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Fortinet FortiGate vs IPFire comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
594
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
IPFire
Ranking in Firewalls
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 14.0%, down from 21.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IPFire is 1.0%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate14.0%
IPFire1.0%
Other85.0%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Yati Gharat - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Litmus
Unified security management has simplified data center protection and optimized branch connectivity
In my opinion, a potential area of improvement for Fortinet FortiGate is that while it has a pretty good dashboard, which is not an issue as such, when we talk about hardware parameters, sometimes the hardware gets pretty heated up. Given the amount of traffic going through it, that is fine. However, the heat of the hardware has to be looked into. Fortinet FortiGate firewall is good, but other products like the switching part and all that fabric, in handling very audio-video traffic, sometimes it struggles on the switching part, but on the routing part, it is fine. On the firewall part, it is good; there is no issue as such up till now. Additionally, I suggest that Fortinet can add software which is in a controlled way, particularly regarding AI and ML. It should not happen that the AI/ML takes certain decisions which are not beneficial for the organization. The control should remain with the team members who are responsible for configuring this firewall.
AE
Chief Technology Officer at Agileware Limited
Firewall deployment has secured mission-critical public apps and simplifies Linux-based management
The best features IPFire offers include its very intuitive nature because, even though it has a Linux back-end, in terms of configuration, it has a very rich GUI interface. The GUI and configuration features of IPFire have made my work easier and more efficient because their positioning and the sequence with which I follow is easy. In terms of all the processes, what you need to do at first and the next thing that you need to do is clear. The GUI is well arranged in sequential order, so you can follow that from whatever you want to do until you get the target objective. IPFire includes features with a very robust and rich community that is very much valid in terms of content. IPFire has positively impacted my organization by giving us some mileage. At least, a lot of organizations now know that we have a solution that can deliver the same value.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortinet FortiGate has positively impacted our organization by improving our security workflow and network security, as it is quite reliable compared to traditional routers or traditional switch cores from MikroTik or Cisco."
"It is not a very costly product if you compare it with other products, and the return on investment is also good."
"Our experience of using Fortigate is excellent and we strongly recommend it."
"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are UTM, web filtering, and IPS."
"The ease of use and the user-friendly interface are the beauty of this firewall."
"Fortinet Secure SD-WAN delivered the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) per Mbps among all other vendors."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate IPS is its efficiency."
"Regarding IPFire's AI capabilities, I think they are quite focused; in all the deployments I have done, I have not had any incidents or breaches."
"I would rate the stability as ten out of ten for IPFire."
"IPFire has prevented any kind of hacking and enables us to comply with customer requirements."
 

Cons

"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"I have an issue with NAT only, in that I can't allow traffic from outside to inside using a NAT pool."
"I would like to see improvements in Fortinet FortiGate regarding the active-active scenario. The active-active scenario is supported but not recommended, whereas other vendors are implementing active-active without issues. Perhaps in the future, we could effectively use both firewalls to increase the throughput. If there are two boxes, they both should be able to work."
"The web process often has a memory leak."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"IP tracing works only so-so."
"The anti-malware engine could use an upgrade."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"I would rate IPFire 8 out of 10 because I do not think there is any solution anywhere in the world that is 100 percent efficient."
"Accessing the internet was a bit complicated."
"The graphical interface could be much better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I give the pricing of the solution a six out of ten."
"Fortinet FortiGate IPS' licensing is quite simple to understand."
"These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive. Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco."
"Its price is good."
"It was probably about $2,500 per firewall. It was all included. It included support, services, threat management software, and 24/7 FortiCare on it. Cisco products are more expensive."
"The price for the Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable. Secure SD-WAN is free of charge. If you have their firewall, it's free of charge. It's very tempting."
"The price depends on the size of the company. From the beginning, you just want to know the internet bandwidths, speed, and the number of users to be able to offer the right product and model. They have a lot of products in FortiGate according to the size of the company, like 200D and 300D."
"It is very cost-effective. You get features similar to other firewalls, such as Palo Alto, but at a lower price."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant with 51-200 employees
Jan 3, 2016
Sophos UTM vs. Fortinet FortiGate
I have used both Sophos and Fortinet products in production and I have found the Sophos UTM appliances (hardware and virtual) to be a better fit most of the time -- with a few caveats which I will touch on below. In both instances, the transition from TMG will be mostly straightforward. The main…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business372
Midsize Enterprise138
Large Enterprise195
No data available
 

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 at large. In my opinion, Fortinet would be the best option and l use Fortinet too...
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 the firewalls change every 5 to 7 years as stated but you really do need to upg...
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 good. The most valuable features for me are their web and email filtering. I wou...
What needs improvement with IPFire?
IPFire can be improved, but so far, there are no functionalities that have not been able to meet my needs. I wish IPFire could do more, but so far, I am happy with the solution. If there are other ...
What is your primary use case for IPFire?
My main use case for IPFire is usually for security, functioning as a firewall for organizations that run public-facing applications. I will give you a typical example: there is an agency of the fe...
What advice do you have for others considering IPFire?
I would rate IPFire 8 out of 10 because I do not think there is any solution anywhere in the world that is 100 percent efficient. In elementary physics, we are told that no machine can be 100 perce...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
 

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
1. Siemens 2. IBM 3. Cisco 4. Dell 5. HP 6. Intel 7. Oracle 8. Google 9. Microsoft 10. Amazon 11. Apple 12. Facebook 13. Twitter 14. Netflix 15. Adobe 16. SAP 17. VMware 18. Juniper Networks 19. Ericsson 20. Nokia 21. AT&T 22. Verizon 23. T-Mobile 24. Vodafone 25. Orange 26. Deutsche Telekom 27. British Telecom 28. Comcast 29. Time Warner 30. Sony 31. Samsung 32. LG
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate vs. IPFire and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.