Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

In our current data center, we use eight Fortinet firewalls. These firewalls serve multiple tiers of the network, including internet users, server farms, and DMZ ports. This gives us multiple approaches to our system and network. As a result, we are able to receive all reports before the analyzer.

In 2011, we were using a Cisco ASA 5540 fixed firewall. We moved to Fortinet because their UTM appliance was a next-generation firewall that offered more than one solution in a single box. This meant that we could handle the network, server, and client parts of our infrastructure with a single device. We also chose Fortinet because of the ease of its GUI and its ease of implementation in multiple locations. Currently, I have three data centers. We are using a consolidated console with a broader view of the network traffic. This is why we moved to Fortinet. We had previously used Juniper and Cisco, but we found that Fortinet offered a better solution for our needs.

We deployed the solution on-premises because, while the private sector in Kuwait has begun to move to the cloud, government entities are not permitted to do so.

I started with the firewall module, and we were using multiple boxes for multiple functions. I was using a Juniper SSL VPN. They came to us with a single-box solution that included SSL VPN, so we moved to that. Then they came up with client endpoint security, and we moved to that as well. They also introduced web filtering in Fortinet, so we moved to that as well. All of the technology that we were using previously on separate consoles is now consolidated into a single console. I can see the beauty of this product in that it has a single console that manages all of the facilities on one web page.

The firewall is top-notch. We are using SSL VPN.

When we first started, Fortinet was using a single appliance with a firewall module in the region. They later came up with many different solutions. I have also used FortiDB, but it has been discontinued. We have since removed it. We are looking forward to Fortinet considering a sandboxing solution. This would allow us to secure our database at that layer. I see the database area as being weaker. I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for 12 years.

Fortinet FortiGate is stable which is why we have stuck with it for almost 12 years.

The scalability is good. In 2016, we scaled our system to ensure that we would have enough capacity for the next five to seven years. We are currently only utilizing 25 percent of the hardware processing.

We have around 900 users on our networks per second with a total active directory of 7,000.

The technical support in our region is excellent. There are three levels of support. I remember one time when my problem was not resolved by level one or level two, so it was escalated to level three which was awesome. The level three technician was able to understand the issue quickly by reviewing the chain of email logs and the available information.

Positive

We previously used Juniper and Cisco firewalls before switching to Fortinet FortiGate. We were drawn to Fortinet because of its superior control and visibility, as well as its high availability, throughput, and durability. Fortinet's FortiGate firewalls are ASIC-based, which makes them more reliable and efficient than other solutions. As a result, we were able to handle more traffic with Fortinet than with any other vendor.

The initial deployment was complex. We started with a low-level design, discussing with the vendor that we had a certain number of firewalls and concurrent sessions available on the network, and that we had remote sites. We began by implementing the boxes in the data center, then the main data center headquarters, and then the campus network, which has its own data center with a firewall module. We later installed it in one of our accessory branches in their data center. The installation was done in phases.

When the high-level design was in place, we began migrating the configuration. We used a migration tool from Cisco and Juniper, which was very smooth because it was intelligent enough to take all the network IDs, policies, and source destinations, forward based. This meant that we had fewer challenges when we started the migration.

However, we did encounter some challenges during the migration. These were not due to Fortinet, but rather to the configuration that had been migrated from the other vendor. We resolved these challenges by manually checking each policy one by one, and the issue was rectified within a couple of days.

A total of four people were involved in the deployment. Two people from our organization, one from the vendor, and one from the partner. We have to go through our partner to access the vendor.

The implementation was completed by the vendor.

Fortinet FortiGate's features and price have provided a return on investment for our organization.

The pricing is a bit more expensive than the others but Fortinet is the best in the region. They have a good hold on the market because they are everywhere.

We pay for support and licensing fees.

I give the pricing a nine out of ten.

We evaluated Palo Alto Networks, but they did not have a presence in our region, so we did not move forward with them. We also evaluated Check Point, but it is not a government-approved solution in our region.

I give Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten. 

Fortinet FortiGate has good regional support. One of the best things about this solution is that Fortinet doesn't disappear after the sale. They keep engaging us with new technologies. For example, they recently engaged us with a SIEM and SOAR solution that allows me to have a single console for all of my security needs. I have a plan to move to this solution and consolidate all of my firewalls into a single FortiManager. This will allow me to have a more secure and efficient network.

Fortinet is not as focused on cybersecurity as some other companies, but they are very strong in network security. They are constantly coming up with new and innovative solutions that help us to protect our networks. I am very happy with Fortinet FortiGate and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a reliable and secure network solution.

We have deployed the solution in multiple locations.

Our partner is involved in maintenance, especially when a new FortiOS is released. We engage the vendor to understand the maintenance requirements, such as stability and any potential risks. We follow the vendor's recommendations and perform maintenance accordingly. We also use FortiAnalyzer to manage our logs. We delete old logs in accordance with government policy, which requires six months of data to be kept. We take care to ensure that maintenance does not affect these logs.

Fortinet FortiGate is one of the best and most affordable solutions with top-notch technology on the market. We get something that is both cheaper and of good quality with Fortinet FortiGate. Fortinet submitted the lowest-priced bid and met all of our technical requirements.

I'm managing security rules, bandwidth for the internet, switches, and fifty access points. Everything, including the network in Afghanistan, is managed from there, and it's something critical for us.

FortiGate's ability to perform as expected and fulfil our needs has been the most compelling feature for network security. FortiGate has proven to be secure and effective in terms of threat intelligence, as it alerts us about external login attempts and suspicious scripts, contributing to our system's overall security.

FortiGate can improve its token system, as it requires a purchase before use. Additionally, the VPN system could be more efficient, especially regarding VLAN passing through, which is currently a limitation. Another suggestion for improvement would be better timezone coordination for customer support. Currently, there are issues with calls coming at inconvenient times due to timezone differences. Another area for enhancement could be the response time for support tickets, as there is a delay of at least twelve hours, even for urgent tickets, which can be frustrating.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for the past three years.

It is scalable as we expand our usage of FortiGate as our company grows. We're currently using one, but we plan to use two as our network expands.

I open a ticket and communicate with the engineers when I encounter issues. Although it may take some time, they always get back to me with a resolution. There are mainly due to these issues with time zone coordination and response time.

Neutral

The setup process for FortiGate depends on the complexity of your network. For simpler setups, a user-friendly interface is easy to use. However, for more advanced configurations, it may require expertise. Integration into the ecosystem is neither too easy nor too complex.

The maintenance process is relatively easy.

Regarding return on investment, I believe FortiGate is worth the money. It has helped us stay safe, and considering what we are paying for such a system and service aligns well with our expectations and financial goals.

The price of FortiGate is reasonable as I plan to buy new switches. The initial gadgets are already booted, and the pricing seems normal on the market. As for additional costs, I haven't subscribed to many extra features, so I'm only using what I need. Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

The majority of use cases have been around UTM. Initially, they were famous for their UTM solution because nobody was offering what Fortinet was offering. 

We most probably use the latest version.

Fortinet has a very strong OS. They have a single OS through which they integrate all the networks and security operations. Our experience has been very good. Fortinet gives us a single fabric for the security and network teams. This unification has helped us a lot in providing Secure SD-WAN and other solutions, such as network switches, wireless controllers, FortiNAC, FortiAuthenticator, etc. They have a single pane of glass for all these from the monitoring and visibility aspect.

The integrated application protection provided by Secure SD-WAN is very good. Fortinet is a security-focused company. The features related to application recognition and how to enhance the performance and security of applications are pretty good.

The customers for whom we deployed FortiGate have become long-term customers of Fortinet. Even when they compare the solution with some of the other vendors, they're more comfortable with going with Fortinet and upgrading and refreshing the hardware and the software. It's a very good product, and the customer satisfaction is pretty good.

It impacts operational efficiency because we can quickly make the changes. For example, Cisco has some limitations in terms of the time it takes for any change to take effect, which impacts the operational efficiency, whereas in the case of Fortinet, they've got a very quick way of doing the changes and reverting them, which eliminates any downtimes because of the configurations. Their method for configuring and applying policies is very simple and easy. Because of that, it's very easy to do complex changes, and in the case of misconfiguration, revert those changes without much of an impact. Overall, Fortinet FortiGate brings a lot of operational improvements because of the strength of FortiOS.

Secure SD-WAN has helped us remediate threats more quickly. Normally, with the WAN solutions or the simple SD-WAN solutions, security is done on the hub side. With the Secure SD-WAN solution, we can apply security at the branch level, so unnecessary or malicious traffic doesn't reach the data centers or the hub site, which helps in improving the overall security posture. Also, we can tighten and apply a single security policy across all the branches or different segments of the WAN, which improves overall security. Fortinet offers different security measures for blocking malicious traffic and having a uniform policy across the entire organization. 

Secure SD-WAN has helped reduce our mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to resolve (MTTR). Applying a central security policy at the branch level immediately helps us to detect any malicious traffic and block it there, so the chances of anything reaching the hub or the data center side are less. It improves MTTD and MTTR because it has a very good interface where we can easily respond to all the attacks and manipulate things. Applying security with the help of Secure SD-WAN helps to mitigate attacks from where they are originating, which improves MTTD and MTTR.

Secure SD-WAN has helped reduce help desk tickets. Because of the operational efficiency and security, there are not many issues that impact the number of tickets.

With the help of Secure SD-WAN, we can provide operational efficiency because we can apply policies on an application-level basis. With Secure SD-WAN, we can apply a security policy per application. The central security application structure helps to apply all the measures from one central place and from the cloud. Because it's connected to many intelligence centers, it future-proofs a business and improves it overall. 

Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility.

From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They provide FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement. Recently, a customer had a requirement of getting some reports on their internet usage. Palo Alto has a bit better reporting than the Cisco and Fortinet firewalls, but we cannot get granular details about the user-level security, usage, etc.

Their support also needs improvement.

I've been working with this solution for around ten years.

It's very stable.

For small and mid-level enterprises, it has been a very good solution, and that's why they captured that market. Our experience with it has been very good. It's easy to configure and deploy. In our country, their main market is small and big enterprises, but they are gradually focusing on the performance aspect. It's being used in large enterprises as well as a firewall solution.

It's scalable. There were some performance issues a few years ago, but they've fixed them for better performance, optimization, and high throughput. Performance-wise, it's very good.

Support is one of the areas that they need to look into because as compared to some of the other companies, Fortinet's support is not that responsive. The product is very stable, but their support needs to be improved. I'd rate their support a six out of ten.

Neutral

We used Cisco and Juniper. We switched to FortiGate because it offers a lot of features at a very good price point. Unlike some of the other vendors, you don't have many license restrictions. For large and medium enterprises, they provide a wireless controller, authenticator, and mail features. There are so many features integrated within FortiOS, whereas, with many vendors, you have to work with different products. It's very helpful for small organizations with tighter budgets. There's also the ease of configuration that helps to bring things online as quickly as possible as compared to some of the other solutions that have a learning curve and that take some time.

I mostly work on the pre-sales side. I discuss all the features, and then I work with the deployment team. They do the installation.

Its installation is easy. Normally, we get the scope and have the high-level design. After that, we go to the low-level design where we manage all the configuration templates. We have discussions with the customer and finalize all the policies that need to be applied at the site. We segment sites by size, traffic, application usage, etc. We apply the policies on a group basis, and then we apply the configurations on the controllers or the sites.

In our area, people are mostly interested in on-prem setup instead of cloud because not many controllers are located within the country, so the traffic has to be traversed outside the country. For banks and financial sectors, on-prem is more suitable, but small organizations can have it on the cloud.

We implement it ourselves. For small projects, one or two people are good enough because we majorly find all the things at the LLD stage. We have a team that works on the LLD and configurations, and then we've got an on-field team that takes those configurations and applies the changes. Normally, if the implementation isn't distributed across the country, not many resources are required. Two or three resources are good enough, but if it's distributed across different regions, then a larger team is required. Once we have the templates, things are posted automatically, so not much to be done at the sites. We just have to do connectivity and configure the policies. As compared to other deployments, we require much less staff for the deployment tasks.

It requires maintenance, but generally, the product is very stable and doesn't require much maintenance. Normally, there aren't many changes. If there are any issues, we definitely need to monitor and check. Most of the issues aren't related to the solution itself if you have implemented it in the right manner, so planning needs to be done in the right manner.

There's definitely an ROI. Having a centralized way of managing and applying policies across the entire organization always helps. The time to manage, operate, and resolve issues is much lower. When you have a central place to manage and do the changes, you get efficiency and time savings.

A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously.

It's a very good product. It has all the features required for operations. We strongly recommend using Fortinet for your edge or data center security or for your SD-WAN. FortiGate is doing very well. Fortinet has been capturing the security market, and now they're capturing the market for SD-WAN as well. They're a leader in Gartner's Quadrant. Their FortiMail and FortiWeb solutions are also very good. They provide all these solutions, and we have deployed all these solutions in the market. They're working perfectly, and customers have minor complaints about them.

Currently, no SD-WAN solution is interoperable with other vendors. Every SD-WAN vendor has its own solution. There's no standardization, so there isn't much interoperability. For example, we need a controller and branch-level software or hardware. Hardware is agnostic for some vendors, but normally, vendors also have their hardware. There are a few vendors that provide hardware-agnostic SD-WAN solutions, but Fortinet has its own hardware on which the complete SD-WAN solution runs.

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

We use FortiGate for our firewall. We have a typical business environment that includes end-user workstations, an ERP, web hosting solutions, etc. It's around 600 endpoints. 

FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls. We're secured against various outside threats. It's hard to know how effective a firewall is if you aren't experiencing attacks. We haven't been affected, so we've seen the benefits of the solution from day one. 

FortiGate provides solid protection against viruses, malware, and other threats. 

It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls. 

I have used FortiGate for five years, including my work at my previous company.  

FortiGate is stable. 

FortiGate could be more scalable. 

I've used Cisco firewalls previously. FortiGate is a little better in terms of web protection, but it's more expensive. 

We had professional services deploy FortiGate. For maintenance, we have an annual maintenance contract, and there are periodic firmware upgrades. A network admin is responsible for maintenance. 

We've seen a return in the form of greater security and threat protection. 

FortiGate is a little expensive. In addition to hardware and licensing, there are some implementation and maintenance costs. 

I rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten. I would recommend FortiGate, but Cisco is one of the best. The biggest lesson I've learned from using FortiGate is that it's crucial to install and maintain the solution properly. 

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 am using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall appliance.

The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering.

Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI.

I used Fortinet FortiGate within the last 12 months.

Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution.

I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable. We have not had any problems.

We have approximately 150 people using Fortinet FortiGate in my organization. Everyone is using it.

I rate the technical support from Fortinet FortiGate a three out of five.

There is room for improvement.

We have used many other solutions, such as Check Point and Cisco Firepower. I have found Fortinet FortiGate is much easier to configure. However, some others solutions have more functionality, such as Check Point and Cisco Firepower.

I rate the initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate a four out of five.

If we properly designed the installation beforehand, the installation would take us 10 to 15 minutes.

We did the implementation in-house.

We are on an annual license to use Fortinet FortiGate.

I rate the price of Fortinet FortiGate a four out of five.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

We use Fortigate, and we have a relationship with Fortinet. We are working with the Fortigate 100F firewall. It is mainly for firewalling, but we would also use them for network demarcation as a DHCP or NAT router. We're also working with our Fortinet account manager to try and push further forward using an SD-WAN controller.

In terms of deployment, it comes through to the build lab. We configure it and then ship it to our customers. We are reviewing how to obviously do zero hands with FortiCloud, but what we've done so far has been conventional configuration and shipping.

Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution.

Usually, we sell the bundle with the UTM or threat management piece with IPS, IDS. Other providers, such as Palo Alto, are ahead in terms of safe functionality. So, for me, delivering truly safe service is probably something that still needs to be improved.

Anything they can bring around safe service would be brilliant. At the end of the day, when we talk to customers about deploying, split tunneling, and looking at endpoint security, remote access or safe type of features would be useful.

I've been selling Fortinet technologies for over 10 years.

It is stable.

It is scalable. It is quite straightforward. Moving from, for instance, legacy 200D to 100F has proved not to be an issue. It is quite straightforward.

I am not a hundred percent sure. Our third-line guys deal with them quite a lot. In terms of escalation, for example, when one of my customers had a query about secure authentication on the portal, it has taken some time to get feedback from the vendor or the manufacturer. So, I am unsure. I've not had a great experience, but I can't really answer that one properly.

It is reasonably straightforward if you've got the management portal in terms of FortiCloud. With that, migrating from one firewall, as it reaches the end of support, to an upgraded firewall is fairly intuitive. You should be able to easily reverse out a script and configuration and apply that to the new firewall, following proper governance as a managed service.

We're a managed service provider, so we would probably put two to three PS engineer days to follow the appropriate protocol. From a lead time perspective, a new high availability firewall deployment should not take more than 10 working days from the config test, deployment, and failover test perspective.

If you are a mid-market business, Fortigate presents a solid proposition for the mid-market. If you are getting to enterprise-level, for me, Palo Alto is still a more viable product when you get up to what I call financial services, enterprise-level service customers. 

I would rate it an eight out of 10 for its ease of deployment and its ubiquitous approach to network security. 

We use Fortinet FortiGate as our security and routing solution.

We implemented Fortinet FortiGate to enhance our security posture by blocking and restricting access to certain websites and securing our VPN traffic. 

Fortinet FortiGate offers enhanced visibility and segmentation for our industrial devices, a crucial process when some machines utilize systems demanding high-level security.

We have implemented Fortinet Security Fabric on our VM infrastructure, and it has provided great service in helping us meet regulations, governance, and compliance requirements. This is important to us because Fortinet Security Fabric connects to our sandbox, allowing us to scan shares across all clusters and enabling FortiGate to resolve any online issues.

Fortinet FortiGate has enhanced our organization's security by enabling secure VPN access and restricting access to social media sites, thus ensuring that employees can focus on their work. We saw the benefits of FortiGate within weeks of the deployment.

FortiGate helps reduce the risk of cyberattacks that could disrupt our production by isolating the affected traffic and creating a log for us.

It also helps to centralize the management of our network and security operations.

The centralized management allows us to access all of our firewalls and policies using a single interface.

Fortinet provides actionable data to help us make informed decisions about the actions to take. For example, if one of our firewalls goes down, the solution helps us rectify the issue by providing details on the problem and how to address it.

By consolidating the numerous individually connected batches, FortiGate helped us reduce operational expenses associated with the extra costs they incurred.

Fortinet FortiGate has helped us mature our approach to cybersecurity for protecting our industrial equipment. Their knowledge and daily webinars on email security and virus prevention have empowered us to stop attacks and maximize our efficiency.

The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox. These features help reduce our downtime, manage the ISPs, and deploy SLAs for all the website traffic.

The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces. This functionality should be improved.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for seven years.

I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.

While Fortinet FortiGate firewalls are scalable, upgrading to a new version or adding hardware requires purchasing a new license to migrate the old backup to the new firewall. 

While the technical support team is knowledgeable, their response time to support tickets is concerning. It typically takes them 48-72 hours to respond, which significantly disrupts my work.

Neutral

While we previously used the open-source PSS firewall, it lacked the layered security architecture offered by Fortinet FortiGate.

We migrated to Fortinet FortiGate for its superior control, in-depth scanning, and ability to minimize cybersecurity risks, features not offered by other firewall solutions.

The initial deployment is easy. The solution can be installed by following the on-screen prompts, and the policies can be implemented through the interface dashboard.

Deploying the system takes one full business day. We begin by gathering user requirements from each department, as they have varying policies. The policies are implemented department-first, followed by branches. Finally, VPNs are generated for remote users. Two people are required for the deployment.

The implementation was completed in-house.

Since implementing Fortinet FortiGate, we have observed an increase in user productivity, which translates to a positive return on investment.

While Fortinet FortiGate has a higher price point compared to Sophos XG, its user-friendly interface justifies the cost. Additionally, its fixed pricing structure eliminates concerns about surprise fees.

After evaluating Sophos XG and finding its interface overly complex for our needs, we opted for the user-friendly interface of Fortinet FortiGate.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

We have one person that deals with maintaining Fortinet FortiGate.

We have 1,100 users in multiple cities and departments using FortiGate.

The Fortinet FortiGate 60F is a good choice for organizations to begin evaluating firewalls.