We use it to secure our environment, ensuring no vulnerabilities or potential risks in our network configuration. Our goal is to enhance cybersecurity measures, safeguard our network, and ensure the integrity of our systems against potential threats and intrusions.
Head of IT Department at Tengri Partners Investment Banking
A comprehensive and user-friendly solution for securing networks against web-based threats
Pros and Cons
- "I am content with its user interface and functionalities."
- "It is essential to leverage its capabilities more professionally to achieve an even higher level of security."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I am content with its user interface and functionalities.
What needs improvement?
There is a potential for enhanced protection. It is essential to leverage its capabilities more professionally to achieve an even higher level of security. I believe that if the cost were lower, it would be highly beneficial. While the gateway serves as a primary solution for the entire network, attention should also be given to endpoint devices.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for approximately five years.
Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiGate SWG
March 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiGate SWG. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
839,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is incredibly reliable. I would rate it eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It provides excellent scalability abilities and I would rate it eight out of ten. There are around fifty individuals actively using it.
How are customer service and support?
They provide exceptional support. I would rate it eight out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
When comparing Fortinet to Cisco, Fortinet stands out as a more user-friendly and practical solution. It seems especially well-suited for smaller network environments, making it the preferred choice for our small work network. The switch was prompted by the wealth of features Fortinet offers, coupled with its ease of management and deployment. The diverse interfaces and comprehensive reporting, including statistics and other relevant information, further contribute to its appeal.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
The deployment duration is variable and relies on the development level and installation complexity. Initially, it may take only a few hours. However, to enhance security and stability, the process might extend to a few days or even a week. For a simple network, a single individual should be sufficient to manage it effectively.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
While slightly more affordable than competitors, it remains relatively expensive due to its inclusive subscription. It operates on a subscription basis. You pay solely for this subscription, without any additional custom costs for support or other services. The subscription encompasses support, updates, and all associated features.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate it nine 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
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Head of IT at ArcelorMittal
Robust and secure product with a valuable SD-WAN feature
Pros and Cons
- "It has a valuable SD-WAN feature and provides good performance."
- "They should make the product user-friendly and enhance the security features."
What is most valuable?
Fortinet FortiGate SWG is a robust and secure product compared to Sophos. It has a valuable SD-WAN feature and provides good performance. Along with that, it has efficient bandwidth and policy management features as well.
What needs improvement?
They could provide bandwidth concentrators and traffic filtering features. They should make the product user-friendly and enhance the security features.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Fortinet FortiGate SWG for ten years. At present, we use the latest version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the product's stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate the product's scalability an eight out of ten. It is suitable for small to large enterprises.
How was the initial setup?
I rate the product's initial setup process a seven out of ten. It takes a few hours or a few days to complete.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten. Its one-year license cost is competitive with three and five-year licenses offered by other products.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend the product to others and rate it a nine 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: Implementer
Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiGate SWG
March 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiGate SWG. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
839,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Network & Security Engineer at Viroka Technology Private Limited
An easy-to-install product offering web filtering, application control, and SSL inspection to its users
Pros and Cons
- "The product is easy to install since we only need to follow the user manual, documents, and articles provided by Fortinet to install the product."
- "Fortinet's support team consists of a huge networking team, because of which there is a delay in response at times."
What is our primary use case?
In my company, we use the product for the help it provides us in terms of SD-WAN, site-to-site VPN, RADIUS authentication, web filtering, application control, SSL inspection, and remote access.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN and site-to-site VPN.
What needs improvement?
In version 7.2.0, the product offers built-in automation to its users. Earlier, there was no automation offered for the product. Nowadays, the product sends automatic emails to users as a part of its offering to let the users know whenever there is a need for automatic backup when the ISP goes down and the interface status. The automation can be further improved.
Fortinet's support team consists of a huge networking team, because of which there is a delay in response at times. Fortinet's support team needs to improve their time management skills.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Fortinet FortiGate SWG for five years and six months. My company has a partnership with Fortinet.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution since the product offers a FortiGuard server that detects vulnerabilities and ensures such detection of vulnerabilities also involves FortiGate.
My company currently works with basic and mid-level sized businesses.
How are customer service and support?
Whenever our company's customers face any issue with the product, we offer our own support team. Fortinet also has its own support team. If required, our company lodges complaints and the issues faced by our customers with Fortinet. Fortinet's support team initiates the replacement if there is a hardware issue with the product. The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The product is easy to install since we only need to follow the user manual, documents, and articles provided by Fortinet to install the product.
The solution is deployed on-premises.
Just getting the product up and running can take up to forty-five minutes to an hour. The full setup process is carried out based on the requirements of our company's customers, and it can be done in half an hour to forty-five minutes if it is only for basic internet.
In our company, we need around ten engineers for the maintenance and deployment of the solution. The maintenance of the solution is easy since we keep getting constant updates which we can easily use to update the product.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am unaware of pricing since I am a part of the networking team. My company's sales team manages pricing.
What other advice do I have?
My company basically provides Fortinet FortiGate SWG to our customers. If our company's customers are looking at Palo Alto products, we have another team in our company to provide them with the same. I am an engineer for Fortinet products and can provide support only for Fortinet. There are different sets of engineers managing Palo Alto products.
In Fortinet, you only need one license for all the products. In Palo Alto, for Palo Alto Secure Remote Access, you need to buy a separate license, while there is a need to buy a separate license for Palo Alto SD-WAN. I feel Fortinet products are better since they come in a bundle. With Fortinet, customers don't need to buy different licenses. One can get all the features by installing a single bundled license offered by Fortinet, allowing one to use SD-WAN, site-to-site VPN, remote access web filtering, SSL inspection, and application control.
I rate the overall solution a nine 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
Network Security Engineer at Ensure Support Services Limited
Strong network security that's enhanced with an easy setup
Pros and Cons
- "I rate this solution a nine out of ten."
- "I would rate the technical support of Fortinet a six or seven out of ten. It is not very helpful. I would like to see improvements in their support."
What is most valuable?
One valuable feature of FortiGate SWG that has significantly enhanced my network security is IPS.
What needs improvement?
I would rate the technical support of Fortinet a six or seven out of ten. It is not very helpful. I would like to see improvements in their support.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used the solution for six to eight months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Fortinet SWG is a stable solution, and I would rate it eight, indicating it is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I think the scalability of FortiGate SWG is okay. It meets the growing demands of my network and goes hand in hand with security.
How are customer service and support?
I find the technical support of Fortinet to be not very helpful.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
I handled the installation myself, and it can be installed by one person.
What was our ROI?
It is too early to discuss any financial benefits or cost savings from using FortiGate SWG.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
On a scale from one to ten, I would rate the pricing for FortiGate AWG as nine, which is perfect.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I am working with Fortinet and another vendor simultaneously.
What other advice do I have?
I rate this solution a nine 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:
Last updated: Jan 22, 2025
Flag as inappropriateAssociate Director at NVIT
A highly scalable security solution that is easy to deploy and provides good technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The technical support is good."
- "The solution is expensive."
What is our primary use case?
We use the product for our customers. We use it for security.
How has it helped my organization?
We can use the URL filtering and antivirus features. We can also configure rules and protocols from source to destination.
What is most valuable?
The technical support is good.
What needs improvement?
The solution is expensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used the solution in the past twelve months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is not the same as WatchGuard. If we have a power problem, we can lose configurations, VPN, SSL, and other things. Other products do not have these issues. The tool is stable when there are no power outages. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate the tool’s scalability a nine out of ten. It has high scalability. We integrate the solution for our customers. Some customers have 15 to 50 users, while others have 300 to 1000 users. Our customers are small and medium enterprises.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. It was not complex.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate the pricing an eight out of ten on a scale where one is cheap and ten is expensive. We need to pay for additional features.
What other advice do I have?
The product could provide SD-WAN and VPN features. People can use the tool. Overall, I rate the solution a nine 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: Integrator
shop manager at BIL
It's easy to manage and provides solid protection against external threats
Pros and Cons
- "The interface is user-friendly, so it's easy to add policies and block traffic."
- "We also have FortiAnalyzer deployed here, so we want to enable the soft functionality of FortiGate and built-in compression for a firewall VPN use case. We want the ability to deploy a gateway for HTTPS enabled on this firewall. It is currently only for use in our headquarters."
What is our primary use case?
We use FortiGate SWG as our edge firewall for protecting on-prem traffic. It provides routing and filtering. FortiGate is only protecting abiyt 300 users at our corporate headquarters, but we have five hundred locations all over Pakistan that are not covered by this firewall policy. We're looking for a cloud-based firewall that can be deployed at remote locations and managed remotely through this FortiGate firewall.
What is most valuable?
The interface is user-friendly, so it's easy to add policies and block traffic.
What needs improvement?
We also have FortiAnalyzer deployed here, so we want to enable the soft functionality of FortiGate and built-in compression for a firewall VPN use case. We want the ability to deploy a gateway for HTTPS enabled on this firewall. It is currently only for use in our headquarters.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used FortiGate for around eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
FortiGate SWG is highly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
FortiGate SWG is scalable because it has the ability to add a SOAP module.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up FortiGate is straightforward, and deployment takes about a week, including the time needed to migrate our security policies. We took backups from our legacy firewall solution and installed them on FortiGate. It was simple because all our previous firewalls were also Fortinet.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Oh, yes. We pay we already we are already paying license. We have recently got a subscription and also description we are seeing.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Fortinet FortiGate SWG eight out of 10. I recommend FortiGate SWG as an on-prem edge device or routing solution. It is user-friendly, easy to manage, and protects us from external threats. We have had no issues with filtering or anything else so far.
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.
Vice President, Head of B2B Marketing Department at DTAC
Is highly stable and provides a good user experience
Pros and Cons
- "The product is highly stable."
- "Fortinet FortiGate SWG's costs need improvement."
What is most valuable?
The product provides a good user experience.
What needs improvement?
Fortinet FortiGate SWG's costs need improvement. Also, there could be an efficient feature for solution consulting to answer queries related to architecture design.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is highly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product is suitable for enterprise customers. The solution architecture takes a bit of time to scale as it is a new product in the market. The customers need more experience working with it. I rate its scalability a five out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
FortiGate provides the technical support services. However, customers have an SLA agreement with us, and we have an SLA agreement with FortiGate. Thus, it takes longer to establish efficient communication between them.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The platform requires a few months to design the architecture.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is expensive compared to Cisco.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend Fortinet FortiGate SWG and rate it an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Reliable, great pricing, and capable of expanding
Pros and Cons
- "The pricing on offer is excellent."
- "It could always be more secure."
What is our primary use case?
This is a Secure Web Gateway that protects you against various web attacks. It's used mainly for security purposes.
What is most valuable?
The solution is stable. It's reliable.
It can scale.
The pricing on offer is excellent.
What needs improvement?
It takes a long time to install the solution.
It could always be more secure.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for three or four years. I've used it for a while at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. Its performance has been good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is okay. It can expand well.
We have 200 people using the solution. We do have plans to continue to increase usage.
How are customer service and support?
I've never reached out to techncial support. I can't speak to their abilities.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I also have experience with Cisco and Palo Alto. About five years ago, we were using Cisco. We changed due to the better pricing.
How was the initial setup?
I don't directly deal with the deployment. Someone else handles that process.
My understanding is the implementation takes a long time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is pretty reasonable. It's not like Cisco or Palo Alto, which are more expensive.
I'd rate the cost, in terms of affordability, a five out of five.
What other advice do I have?
I'm using the latest version of the solution.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. I'd likely recommend the solution to others.
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.
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Updated: March 2025
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