Fortinet FortiOS Reviews

The primary use case is for integrated cybersecurity.  

The VDOM (Virtual DOM) is a virtualized firewall that has some opportunities for flexibility that are an advantage in certain configurations. The other valuable part is that this flexibility makes it easy to integrate with Cisco products.  

The product really has everything that we need as far as features for this type of solution and our use case. It works fine for us. One thing that can be improved is the pricing model. It is currently subscription-based and I think they should probably try to change that.  

We have been using FortiO since around 2016. So we have been using it for four years.  

We had some issues with the stability of FortiOS, but I do not think it was because of Fortinet. It was because of how the integrator handled the configurations. The partner that implemented it originally did not do it optimally. We ended up having to change the partner in order to have it done correctly.  

So far we are satisfied with the technical support. We have not had a lot of need to use them.  

We had been using Check Point and we still use it. In fact, we have been working with Check Point more than Fortinet. I may be a bit biased toward Check Point because I already have more implementation support for it than FortiOS.  

The difference between the price of the products is also obvious. Pricing is more flexible with Check Point than with Fortinet. Fortinet ends up being more expensive because of the pricing scheme.  

The pros and cons of them are not so much different. If it were my choice and we were going to change what we use or choose between the two, then we would move back to using Check Point exclusively. 

I think that the setup was a bit complex because we have a complex network. Because of that, we had to do some interoperability testing first and that made the initial setup take longer than it would in another, simpler environment.  

The initial setup is one other area that could be simplified.  

We used a partner for the implementation. We ended up having to replace them with a different partner because of installation issues. The second partner was able to fix the issues.  

The costs for the maintenance and subscription for Fortinet FortiOS software alone is actually half of the cost of the hardware. For example, if your hardware costs were about $40,000, your yearly subscription to FortiOS is about $20,000. That is kind of the drawback to using Fortinet. By comparison, that $60,000 is already three years of maintenance or support with Check Point for the same scale setup. It is a significant cost difference.  

I would probably recommend Check Point to most users considering FortiO if they do not have any ACI (Application Centric Infrastructure) implementation or a Cisco ACI. If you could do a workaround on the ACI, then I would probably still recommend Check Point. But if you do not know how to make that type of adjustment or can not and you do not have any partners that need to access your systems, then it is better you go for Fortinet.  

Our primary use case for this solution is for firewalls and the efficient fulfillment of orders. Additionally, with Fortinet FortiOS, you get other features like inbuilt SD-WAN, where the customers are ready to deploy once they move into the SD-WAN features. So there are several additional features within the OS and integration with third-party software, other vendors and third-party solutions. So the integrability, adaptability, and value addition of the OS play a significant role.

We have found the inbuilt SD-WAN most valuable. For example, with FortiGates, we refer to it as being SD-WAN-ready because the customer has to buy it in the box, and the OS supports it by building a connection between two units. Also, regarding the OS integrability with other third parties, for example, with Ciga Group, you can deploy a unit in Sri Lanka, and the customer may have another unit in a different geography. Within Fortinet FortiOS and other competitive products, it's integrative, so it's used for data flexibility.

The solution is good but could be improved by supporting an allocation of quota base management regarding user data.

We have been using this solution for three years.

I rate customer service and support a ten out of ten.

The initial setup is straightforward, and it is very customer friendly. Fortinet FortiOS quickly provides many complex solutions when we deploy a simple firewall. So it's named one of the most customer-friendly OSs in the industry in Sri Lanka and globally. Therefore, customizability allows you to deploy the boxes and register a serial number. Eight people on our technical team are involved in deployment. I rate the initial setup process as nine out of ten.

I cannot comment on licensing costs as a different department handles that.

I rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use the solution as a firewall, and in conjunction with Fortinet FortiMail.

The solution is very easy to configure and has a good interface, plus it offers more configuration options than other vendors.

I would like to see fewer bugs. If you use the box with its basic features, the solution is straightforward and stable, but you can run into bugs when using newer features or in more complex use cases. They included a DNS filter as a new feature, and I had issues that required raising a ticket with customer support.

I've been using the solution for between 10 and 12 years.

The solution is very stable. There are occasional bugs, but support is very quick and helpful in resolving these issues.

The initial setup was easy.

A medium 100 or 200 Series box costs around $3000, and the software cost is around 55% of the hardware cost.

Depending on the situation, performance issues may require changing out the box. 

The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the ease of use and user-friendly interface.

Some features I have found to be hidden and cannot be accessed through the graphical user interface, you can only access them through the command-line interface(CLI). All the features should be accessible through the graphical user interface.

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS for approximately four years.

Fortinet FortiOS is a stable solution and it has high performance.

The scalability depends on the cloud provider of Fortinet FortiOS, such as Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure. They need to work according to their SLA.

The deployment of Fortinet FortiOS is simple. The speed of the deployment depends on a lot of factors, such as a number of policies, features we need to enable, and security specifications.

I do the deployment of Fortinet FortiOS and since it is on the cloud there is no maintenance. 

The price of Fortinet FortiOS is reasonable and it is paid annually. You are able to select the features that you want.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS a nine out of ten.

For me, personally within our company, I am using this for business administration, but the company as a whole uses the product as a general firewall solution.

This product has improved our organization by providing an easy and simple means of filtering of traffic and establishing VPN connections and authentication.

The high-availability feature is the most valuable feature for our company. It is faster and more secure by creating a situation where there are more paths and less opportunity for failure and data loss.

While the product is good and does provide services we need for authenticating and establishing VPN connections, some time ago we had issues with logins. The login event and the performance for this feature were very poor but have improved.

Excluding the login performance — which we would have issues with in the past that made us have to turn off the feature in order to examine the infrastructure — every other feature and functionality has proven to be stable. We have also experienced some issues with performance with filtering traffic but it was on the appliance and because it was just a basic setup.  The real problem was the configuration and had we been more familiar at the time, we would have done a better job with it. So it was not the product that was unstable, it was our application of it.

The solution is scalable, but we really have not had too much of a reason to put the scalability to the test. I cannot imagine an issue where we would have to scale more right now as we use two hardware installations and the high-availability feature manages the traffic. Two appliances for us seems like more than enough.

I think the technical support is not really very good. When we had some issues in the past and sent them to support, we waited a few weeks and in that time we managed to figure out the solution ourselves.

The one issue I am talking about was a very tricky issue, but they should know more about the product than we do even if we are doing the installations. Meanwhile, we had to wait and it was very inconvenient. So I think the process of the way they handle the management of issues could be improved. We managed to get some of the easier issues resolved in part through the support team initially, but when we reached the next level of difficulty, it lasted too long to get a resolution.

We had been using our own solution and wanted to go with a dedicated, packaged product. It was a business decision and would allow us to refocus our internal resources.

Because we have been doing installations of this product for five years, the installation is fairly easy. It was not very easy the first time but now we have a lot of experience in doing installations so, for us, it is easy to set up.

We do not use integrators or resellers as that is what we do and it is our responsibility.

As far as choosing the best licensing solution for your organization, do not buy the cheapest solution. Instead, buy the one that fits the traffic for your company with some room for expansion or headroom. Next year, if the business grows — which is usually what you want to do — you could reach a point where there is more traffic and the performance could become an issue.

We have lots of experience in using and installing FortiOS, and because of the experience has mostly been positive, I recommend FortiOS as a solution for firewalling. Besides the few issues we have experienced in the past, this is a stable solution and the high-availability feature is very, very good. 

On a scale from one to ten, where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would you rate Fortinet FortiOS as a nine. Despite the few problems we had in the past it is a very good solution which does what it is designed to do.

We are system integrators and we deploy firewalls for our customers. I'm the CTO and we are partners with Fortinet. 

Fortinet is a feature-rich firewall. The ease of use is one of the primary advantages of this product. It has a very simple OS and things are pretty easy to do. Fortinet has a good price point which is one of the reasons it's so popular. It's also a good security product. With Fortinet, the link balancing features are easier to use compared to other firewalls. 

We have had some performance issues, but that seems to be improving. I'd like to see better integrations and more flexibility for different scenario configurations. In comparison to Cisco, the CLI is quite difficult to use. Finally, I believe that the reporting could be enhanced to provide better visibility into the traffic. 

As an additional feature, Fortinet could have XDR embedded into it which would mean more visibility from the reporting side because right now we have to separately install FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer for driver analysis.

We've been using this solution for over five years. 

Fortinet is a pretty stable product. 

Fortinet still has to prove themselves when it comes to higher throughput cases, because there are many places where other brands are placed with higher throughput than Fortinet. When we enable all the features, sometimes the performance migration is more significant compared to Fortinet's claims of what it should be, so that needs to be better matched. 

I think Fortinet needs to improve their support. They are not one of the gold star rating support companies. There are a few big vendors like Cisco, EMC, VMware with gold star support rating. The support is sometimes not up to the mark. 

The initial setup is quite straightforward. 

We generally deploy Fortinet, Cisco and occasionally Palo Alto which is an expensive firewall so less companies use it. We deploy Cisco and Fortinet frequently. When it comes to performance and price, Palo Alto is at the top on both counts. 

I rate the solution seven out of 10. 

We primarily use the solution for protecting our virtual infrastructure.

The solution needs to adjust its pricing model. With the way they are structured, everything is very disparate and sold separately, and, depending on the solution, it can get quite pricey.

The solution could be more intuitive. Especially when customers have access to it, it's not as simple and straightforward as some of the other devices I've taken a look at.

The solution seems very stable once you have everything up and running. 

The solution is extremely scalable.

Technical support is good. I would rate them nine out of ten.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

It wasn't technical people doing that deployment for the proof of concept, so it took about a day. We also hadn't set up all the features and capabilities. 

We pay $100,000. That covers the cost of the hardware that we run the VN's on. That also includes any SGNA costs for the internal support tech.

We use the private cloud deployment model.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

FortiOS' most valuable features are management, security, and easy updates with no downtime.

FortiOS's bandwidth and interface could be improved. In the next release, Fortinet should include an option to disable users.

I've been working with Fortinet FortiOS for five years.

We've been using FortiOS for five years and have had no problems with stability during that time.

FortiOS is scalable.

Fortinet's technical support is good and provides good solutions for us.

Positive

Previously, I used Cisco ASA Firewall.

The initial setup was very simple and was completed within a week.

The implementation was done by a reseller and a technical team from our side. 

On the technical side, we have received a good ROI from FortiOS as its scalability and management are good.

The licensing for FortiOS is good, with a security license included when we update the main license.

I would rate FortiOS eight out of ten.