Fortinet FortiGate-VM Reviews

My primary use case of this solution is for advanced security in the cloud, as well as SD-WAN and branch connectivity. We use version 6.4 and are just now moving to 7.0. 

FortiGate-VM has many valuable features: it's easy to use, it's intuitive, it's got very good traffic inspection features, it's got comprehensive filtering categories, and it has an extensive threat database, using FortiGuard. 

FortiGate-VM could be improved by making it cloud-based. I'd like it to be a cloud-based management solution instead of just a dedicated management orchestration tool. 

I have been using FortiGate-VM for five years. 

Personally, I like Fortinet support. I know other colleagues and people think it's slow, but I don't.

I used FortiGate for 10 years. I also have experience with Azure Firewall Premium, Cisco ASA, and Cisco Firepower. 

The installation is really easy. There's HA deployment in the marketplace involving Azure and AWS. I handle the installation myself. 

I implement this solution myself for customers. 

There are yearly or monthly licenses which you can choose from. 

I rate FortiGate-VM an eight out of ten. I recommend this solution to others. There's a use case, like any cloud-based firewall. 

We're an MSP, so we sell, configure, and manage these solutions for customers. 

We primarily use the solution for our internal worldwide corporate network.

It's allowed us to have fewer personnel requirements in relation to maintenance. 

The maintenance part is definitely quite easy. We do not require any additional manpower to maintain this. It's quite simple and it has the least required manpower over it based on an individual unit.

The initial setup is pretty simple. 

The solution can scale well.

The stability is quite good.

Right now, we are totally satisfied with this solution. There are several units worldwide. We have only one unit at our Kolkata location, and we are satisfied as of now in terms of its capabilities.

Price-wise, it could be slightly better, however, if you compared it to other makes and models of equal category, it is generally cheaper.

I've used the solution over the last seven months. 

The stability has been good. Its performance is reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The scalability is there. When taking into consideration our business environment right now, I find that this is capable of handling all the requirements until the end of 2022.

Right now in the Kolkata office, we are around a hundred people - and that is in the Kolkata office only. If you talk about India, then we have around 250.

We do not plan to increase usage at this time. However, in the future, scaling may be required. 

I've never directly dealt with technical support and therefore cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are.

We did previously use a different solution, however, the main office makes the decisions around product changes. They may have chosen this product as it is less expensive. 

We had been using a British Telecom hybrid VPN solution. In April, we stopped that and migrated to this new SD-WAN connectivity solution based on the Fortinet firewall. 

The implementation process was not complex or difficult. It was straightforward. 

The deployment takes around two to three hours.

Maintenance aspects are handled by the vendor. 

The implementation was done by our vendor as well as our internal team.

We won't have a sense of an ROI until we've used the solution for another year and a half. 

The pricing is pretty reasonable when compared to other solutions of the same caliber.

We pay a yearly licensing fee. I do not know the exact costs, however, as that is handled by the team in Luxembourg.

We don't make product decisions. Decisions of that scale come from Luxembourg. 

We are a customer and an end-user.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

In a recent scenario, a manufacturing company, was in need of migrating its services, specifically their ERP SAP application, to a cloud-native environment. They chose to migrate their servers to GCP for hosting. Since they required a firewall, they opted for cloud-native firewall solutions. They acquired two firewalls, one for internal usage and another from the GCP marketplace. Both firewall vendors provided yearly subscriptions. Following this, we proceeded with the configuration.

They established a VPN connection via the internal Forti firewall. Simultaneously, an external firewall from Palo Alto was set up. This external firewall, positioned at the perimeter, handled incoming traffic from Internet users. Our configuration focused on enabling ECPs for the Internet-based cloud network.

The ease of access and user-friendly setup is a valuable feature. Fortinet proves to be particularly straightforward to configure, offering simplicity without complexity. Moreover, visibility is easily attainable due to certain factors. Price, implementation, and budget considerations play a role. When it comes to Cisco implementation, the process tends to be more intricate, which many customers find unfavourable for their business needs.

Fortinet devices are acknowledged as highly potent and come with a notable cost. These devices offer extensive visibility, an array of configurations, and a range of security features. However, there's room for enhancement in their routing and switching security aspects, akin to Cisco's offerings.

A noteworthy aspect here is Meraki, which offers cloud controllers. If FortiGate were to introduce a similar cloud management solution, it could strongly compete with both Meraki and Cisco products. Cisco operates in two sectors: enterprise and SMB. Particularly in the SMB market, they hold sway due to their convenient cloud management features. For instance, Meraki's cameras and wireless access points can be easily controlled through their cloud management portal. If FortiGate were to provide cloud-based management solutions for SMB customers, it could cater to a significant portion of the market, considering that a substantial number of customers fall within the SMB and mid-level enterprise categories.

I have experience with Fortinet FortiGate-VM.

Hardware performance is a determining factor. A recent case made me notice that in comparison to the other vendors, Fortinet exhibited superior scalability. This was mainly due to their package-oriented approach, which involved scaling the VM version based on the number of customers. They offered various packages, and depending on the package, the VM version would be adjusted.I would rate it an eight out of ten.

I would rate scalability an eight out of ten.

The customer service and support is good. Within this domain, we have local support in place. They are primarily responsible for initial support. However, if a situation exceeds their capabilities, they escalate it to level two support. This setup is highly satisfactory.

Positive

FortiGate offers straightforward planning and a user-friendly interface. This simplicity is seen through graphical user interfaces (GUIs), enhanced visibility and effective troubleshooting. I would rate it eight out of ten. 

In the industry landscape, approximately seventy per cent of businesses predominantly rely on on-premise solutions. Specifically, our focus is directed towards banking clients, who are aligned with the guidelines of the Central Bank due to their emphasis on security, governance, and compliance protocols. However, the manufacturing sector and telecommunications companies are more inclined towards cloud adoption. This inclination is rooted in factors such as cost efficiency and power savings, internal infrastructure maintenance and resource allocation, including power and human resources.

In Sri Lanka, the banking and finance sector still prefers on-premise solutions. This choice is aligned with their security compliance needs and regulatory considerations.

In our proposals involving FortiGate, it's common practice to include FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer. Over the past two years, many clients have adopted FortiManager for cloud-based management. We've facilitated this by providing cloud subscriptions, allowing them to manage their FortiManager through the cloud. This approach is well-received, and it's worth noting that even in the banking sector, some customers prefer on-premise setups for their FortiManager.

It would be beneficial for Forti to expand its cybersecurity solutions even further. While solutions like FortiSolor exist, there's room to enhance feature sets in line with the increasing requirements of compliance and private security needs. These can effectively address client-side security needs. Comparing Forti's offerings to competitors, certain strengths stand out. There are notable visibility and flexible configuration options. The client-side experience benefits from robust management capabilities accessible through this solution and the troubleshooting becomes seamless because of good visibility and an effective controller. I would rate it an eight out of ten.

My primary use case is for controlling the internet in our organization, as well as for our VPN for those working from home. I also use it for routing the connection to stores so we can access them.

This solution allows us to easily access the stores from where we are. It also blocks a lot of websites that we don't want to allow access to during working hours. It has also made our network more secure, and it's now much harder for people to intrude into our network.

The most valuable feature is that its IPsec works perfectly. The work filter also works perfectly - it's able to detect anything coming in that is not supposed to be on the network.

We have had some issues with connecting to the VPN from home after firmware updates, which could be an area for improvement.

I have been using this solution for about five years.

I think the product's stability is very good.

The scalability depends on what you want to use it for - previously, we were using 60D, and it wasn't accommodating some features we wanted, so we had to go to 100D.

The technical support is very helpful.

I previously used pfSense but found it was a bit complicated in terms of configuration and didn't give periodic updates. I switched to FortiGate because they were very consistent in giving updates on outbreaks and what they were doing to resolve them.

The setup was straightforward because of the integrator's help. Deployment took about two days, and only my assistant and I were required for deployment and maintenance.

I implemented through an integrator.

Our main ROI has been the extra stability on our network - since we implemented this solution, we haven't had any major attacks.

The cost of this product is too high on a yearly license. The license can be renewed on a monthly or yearly basis. There are additional costs for extra features.

To me, this is one of the best firewalls I've ever used. I would rate this solution as nine out of ten.

My company functions as a mobile operator and supports business customers. We use the solution for our infrastructure and firewalls. 

The tool's most valuable feature is its ability to deploy it on live physical hardware. Specifically, when providing firewall services for clients, we can leverage such hardware appliances to support multiple customers on the same hardware.

The product needs to focus on cloud-nativeness and pricing. 

I have been using the product for six to seven years. 

Fortinet FortiGate-VM is a good solution in terms of stability. I rate it a seven out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a ten out of ten. 

The tool's technical support is good. 

We rely on automation for deployment, making it easy for us. We clone the existing infrastructure for additional customers. Our challenging aspect is coordinating with clients to set up the infrastructure. Understanding the existing infrastructure of business customers, especially their premises and specific requirements, is a crucial step.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate-VM's pricing a six out of ten. 

I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten. 

The primary use case of this product is as a firewall. We are partners of Fortinet and I'm a security engineer. 

In our organization, Fortinet is one of the trusted partners. We have offered the solution for a medium-size entrepreneur 

The dashboards are a good feature and the deployment is simple. 

The technical support could be improved. I'd like to see the security platform upgraded.

I have Started learning and deploying FortiGate for 12 months.

The solution is looking stable as per knowledge

This solution is flexible and scalable. 

They need to improve the technical support. 

I have worked with checkpoint. And that solution is also good. 

It is straightforward for deployment

Fortinet is competitively priced, it's cheaper than Palo Alto and Check Point. 

We are the technologies partner so we have recommended the solution by customer dependence upon their use cases

I recommend this solution and would rate it a seven out of 10. 

We primarily use the solution for checking a 250-person defense contracting company with multiple locations.

It's improved our operations by not being overly problematic.

The solution seems to be very reliable. 

It's a relatively simple product that is easy to use. It's not overly complex.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward.

The product does not have a good graphical interface. Their patches and their upgrades are not always compatible with configuration. That means that often you find after you upgrade that there was something else you have to do to the rest of the infrastructure, whether it's a printer or a user or whatever. It doesn't appear to me that their upgrades are well tested. They usually do what they're supposed to do, however, they also usually do some other things that FortiGate doesn't seem to be aware of.

It doesn't maintain legacy capabilities very well.

The stability of the solution isn't ideal.

They don't seem capable of supporting their own product.

The solution needs a better user interface and more intelligent services like spam blocking and auto whitelisting, gray listing, blacklisting, et cetera. It just basically needs better user monitoring.

I've been using the solution for about four years at this point. It's been a while now.

While I wouldn't describe the solution as unstable, there are definitely hiccups. I expect firewalls to be really efficient and very stable and I would say they're only sort of stable. I don't expect to have to figure out how to create a scan-to-email solution every time I upgrade my firewall, for instance.

Of course, they'll blame it on the vendor of the printer and say now how they're not following the standard or something, however, it was working with their product previously and the printer wasn't the item that changed. Their product gets a patch and it no longer works and you're like, "Well, I like your theory, but I don't exactly accept it." I don't think they have the features that a Palo Alto has, let's say.

The solution seems to be scalable. For our purposes, it scales well.

We have about 250 users on the solution currently.

Technical support isn't that great. On a scale from one to ten, they're a five at best. A couple of times where we had a problem, they couldn't solve the problem. We researched the problem on our own, unfortunately, via Google, and we found the solution and the solution was actually written by one of their techs and they didn't even know it.

The initial setup is not too difficult. It's not overly complex. I'd describe it as pretty straightforward. A company shouldn't have any issues with implementation.

For deployment, we did one site and then the other site and it took probably two weeks to deploy it, with maybe 30 days to get it fully configured. Then, once we had one site deployed, configured, and functional, we implemented a copy of that to the other site. We followed this pattern for each of our locations.

In terms of maintenance, it's hard to quantify what you need for the firewall. The firewalls are relatively low in terms of required maintenance. We have one IT administrator that may be a day a month has duties that are firewall-related. It varies, however, it's not significant work to maintain the firewall.

We did not need the assistance of an integrator or consultant. We were able to handle it ourselves.

We haven't really seen an ROI. It does what it's supposed to do, however, I'm not sure that it makes my job easier. It's kind of a sunk cost. It's one of the frustrations I have. I would expect it to be smarter and capable of doing things that it really doesn't do.

We pay a yearly licensing fee. It's probably a couple of thousand dollars per firewall.

On top of that, if you maintain a hardware warranty, so that you own the devices, you still maintain a warranty on them. There's sort-of a service contract, or you can go at risk. I don't know where we are in that. I'd have to go look, but I know at one point in time we talked about again, if we're going to be doing a tech exchange, maybe we don't want to maintain the warranties on them anymore.

The competitors actually have lower prices for more functionality. On the higher side, if you go with Cisco, it's more expensive, however, it's obviously more functional. A Palo Alto is probably a better solution than a FortiGate.

We're currently looking for alternatives to this solution.

We're looking at alternatives. However, the deficiencies that they have are not significant enough that I would like to immediately leave them, however, they're big enough that I'm looking for alternatives. 

When I come to end the life and I do a tech refresh, if we're not going to go 100% virtual, which is certainly another consideration, I am going to look at an alternate product. I'm not sure we're going to go away from them with a timeline right now, however, I'm certainly looking at it.

We don't yet have a shortlist, however, we'll likely look at the top big names in the market.

We're an end-user and a customer.

We have a plug-in with the subscription. We use the current version on their 100Es.

In general, I would advise other users that they need to look at whether they're going to go physical or virtual. I'd advise once they decide that to then look at the maybe lesser known next-generation firewalls that have functionality. The folks that are going to be operating the tool need to look at the user interface to make sure that that it is easy to use. Most users at an enterprise don't even know the firewall's there, let alone what it is, so they're not unique. I think all of the firewalls are pretty decent at not impacting users. The differentiator is which ones are easy to set up, which ones are easy to configure and use and how good they are at reporting.

The other thing I would say is, look at whether or not they integrate into your overall IT management, whether you're using ServiceNow or what you're using for IT management. How do the firewalls integrate with that or not? It's important.

I'd rate the solution at a four out of ten. It does base functions and it's doing that at a pretty high price.