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Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Huawei NGFW comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Fortinet FortiGate provides cost-effective security, reducing operational costs and enhancing efficiency with quick ROI for enterprises.
Sentiment score
8.2
Fortinet FortiGate-VM enhances network stability and security, offering cost savings and scalability, though ROI perceptions vary among users.
Sentiment score
8.3
Deploying Huawei NGFW improved network security, efficiency, and resource control, while reducing costs and enhancing threat detection and response times.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
The automation part is giving us a cost benefit and speed; we can react faster.
It's a very useful tool to mitigate and protect your enterprise.
I observed a fifty to sixty percent reduction in operational costs after migrating to FortiGate VM.
They have a platform that organizes their networks and access effectively.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Fortinet FortiGate support varies, praised for responsiveness but criticized for slow responses and regional inconsistencies in efficiency.
Sentiment score
6.6
Fortinet FortiGate-VM support is praised for responsiveness but faces criticism for response times, expertise, and regional consistency.
Sentiment score
7.6
Huawei NGFW customer service is praised for speed but criticized for language barriers and inconsistent service levels.
They offer very accurate solutions.
The quick resolution of issues with Fortinet FortiGate is due to the support of the company and the fact that the equipment is easy to work with.
I would rate the technical support for Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
Their support is helpful and effective.
The end-user support is delayed at levels L2 and L3.
Customer service and support are very good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Fortinet FortiGate is scalable with ease of expansion, though hardware integration and sizing can pose challenges for users.
Sentiment score
8.1
Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers scalable and efficient performance in virtual environments, with flexibility and enhanced capacity compared to hardware.
Sentiment score
7.6
Huawei NGFW is scalable and flexible, though users face extra costs and hardware limitations in expanding capabilities.
They scale up really well from smaller models like the FortiGate 40 and 50 to bigger sites with the FortiGate 100 for more throughput - up to enterprise datacenters.
The variation comes in terms of the interfaces and throughputs, but from a security perspective, you get the same benefit, irrespective of whether you have an entry-level unit or an enterprise.
We determine sizing based on multiple factors: number of users, available links, traffic types, server count, services in use, and whether services will be published.
It can start with a single core and scale up to a 32-core license for a robust deployment.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Fortinet FortiGate is favored for its stability and reliability, with some performance issues resolved through updates and sizing.
Sentiment score
7.9
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is generally reliable, with occasional stability issues that improve with proper sizing, configuration, and updates.
Sentiment score
7.5
Huawei NGFW is generally stable but has occasional issues, with most users rating it seven to nine out of ten.
We're experiencing 99.999% availability consistently.
I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
The solution is very stable.
Recently they have had more, requiring internal testing to ensure deployment stability.
 

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiGate users seek improvements in stability, integration, scalability, cost, and advanced features like monitoring and zero-trust technology.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM requires improvements in UI, stability, support, pricing, cloud integration, analytics, and user-friendly management.
Huawei NGFW needs improvements in configurability, performance, support, and features, addressing session handling, upgrades, and usability issues.
Investing in a solution that can accommodate such growth would be more cost-effective than repeatedly purchasing new hardware.
The constant daily revisions necessitate meticulous identification of the relevant documents to prevent the use of outdated information that could jeopardize our environment.
While Fortinet claims to offer a comprehensive network solution, it falls short in addressing computer application issues, particularly server security.
The API needs better integration to match accounts and objects more effectively.
Now, these features require separate products like FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, and a FortiCloud subscription for reporting.
We cannot really position the Fabric if the licenses, renewal parts, or other components have monetary requirements that hinder full utilization.
 

Setup Cost

Fortinet FortiGate offers various licensing models, balancing affordability and performance, though renewals can increase costs.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is competitively priced, with flexible licensing, though costs can rise with scaling and advanced features.
Huawei NGFW offers competitive pricing with potential discounts, though setup costs are high and separate support contracts are required.
FortiGate is priced lower than Palo Alto.
Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us.
It is about 20% cheaper.
The license for Fortinet FortiGate-VM costs 100K to 150K Philippine pesos per year for VM1 or VM2.
They could be slightly cheaper, however, Fortinet offers a good cost-benefit ratio.
FortiGate VM is considered a premium product, which can be costly.
 

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiGate provides robust security features, user-friendly management, and scalability, making it a preferred choice for organizations.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM provides robust security, easy management, seamless integration, flexibility, and cost-effective protection with comprehensive features and control.
Huawei NGFW is lauded for its user-friendly interface, seamless integration, high performance, scalability, and effective security features.
In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable.
FortiGate has helped reduce the risk of cyberattacks that might disrupt our client's production.
These features help reduce our downtime, manage the ISPs, and deploy SLAs for all the website traffic.
The more integrated we become, the less we spend on solving bugs and issues, allowing us to reduce time focusing on understanding and improving our network.
FortiGate VM allows me to avoid the hardware lease recycle every five to eight years.
Fortinet Security Fabric and real-time threat response capabilities are the main selling points.
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
373
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Fortinet FortiGate-VM
Ranking in Firewalls
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Huawei NGFW
Ranking in Firewalls
27th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.2%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei NGFW is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Sitti Ridzma Salahuddin - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates seamlessly and helps with real-time threat response
Since the solution we offered was a complete suite with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, it was easier for them to manage because they have FortiManager as well. The main reason they wanted to position FortiGate in the cloud was so that they could easily deploy through FortiManager. That was the selling point we had for them. Especially for their multiple branches, where they had approximately 60 sites, and some assets were in AWS, it was really a good deployment opportunity. FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer were also part of that solution.
Haseeb Mehdi - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides very little difference between NGFW throughput and switching, but needs WAF included
The solution's performance is good with IPSec. IPSec's capacity for Huawei Firewalls was much better than most of the vendors. What happens in Fortinet is when we see the overall switching capacity and the next-generation firewall throughput, there is a big gap. Maybe the overall switching capacity is 20 gigs, but the NGFW throughput is only two gigs. With Huawei, this difference is very little. Many of the features are implemented in the hardware. When we enable it, the firewall capacity does not go down by a big margin. This is something we look forward to, which is better. Huawei also has better core density, so we see a lot of 100G ports and 10G ports available with us. The solution is easy and convenient, and we don't need extra switches to deploy the solution in the network.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM?
An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured.
What do you like most about Huawei NGFW?
The solution's implementation is pretty easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei NGFW?
The pricing is quite cheap compared to other NGFWs like Palo Alto or Cisco.
What needs improvement with Huawei NGFW?
Huawei should improve their threat intelligence. They need to have a more diversified platform and continuously updat...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
Huawei USG Firewalls, USG9500 Series, USG6600 Series, USG6300 Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Security7 Networks, COOPENAE
KMITL, Peking University
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Huawei NGFW and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.