Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] comparison

Fortinet and McAfee are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Additionally, 98% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of McAfee users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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Firewalls

May 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Featured Reviews

Mageshwaran S

Solution Architect at airtel

Enables customers to manage security effortlessly with intuitive features and easy integration

In terms of improvements for Fortinet FortiGate, they could offer evaluation licenses, as compared to Meraki, which provides a 90-day evaluation. In Fortinet FortiGate, they do not provide standard evaluation licenses; instead, we need to request them from the OEM through the account manager for POCs. If we want to conduct a demo, we need to work with real hardware. In comparison to Cisco, we have DCloud, which helps with providing demos to customers, but in Meraki, I need to reach out to them, book a lab, and they need to provide all the hardware. I need remote access and L3 engineers to program it; only then can I offer a real-time demo to the customer.

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Karel Ondracek

Network Administrator at THK Co Ltd

Faced hardware limitations and setup challenges but have improved network protection over time

I spent much time finding exact firmware on Aruba which was working with these guns, but it is not optimal because it is not the latest version, so there could be potential security problems. We decided to replace those access points with another one. I personally have trouble because I don't know the exact life cycle of Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes. I don't know if the life of boxes is five years or something else; we moved from our previous company, which sold us to other companies. Before 10 years, we had a special department that took care of core networks, including firewalls. After that, this responsibility fell to me and my colleague. It is not easy to set up these Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes properly because we didn't have previous experience with this kind of solution. At first, we set up only a few rules that were not secure enough, and over a couple of years, we improved the settings and security of these Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes. Currently, I have one Fortinet FortiGate-VM that needs to be replaced next year, and this box is not so powerful, so I need to redirect some traffic to another Fortinet FortiGate-VM. It is stable, but because the CPU processor of this box is not powerful, I need to redirect some traffic to another box. In the future, I need to choose a higher-level box to prevent potential troubles with the power of this box.

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reviewer999975

Computer Technician at a leisure / travel company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We cannot find resources to help us configure it, so most of the time the virus still goes on our computer and McAfee doesn't detect it

It's pretty easy to use on a daily basis, but there are no other features because it's hard to configure on the server. On the endpoint it's really easy to push. It's hard to configure on the server, though. It's hard to find resources to help us configure it, and there is not much online help that you can find. Most of the time, we were looking at the forums, and we needed to go very deep to find what we were looking for. It was hard, and McAfee was not really helpful when we were trying to get the product to work perfectly. This is why are changing it.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FortiGate is very easy to use, and to configure."

"We can use our devices to check all of the perimeters, and it secures email websites."

"Fortinet FortiGate has positively impacted my organization, offering ease of management with no network disruptions; it works seamlessly."

"The initial setup and new configuration are very easy; it is very user-friendly, and with only three clicks from the menu and a few sub-menus we already have it configured."

"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."

"ROI is very high, it has hands-down the best price/performance/features ratio in the market."

"We use the filtering feature the most. It has filtering and inbuilt securities. We can create customized rules to define which users can access a particular type of site. We can create policies inside the firewall."

"I appreciate FortiGate for its reliable, powerful, and flexible setups."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Our customers for this virtual appliance are very happy with their deployments and I recommend it."

"The use of Fortinet FortiGate in an infrastructure saves time, reduces costs, improves the security of users and resources, and prevents data leakage."

"The product is quite flexible and there seems to be a lot of very useful feature sets."

"I would recommend a company to use Fortinet, because it is an attractive solution, with no bugs, a very easy installation guide, and also the support and the customer care are very important."

"It handles our current load with ease, and I think it can handle a bit more. It definitely can handle a lot more capacity than we currently use."

"The thing that I like the most is that they're very willing to work with us to resolve issues that they haven't taken care of before in their product."

"The features I find most useful in Fortinet FortiGate are its simplicity of utilization, which is very important, and its provision of interfaces to see the alerts and other things."

"Since then, we have been working with Fortinet FortiGate as our primary solution for firewalls."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pros

"For managing multiple MFE firewalls it is incredibly handy, convenient, and it is easy to use the product with McAfee Control Centre."

"It's a very functional and stable product if you're looking for a Layer 7 firewall with reputation filtering and encrypted traffic inspection."

"ROI: It's good."

"We have 10 offices throughout Brazil, and now they are all connected by using the VPN feature of the firewall."

"It does give certain protection for everything that is well configured on our McAfee server. We have good protection with it. If we could find a feature and make it work, it would work perfectly, there would be no bugs, and it would be really good."

Cons

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."

"I would like to have logs, monitoring, and reporting for a month without extra fees."

"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."

"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."

"They should provide us with a CSV number for patch updates. It will help us block specific signatures as well."

"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."

"Its pricing can be better."

"With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"There should be a bit more automation."

"Web filtering is a feature that needs some improvement. There should be some additional features to allow active users to change their own passwords."

"The price is problematic."

"Customization needs improvement."

"More monitoring should be included with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, in my opinion. It has a monitoring tool, but it could be improved."

"Fortinet support needs improvement. The response times are lackluster. Fortunately, the product is stable and we seldom have issues. Also, it takes months for them to deliver hardware when we order it."

"We'd like to have more customization and easier customization of policies."

"They could simplify the troubleshooting process."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM cons

"Migrating from v7 to v8 of McAfee Firewall Enterprise, in many cases, involves you having to completely re-write all of your previous McAfee Firewall Enterprise v7 policies due to the difference in the way the interfaces are named in the product going from v7 to v8."

"Administration of the firewall is a little confusing for end users."

"The hardware is not stable and we have faced many stability issues."

"Customer support and AV are both lacking and are really hard to come to you when the product is installed. Those are the two major points that they need to work on."

"HA configuration is a bit difficult for the first time."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a subscription-based model to use Fortinet FortiGate. We pay annually for the solution along with the support. If you want to have all the updates, and security patches you will need to renew your support."

"My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is quite good. I don't have a public site, such as in Azure, where I can see the pricing. I always have to go through the distributor, and that could take some time to get the real price for each appliance."

"The price of the license and warranty can be better because it is very expensive."

"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is a very cheap solution."

"For our organization, the licensing costs are approximately $7,000 per year."

"The support subscription for the solution is annual. You are paying for support and there are two levels of support, professional and advanced."

"The tool's pricing is neither cheap nor expensive. Overall, I find it to be competitive in the market."

"The platform offers a reasonable price point compared to its competitors."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The price is similar to Symantec Endpoint, but it's more expensive than Forcepoint solutions. Fortinet is better than Forcepoint."

"The basic pricing in Austria is OK, but asking for special offers, e.g., NPOs, NGOs, trade up, and/or trade in, is always useful."

"There is no additional cost. Once you get the licensing fee, you're good."

"For large enterprises, price is not a problem because they need that solution. However, in the Philippine market, many of our clients are still small to medium businesses, so the price can be challenging. The license for Fortinet FortiGate-VM costs 100K to 150K Philippine pesos per year for VM1 or VM2."

"There is a need to make payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."

"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is a very expensive solution."

"The pricing and licensing are not as expensive as its competitors."

"There should be a reduction in the setup price and licensing costs."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	370
Midsize Enterprise	138
Large Enterprise	195

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	72
Midsize Enterprise	34
Large Enterprise	39

No data available

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Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

From our perspective, it's quite good. When we have the visibility, we will make our policies depending on the threat...

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Comparisons

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

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Azure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 14% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 9% of the time

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 6% of the time

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 4% of the time

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SonicWall NSa vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL]

Compared 45% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL]

Compared 18% of the time

Trellix Network Detection and Response vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL]

Compared 12% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL]

Compared 10% of the time

More McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

June 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

June 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate-VM product report

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

May 2026

McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] report

Download McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM

Firewall Enterprise MFE, Intel Security Firewall Enterprise MFE

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

Fortinet FortiGate-VM delivers robust security services and advanced network management suitable for cloud environments, providing solutions like firewall and SD-WAN, with seamless integration across Fortinet devices.

FortiGate-VM is designed for enterprise security, offering comprehensive features like intrusion prevention and application filtering. It's known for its scalability and flexibility, supporting cloud platforms such as Azure and AWS. It enhances threat response and network management efficiency, thanks to real-time threat response, intuitive integration with existing systems, and cost-effectiveness.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

Strong Security: Offers firewall, intrusion prevention, and application filtering.
SD-WAN Capability: Improves network connectivity and performance.
Scalability: Efficient scaling in cloud environments.
Integration: Seamlessly connects with other Fortinet devices.

What benefits can users expect from Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

Enhanced Network Management: Simplifies deployment with real-time threat response.
Cost-Effectiveness: Optimal for managing network protocols at reasonable costs.
Flexibility in Deployment: Suitable for secure virtual machine operations on platforms like Azure or AWS.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM is predominantly employed in industries requiring stringent data center security, enabling network segmentation and VPN services. It's particularly favored by organizations using virtual and cloud networks due to its Unified Threat Management capabilities, making it an efficient solution for protecting virtual environments from threats.

Fortinet

McAfee Firewall Enterprise defends critical assets, such as regulated data repositories (customer, financial, and healthcare data), email and web servers, extranets, and data centers. This proxy-based firewall also offers application visibility and deep application controls for defense, delivers strong policy-based controls, blocks the latest threats, and eliminates unwanted traffic.

McAfee

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

French Ministry of Education, RWTH Aachen, Avency, Cegedim, Cobweb, Intel Security, Cemex Mauser, R_sler Oberfl_chentechnik

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Sophos and others in Firewalls. Updated: May 2026.

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