Fortinet FortiOS Reviews

We're using it for web filtering, intrusion prevention system (IPS), intrusion detection system (IDS), and VPN. We are also using it as DSCP.

The information security features are the most valuable. 

It would be great if they can push the Microsoft updates through Fortinet OS and provide a centralized patch management system.

They should also include the data loss prevention (DLP) and data leakage prevention features. They could also add network monitoring more effectively.

We have been using Fortinet FortiOS for nearly seven years.

It is very much stable.

It is very scalable. We have a global presence in more than 23 countries. 

We are satisfied with the support. They provide fantastic support. They provide online support, and on priority, they also provide a remote session.

It is extremely easy to set up.

We deployed it ourselves.

This particular solution will be in a firewall. It's not a firewall, but it is a unified threat management (UTM) box. It acts as a firewall, plus it has many features like web filtering, VPN, DSCP, IPS, and IDS. It also has the high availability (HA) feature. You are getting a very good solution with all these features combined into one box.

I would rate Fortinet FortiOS a nine out of ten. We will surely keep using Fortinet FortiOS because it is a great and very secure product. We intend to only go with this product.

The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are its simplicity, highly user-centric, and performs well. The line speed and for heavy traffic, is helpful for us.

Fortinet FortiOS can improve by limiting the need for the CLI and GUI combination. The more functions they can have on the GUI and less on CLI would be helpful.

I have used Fortinet FortiOS within the last 12 months.

The stability of Fortinet FortiOS has been good, I have not had any issues at this point.

Fortinet FortiOS scalability has been good. However, we only have a small setup. 

The support offered by Fortinet FortiOS is good.

The initial setup of Fortinet FortiOS is straightforward.

The price of Fortinet FortiOS is less than $10,000 annually. The price of the support is reasonable compared to competitors.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS a seven out of ten.

FortiOS is just an operating system. That's it. It's a firmware FortiGate is running. 

FortiOS is the foundation of the Fortinet secured fabric.

You can have virtual domains. On top of each virtual domain, you can see the independent system. When comparing Fortinet with other vendors, the good part is you can set different priorities. It depends on different VDOMs. In my case, I have two VDOMs. One is called a VPN VDOM; the other is called a web filter VDOM. Usually, for other vendors, no matter how many domains, just one primary device is always a primary one. However, for FortiGate, you can separate them. In my case, I have machine one, and machine two. FortiGate one, Fortigate two. And for each FortiGate, we can have multiple VDOMs. In my case, I have two VDOMs. If you want to save money, you can split the workload, and this capability helps us save on costs.

It's very flexible firmware. 

I really like it overall. It really meets lots of my requirements.

The initial setup is easy.

It's easy to use. 

The solution is quite stable.

Right now, all the features meet my requirements. It's not lacking in any way.

I have more than ten years of experience with the solution. 

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable. In terms of hardware. We are in a cycle right now to handle hardware replacement. We've been using the hardware for seven years now. 

I have more than 400 stores nationally in Canada. I have it in every  different location. For each store, for business continuity purposes, we have two internet connections. One is the primary internet connection; the secondary is the LTE. 

LTE is expensive, so we always use the primary, like cable or PPPoE. Unless the cable or PPPoE fails, then we switch traffic to LTE. Even for LTE, we control the traffic. For example, we have backup traffic. For LTE, we don't allow the backup traffic to go through LTE since LTE is for business continuity purposes only.

For redundancy, you build up the HA environment, meaning, at a minimum, you have two devices to work together. The secondary is always just sleeping there, dormant. When the primary fails, then you switch over to secondary.

However, for Fortinet, on top of this, you can have multiple VDOMs.

I'm a very senior tech guy, and therefore I would rarely need their services. However, I will say they have been much better, and we find them helpful. 

I've had previous experience with Cisco products.

The initial setup is very good. I'm a Cisco guy; I'm used to the command line interface. Therefore, right now, from my command line point of view, I like it. The hierarchy of the command line is very clear and it's very easy to change as needed.

The license is based on the machine itself, not on how many users. That's why we backhaul all the internet traffic to my head office, so in my head office, I only need to buy one license. To access the internet, we have a VPN tunnel. 

I'm not sure of the exact costs. I didn't purchase it, I just use it. 

I've compared the solution to Palo Alto and Cisco. 

Right now, more and more services are moving to the cloud. In terms of the cloud, the IP address changes so frequently. Today you see this IP for this service, the next day, without notifications, they may change IP to other IP addresses. So, originally, all firewall rules were based on the IP address. Now, it's not based on the IP address; it's based on the service. I can see Fortinet has already worked on this. For example, they provide internet service, which I remember, even though I haven't tried it yet. There's an internet service called Office 365. You just use this; you don't need to know the exact IP address or something; you just use this name. In the background, Fortinet updates this, updates all the information about this group, so you don't need to. The firewall keeps retrieving all that information from Fortinet, so you don't have to worry about the frequent change on the cloud side.

So far, I'm very satisfied with this device. Compared with other vendors, like Palo Alto and Cisco, I'm delighted with FortiGate, to be honest.

I'd rate it ten out of ten.

I am using Fortinet FortiOS in conjunction with a firewall for our network security.

This solution has helped our organization prevent multiple attacks. It has been beneficial having geographical visibility of what threat is being blocked in real-time.

The main features I find useful are intrusion prevention and web filtering. Additionally, the solution is easy to manage.

The solution could improve the log retention and reports.

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS for approximately eight years.

The solution is stable.

Fortinet FortiOS is scalable.

We have different size organizations using this solution and when determining if it fits the organization's it depends on their use case.

We have been satisfied with the technical support.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I have found Fortinet FortiOS to be a good investment.

The price of Fortinet FortiOS has been reasonable.

We have evaluated other solutions, such as SonicWall, Palo Alto, Cyberoam, and Check Point before choosing Fortinet FortiOS.

I would recommend this solution.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS a nine out of ten.

We use the on-prem deployment model of this solution. We use the standard model for our clients. 

In terms of what needs improvements, the troubleshooting could use improvement. When we work with other products like Cisco ASA, Palo Alto, and Check Point, we see a big difference in the troubleshooting. It's not easy to find a report. In order to overcome the problem, you have to install FortiAnalyzer to help you find the troubleshooting problem. FortiOS has its limitations.

I work with many products but this is the most stable OS I have seen. With Cisco, for example, if you do an upgrade, it's not guaranteed that the production will be stable. The upgraded release will release many bugs. FortiOS isn't like this. 

There is something called Fortinet Fabric that helps you to enforce your security by connecting all of your products with FortiGate. For example, if you install FortiClient on your PC it will help you use the VPN and the antivirus. When there is an issue, if you have 1,000 users with FortiClient will send a message to FortiGate. I have many projects and I use FortiManager to manage them. It helps my team minimize implementation time.

We have thousands of user using this solution. Only one person is required for the deployment. 

Their technical support has its positives and negatives. If you contact them, they are responsive and interactive and they have good solutions to the problem. The issue is with the support documents. When you need to do something advanced, there isn't good documentation for it. For basic tasks, there are plenty of videos and information but for advanced tasks or solutions, there is not.  

The initial setup is easy. It's the easiest firewall installation process on the market. I work with three or four other products and this one is the easiest. 

The time it takes to deploy will depend on the needs of the company and how complex they are. A basic installation will take one hour. 

It's important to have 24/7 support because the documentation is poor and you will need the support. It's important to have a support team and a support contract. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. Not a ten because of the troubleshooting. Other solutions have a mechanism to find your IP network. Cisco has something called Packet Tracer which is very advanced that helps you test your configuration. It really helps the engineers to test without affecting the product environment.   

I use Fortinet FortiOS for firewalls.

The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are user-friendliness, ease of use, and threat prevention.

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS for approximately two years.

Fortinet FortiOS is stable.

We have approximately 100 users using Fortinet FortiOS. All levels of employees are using the solution.

The support from Fortinet FortiOS has been good. They had the knowledge and professionalism.

We were using Juniper before we choose Fortinet FortiOS.

The initial setup of Fortinet FortiOS was very easy. The configuration was simple to do. The whole implementation took approximately two weeks.

We had assistance from one person from our local vendor for the implementation.

Fortinet FortiOS is very effective and easy to use to configure. I would recommend it to others.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS a ten out of ten.

I was working at a bank where internal information security was strict, so I needed to block a lot of websites in Fortinet. For example, we needed to block Gmail, WhatsApp Web, porn, and violent content. 

FortiOS allows us to set up alarms for blocked websites and SSL verifications. When someone tries to access a blocked site, the solution sends a notification to the IT manager's mailbox.

The user interface is easy to use. Fortinet has high availability features, so you can have an active and hot standby box. We can have two boxes in Rio and two in São Paulo. When a box crashes, we can transfer all the operations to the second box. 

FortiOS tells you exactly what is happening in the first box, so you can quickly understand what went wrong and troubleshoot. Users rarely notice an impact on the daily operations. 

FortiOS could provide a more detailed analysis of the network and connected devices.

I used Fortinet for about nine months.

We have a support contract with a third-party company, but Fortinet provides the licenses, so we update the solution ourselves using the license code. 

I rate Fortinet FortiOS nine out of 10.

We are consultant architects so our role is to set up firewalls for our customers, who are usually small and medium-sized companies. 

I like that the firewall gives me a lot of control in terms of outgoing and inbound traffic, and it scores better in deep packet inspections when compared with the Azure Firewall.

The support could be improved, Fortinet's response time is very slow. 

Setting up the VPN could be made much easier, especially when deployed with Azure.

I have been using the solution for a year now.

The product is pretty stable.

The solution is scalable.

The initial setup of this solution is relatively easy.

The pricing could always be lower.

If I'm going with Azure data center, my first recommendation would always be Azure Firewall with the newly launched premium services. Otherwise, Fortinet is pretty good.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten. I advise users to go through the documentation very thoroughly as it's not the same as your on-premises Fortinet Power. It's slightly different. Setting up the VPN is a bit tricky in Azure, deploying the Fortinet firewall and Azure is somewhat tricky.