Fortinet FortiGate-VM Reviews

In our office, primarily everything goes through FortiGate. We expand that for all the firewall rooms that we have. We have features that link to FortiGate and from FortiGate on the shelf we ran the core cells. There is primary access to each of the devices and then we also use it between our offices. We use VPN tunnels in between offices. There are all of the typical settings within a firewall device: Protection, application control, and quality tracking.

There's routing and then there is control. For routing, there is quality. The security site has anti-virus and web filter applications. I'm used to all of them, so I wouldn't pick one or the other.

I like the traffic shaping feature. I find it helpful to be able to control the traffic.

The GUI could be improved. Furthermore, the unit we have could be modified because it's not that high of a torrent. 

It is a very stable product.

It is a scalable product. We source our current load with ease and I think it can handle a bit more. It definitely can handle a lot more capacity than what we currently use.

We do not use the tech support. We have another source for tech support.

We also considered Sophos, Checkpoint, and Palo Alto. 

We do have Palo Alto at one of our smaller offices of about 60 people. We noticed that Palo Alto is a much more costly solution.

The improvement was felt in the traffic use. Without the firewall, there is unauthorized traffic coming in from the Internet. We can’t be sure whether it is legit traffic or something malicious. With this solution, all unauthorized traffic is filtered out.

The most valuable features are the firewall and security. They filter out unwanted connections.

We are using a product from eight years ago. I am sure there have been improvements in the newer versions. Improvements on the following are needed:

1. Responsive UI
2. JIT and detailed traffic reporting.

There are no stability issues.

We did scaled up quite well. We moved our locations from 10 to 20 people accessing it to 100s of people. It could handle the traffic load well enough.

I have not requested tech support (all these years).

No.

Initial setup was quite straightforward, as we can simply head to the required sections to apply the planned network.

I have yet to research a hardware replacement. If anything, I am the one that needs some advice!

I can't remember.

This product surely will fit your basic needs at the very least. However, always match up the specifications of the products you will buy to your current and future needs.

Use of this product does not require daily interactions, like our previous firewall service option.

Simplicity of daily operations would be my favorite facet of this gem.

No issues. Operations have been flawless, so far.

No issues noted.

Technical support has been super responsive and dedicated to getting any challenges resolved.

We had a previous solution and switched due to a corporate decision to eliminate some subscription fees.

This product was nearly plug and play. There are some tables and rules to make custom decisions based on our daily workloads and philosophy as an educational setting.

I was not involved in that aspect. Therefore, I cannot provide information along these lines.

I was not involved in the corporate decision-making.

Draw out a plan of what traffic to unconditionally allow (whitelist) and what traffic to restrict under what conditions, before you even unwrap the box.

It has taken me a little while to gain confidence in this product, but I am there now. There were challenges during setup, and many of them were self-inflicted.

High network throughput while providing leading edge network security technology for a competitive price.

Real-time sandboxing with the FortiGate UTM network.

The user interface (UI) and the performance of interface both need improvement.

No issues.

No issues.

I would rate technical support with a 10 out of 10 (perfect score).

Our previous solution simply did not live up to expectations.

Setup is straightforward. I am certified in the Fortinet line of solutions. Even without this knowledge, it is easy to adjust the product to your requirements.

It is on par with what you receive. It can be expensive upfront. 

It would be nice to have the ability to extend FortiGuard subscriptions at a reasonable yearly cost versus a bulk three year pricing.

We evaluated Cisco, Meraki, SonicWall, and Juniper.

Having support from your vendor is nice. Calling Fortinet directly with a support contract, they will help you take care of all your requirements. 

FortiGate-VM's firewall is excellent. 

FortiGate's application load balancing has to be improved. They need to improve a lot on the load balancing and RAF side. They are far behind Citrix in that regard.

I've been using FortiGate-VM for around three years. 

Yeah. It is stable. I don't say it's not a stable product.

In terms of scalability, I'd rate it six out of 10.

I rate FortiGate-VM six out of 10.

We work with the government and the customers do not want the VM solution, they prefer appliance solutions.

Compared to other appliances, the features are the same. 

The machine resources are the main difference.

It is difficult to size the VM in terms of machine resources, and for this reason, clients prefer the appliance.

The support is good. We don't have any issues with the technical support. 

The deployment is easy, there are no issues with the deployment of this solution.

We deploy on-premises and sometimes on a private cloud.

The price could be lower. It's expensive.

We like this solution.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate-VM an eight out of ten.

There have been no improvements. We would just use another device if this one did not exist.

None of them. It is a classic firewall, but better than the free versions.

Yes, we encountered stability issues in IPSec Module. The tunnels freeze sometimes.

Yes, we encountered scalability issues in IPSec Module. The tunnels freeze sometimes.

I would give technical support a rating of a nine out of 10. 

I used SonicWall, before they were sold to Dell. After Dell bought them, some issues came out.

I used Check Point, which was terrible for me. You can do almost nothing without software. The web interface does nothing. I do not like solutions with many components. In Check Point, you need to use over three interface to dig up anything.

I used Palo Alto 3020. It is a marvellous solution, but a bit expensive against its competitors. You can do everything in the web interface. There is no need for any installation (does not exist) and to manage it. It works quickly changing configuration and applying configuration. (Comparatively, FortiGate is fast in applying configuration.) You can easily rollback the previous configuration and backup configuration in Palo Alto. The firmware upgrade is like a baby's toy in Palo Alto.

İt is not fast to rollback config in SonicWall.

I used Untangle, pfSense, etc. However, there is no need to talk about them.

The pricing and licensing are not as expensive as its competitors. This applies to SonicWall, too.

Check Point and Palo Alto are very expensive solutions, because of the ownership and renewal costs.

I evaluated different options before choosing FortiGate. It has four separate modules which give fast reactions when it is analysing. It has an app ID and user ID option, which are the most important.

Be aware of your own requirements.

The product is quite flexible.

There seems to be a lot of very useful feature sets.

Technical support is very helpful.

We found the initial setup to be pretty straightforward for the most part.

We've had issues with integration. It hasn't gone well.

We have had some stability issues.

There are some instances where configurations can get complex.

I've only really been dealing with the solution for the last six months. It hasn't been too long.

We've had some stability issues. The product could be more stable.

We are not in production just yet, and therefore it would be hard to comment on scalability.

Technical support has two tiers. Typically, if we need help, we have to reach out to Fortigate, who will direct us to help in Bangladesh. If we still need assistance, then it goes directly to Fortigate and they have engineers who can assist us.

We're largely pleased with the amount of assistance we receive. 

I've only really used Cisco solutions in the past. I've only recently been introduced to Fortinet.

The installation process is very easy with FortiGate VM. We can easily deploy it. That said, we did run into issues with some customer requirements and our engineers were forced to get involved. Occasionally, it takes too much time to configure certain aspects. However, a basic configuration is pretty easy.

I didn't require any outside help in order to deploy and configure the solution. I didn't need the help of outside consultants, integrators, or Fortinet techs.

Our clients tend to deal with the licensing aspects of the solution.

We're partners of Fortinet.

We're using the latest version of the solution.

We have been using the solution while we have been waiting for the hard drive version of the solution, which has been delayed.

I would recommend the solution to other organizations. I'd rate the product eight out of ten.