Fortinet FortiManager Reviews

I primarily use FortiManager for network automation and central management.

FortiManager's most valuable feature is central management.

In the next release, FortiManager should include more protection features.

I've been working with FortiManager for about a year.

FortiManager's stability is excellent - I would rate it ten out of ten.

FortiManager is easy to scale up and down.

Fortinet's technical support is hands-on and provides a good service.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward.

FortiManager is a bit expensive - I would rate its pricing three out of ten.

FortiManager is most suitable for the enterprise level. I would recommend FortiManager and give it a rating of ten out of ten.

We are one of the partners, so we are using it for customer testing for managers, owners, and others at head office. We are looking at FortiManager in terms of quality deployment and ability to manage everything. We're using it for management.

We are using a VM version and can scale it as we need. It depends on our license, however, we find we can scale.

The general policy, its integration, and deployment are all easy. We don't have a lot of devices, however, it creates a center where we can manage everything. The initial setup is very simple. 

The solution is stable. 

It's a scalable product.

The GUI is not ideal. It needs to be improved. It should be more user-friendly.

I've been using the solution for around two years. 

The product is a stable one. From time to time, we may see bugs, however, overall, it's a stable one. It doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable. 

The support has been good. They are helpful and responsive. We're pleased with the level of service we get.

Positive

I don't have much experience with the other products compared to this product. The main reason that it's been chosen for clients is it's very well integrated with the rest of the Fortinet environment. For example, if somebody has an environment in SuccessFactors, FortiManager is good.

It's very simple to set up the solution. It's not overly complex or difficult. The documentation helps with any complexity.

I'd rate the solution four out of five in terms of ease of deployment. 

You just need a single engineer, a software engineer, to set up and maintain the solution. Someone who has Fortigate knowledge should have no problem handling the solution. 

When you are going for a massive FortiGate environment, the costs compared to your investment would be fine. However, if you're going for below ten devices, the cost will be a little bit high. You would have to justify the expense. 

I'd rate it a three out of five in terms of availability.

We are a Fortinet partner. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

Our use case is for management and back up configuration. I work in the IT security division. 

This is a good product if you're looking for a central management solution. FortiManager provides good log management and more details than other solutions for logs.

I'd like to see the improvement of wizards when it comes to pushing policies and copying, VPNs, etc. Sometimes Fortinet changes its subscriptions. A few years ago Fortinet Firewall had capabilities for use in the cloud environment; they then changed the subscription and it was no longer part of the subscription, forcing the customer to buy an additional license. The technical support needs to improve. They moved their call center to India and although I have a special PIN code for the support team, they hang up after a minute or so and I need to redial. 

I've been using this solution for five years. 

The solution is stable but it does require regular upgrades. 

We can scale but it requires the purchase of additional licenses.

We deploy this solution for our clients. It's a pretty straightforward process for us. 

The price is reasonable, especially when compared to Cisco or Palo Alto. It also has a free version for smaller organizations. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

I primarily use FortiManager to manage central policies and maintain a single pane of glass.

FortiManager's most valuable features are web-based or web-rule-based policies, SD-WAN, and the ease of upgrading to new firmware.

FortiManager would be improved by putting everything into a single console, including Microsoft O365 integration. Its stability could also be better.

I've been using FortiManager for three years.

FortiManager is pretty stable, but there are some bugs - for example, with some of the OCVPNs not getting managed properly.

FortiManager is scalable.

Fortinet's technical support is helpful.

I previously worked with Check Point and ASA but switched to FortiManager as it's more cost-effective.

The initial setup is pretty easy and took around one day for fifteen devices.

FortiManager is reasonably priced - I pay around US$40,0000 per year, which covers fifty locations.

FortiManager is the best suite for SMBs, and I would rate it as six out of ten.

Our primary use case is to analyze the internal traffic to see what's happening in the network. We can analyze the logs and push policies. In case something happens, after rebooting it, we can push the configuration back into the appliance. 

The most valuable feature is analyzing the traffic. When we call ISP and we do an upgrade, the performance is down and we can look into it and see where we're lacking and analyze the data and decide how to go about it - if it is from the firewall or the connection. 

We look at the traffic to segment the network and it improves and increases the performance. When we have a mobile connection and local laptops are on the same network. We have seen a big performance upgrade.  

Performance issues should be improved. We have problems when we have more mobile connections than local devices. Most of us have two to three devices. 

Finetuning and performance tuning need improvement.

I have been working with FortiManager for around fifteen years. 

The stability is very good. Throughout my career, my failure rates have been low. Some models have bugs on the flash drive. But it's usually from carelessness from the client's side. It's very stable.

If you go above your box, you have to update it. It's not so scalable. But most firewalls are like this. Throughput makes a difference. We have to upgrade boxes every three to four years. 

Their support is good. They respond well. Their response time is good and they can usually resolve the problem. 

The initial setup is not very complex. I've been in this field for a long so I don't find it very complex. 

The pricing is reasonable. It's not very expensive, it is reasonably priced. 

I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

In the next release, I would like to see more performance-tuning. If they could work on that, that would be great. 

It is used to manage several firewalls, primarily for setting policies and as a central management point for all the firewalls.

The central management feature is the most valuable to me.

We find that several vulnerabilities are showing up every week, so we have to check every time with the customer to make sure everything is okay and to apply patches when needed. The frequency is a little disarming. So, the product is not very stable. 

I have been working with Fortinet FortiManager for a year. We are currently using the latest release, version 7.

I would rate the stability a four out of ten. 

There is not an issue with the technical team. It's more about the product itself.

The pricing model is affordable. Largely, customers opt for this solution because it has a low price. 

Overall, I would rate the product a five out of ten, mainly because of its stability and also because the technology is not as advanced as some of its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Check Point.

FortiManager is a virtual appliance, you can have it in a cloud, buy your own license, or pay for the solution as a service. It's very helpful because you can manage many products from other customers, just from the cloud, which is where you administrate domains for all the customers you might have. You only have one point of deployment of the new FortiGates, for example, FortiSwitches, FortiAPs with a single click that you do not need to deploy the configuration on a unit itself. So it means, for example, you can just send the new boxes to new offices and from the cloud FortiManager, you just let some technical guy send it to the internet. It gets the serial number of the FortiManager. It can be paired and the configuration can be directly downloaded. You don't even need to touch the box physically. So that's an amazing feature. 

For the whole security fabric from Fortinet, with a simple click you can see if some workstations or services are affected by an attack. You can really easily quarantine it, check the solution, and fix it. It's very good from a security perspective. 

Fortinet is releasing quite a lot of new versions and I would say that most of the versions are not well tested before they're pushed out. Even the new versions sometimes are a bit buggy before it's all correct.

I have been using FortiManager for six to seven years. 

We don't have any issues with stability. 

Scalability is good. 

Our support was often sent to a foreign country and they didn't speak good English. But the second level of support was all perfect.

Checkpoint has a kind of manager that is similar. I think Palo Alto and Cisco have something similar as well.

The initial setup was straightforward and so simple. You don't need to know the functionality that much and it guides you on how to deploy it correctly. It's quite simple to set up as a solution.

The deployment takes a few days. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

It does not make much sense if you only have one FortiGate. If you have multiple devices and you can share some kind of templates or configuration template for security rules then this is a product you should use.

In the next release, there should be a little bit better of a deployment for applications that should also be relevant for mobile phones.

We work with the FortiManager tool to configure several solutions for our customers. Generally, our customers already have the product installed on their network. We work as independent consultants. 

The product could be improved by making it a little easier to configure. Sometimes it's a  bit complicated to find the right way to configure. For example, if you want to have a link between a FortiGate to a FortiSwitch, sometimes it's not so clear. Sometimes there is a problem because U.S. FortiGate has one version and FortiSwitch has another version of the operating system and it's difficult to create, to have a link between two devices, and we have to do an upgrade before using it.

I would like the configuration to be easier. If that is solved then the product is perfect. 

It's a stable product. 

I have no experience with scalability. 

The technical support for us is great. We get our support from Fortinet in Belgium, so we can communicate directly with a technician in Belgium. It's perfect. 

We also train in Cisco and are certified and support Cisco, so we know that solution very well. The difference between the two is that Cisco is always more complicated than Fortinet. 

I think the initial setup is too complicated because there are several versions of the operating systems, so you don't have directly connections between two devices. In the study guide it's easier but on site it's not so easy. 

I think the pricing is reasonable, it's cheaper than Cisco. 

It's a good solution if the customer has all Fortinet products. The advantage of Fortinet is that if you have all their products - FortiGate or FortiSwitch or FortiController, FortiWeb, FortiClient, it's an integrated solution but if you have only Fortinet Switch, it's no more interesting than Cisco.

I would rate this product an eight out of 10.