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution a ten 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
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
IT Manager at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
We were able to prevent the use of torrent applications. They need to improve the alert and event logs.

What is most valuable?

With the application and web filters, we were able to block social network websites and any other websites that could lead staff being less productive. We were able to stop use of VPN applications on the school’s network. We were able to prevent the use of torrent applications.

How has it helped my organization?

It was used in a school network, so it kind of helped in preventing staff and students from getting carried away with their browsing.

What needs improvement?

I feel they need to work on the alert and event logs. We were not able to get anything much out of it when we were facing issues. Not sure if it was a configuration issue; we were, in fact, not able to see any system-related logs.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used it for two years. I had to replace it as the number of staff increased to beyond its limit.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did have an issue with it hanging occasionally. But then later, we figured out that it was handling traffic beyond its limit.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is average.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

This was the first device we used.

How was the initial setup?

It was installed by the IT solution provider while setting up the school.

What other advice do I have?

It is a good device for a medium-sized company. But if you have over 150 staff/devices, I wouldn’t advise using this.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Systems Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Fortinet has a strong reputation at the high end, but for midsize shops there are more affordable options

I pulled our organization off Fortinet a year ago for three reasons - the high cost, the constant bugs in code that either blocked access that should be allowed or general failures during system updates, and the killer - a poor design on their clustering which caused configuration corruption to pass from the primary to the secondary.

Oh, let's not forget the static ram exhaustion that began the cluster failure to begin with. I can understand the limitation of static ram, but the decision to solder that in place (making replacement impossible) meant that particular unit has roughly a 4 year lifespan.

I am well aware that Fortinet has a strong reputation at the high end, but for midsize shops there are more affordable options that seem to need less hand-holding.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user4401 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor

I agree with the drawbacks you presented in the review. I would like to ask you, can you give me some examples of other options that are more affordable for midsize shops? Thank you.

Buyer's Guide
Download our free Fortinet FortiGate Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Fortinet FortiGate Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.