Fortinet FortiGate vs Menlo Secure comparison

Fortinet and Menlo Security are both solutions in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category. Fortinet is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5, while Menlo Security is ranked #29. Fortinet holds a 6.2% mindshare in WSG, compared to Menlo Security’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Menlo Security users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2025

Fortinet FortiGate and Menlo Secure are both prominent products in the network security category. Fortinet FortiGate generally has an advantage in environments where cost efficiency and support are priorities, while Menlo Secure's advanced features are a strong appeal for entities prioritizing cloud-first security strategies.

Features: Fortinet FortiGate offers robust threat protection, VPN capabilities, and integrated security functions. Menlo Secure excels in zero-trust architecture, strong cloud-based security, and comprehensive SSL decryption, making it highly effective in safeguarding users even with complex security demands.

Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiGate can benefit from advancements in its zero-trust capabilities and deeper cloud-native integrations. It could also enhance its reporting features to match the more intuitive insight offered by competitors. Menlo Secure could improve its user experience and ease of deployment for large-scale rollouts. It may also work on expanding offline capabilities and improving integration with third-party tools to gain more comprehensive network visibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiGate is praised for its straightforward deployment process and highly responsive customer service, making it suitable for businesses with varying levels of technical infrastructure. Menlo Secure focuses on seamless cloud integration with specialized support teams available, offering assistance tailored to complex cloud configurations.

Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiGate is appealing due to its competitive pricing and significant returns in traditional network settings. Organizations looking for a budget-friendly solution with strong support may find it compelling. Menlo Secure, however, justifies its higher cost through a comprehensive feature set and enhanced security measures, promising long-term ROI for businesses prioritizing advanced protection solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiGate vs. Menlo Secure Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate vs. Menlo Secure

September 2025

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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

iboss

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 6.2%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure is 1.6%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate	6.2%
iboss	2.2%
Menlo Secure	1.6%
Other	90.0%

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford

Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water

It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless

One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured

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Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

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.

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Olivier DALOY

Group Information Systems Security Director - CISO at Faurecia

Secures users wherever they are and enable us to inspect SSL traffic, but we encountered too many issues

The solution should have no impact but it does have a bit of impact on end-users. For example, we encountered some issues in the downloads that took longer than they did without using Menlo. That is clearly not transparent for users. We expected not to have any latency when downloading anything from the internet with Menlo compared to without Menlo. We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution. In other words, we hope to get the same level of protection, while reducing the number of visible bugs, issues, latencies, impacts on performance, et cetera, that we have today with Menlo. We already solved most of them, but we still have too many such instances of issues with Menlo, even though it is protecting us for sure. The weak point of the solution is that it has consumed far too much of my team's time, taking them away from operations and projects and design. It took far too much time to implement it and get rid of all of the live issues that we encountered when our users started using the solution. The good point is that I'm sure it is protecting us and it's probably protecting us more than any other solution, which is something I appreciate a lot as a CISO. But on the other hand, the number of issues reported by the users, and the amount of time that has been necessary for either my team or the infrastructure team to spend diagnosing, troubleshooting, and fixing the issues that we had with the solution was too much. And that doesn't include the need to still use our previous solution, Blue Coat, that we have kept active so that whatever is not compatible or doesn't work with Menlo, can be handled by that other solution. It is far too demanding in terms of effort and workload and even cost, at the end of the day. That is why we decided to transition to another solution. If we had known in the beginning that we would not be able to get rid of Blue Coat, we probably would not have chosen Menlo because we were planning to replace Blue Coat with something that was at least able to do the same and more. We discovered that it was able to do more but it was not able to replace it, which is an issue. It is not only a matter of cost but is also a matter of not being able to reduce the number of partners that you have to deal with. In addition, they could enhance the ability to troubleshoot. Whenever a connection going through Menlo fails for any reason, being able to troubleshoot what the configuration of Menlo should be to allow it through would help, as would knowing what level of additional risk we would be taking with that configuration.

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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

"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."

"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."

"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."

"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."

"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."

"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."

"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."

More iboss pros

"It is a scalable solution."

"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."

"Fortinet FortiGate provides combined features that other firewalls do not offer, offering a full package cost-effective manager with all integration supported."

"Its interface is the most valuable. It is quite easy to manage."

"Offers good security and filtering."

"The setup is easy."

"The most valuable feature is the deep inspection for traffic, which is capable of identifying zero-day attacks."

"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"This security technology addresses risk and enables people to conduct business without that risk, which is where the ROI is realized."

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."

"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."

"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."

"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."

Cons

"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."

"Its pricing could be better."

"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."

"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."

"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."

"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."

"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."

More iboss cons

"The things we require are already sorted out, so there isn't any scope for improvement as far as our requirements go. However, its price can be better."

"There should be some open-source training or free training for decision makers, or some webinars should be available. These would help understand the new product line and the existing product line features."

"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."

"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."

"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."

"They should make the product user-friendly and enhance the security features."

"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."

"Areas of improvement for Fortinet FortiGate include the need for more training and certification, especially when dealing with distributors globally, which presents challenges in product availability and delivery timelines."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."

"Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco."

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."

"I'll rate FortiGate's pricing a five out of ten since it is moderately priced."

"Setup cost may be not so low, as you expect, because it depends on different factors, but TCO for 5 years may pleasantly surprise you."

"There is a need to pay for a license for the product."

"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."

"Fortinet is the least expensive solution."

"I would say that all things considered, the pricing is pretty good."

"It's a year based license."

"I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten. Its one-year license cost is competitive with three and five-year licenses offered by other products."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."

"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."

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Comparison Review

it_user216600

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	350
Midsize Enterprise	130
Large Enterprise	187

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?

For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...

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What is your primary use case for iboss?

Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our ol...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?

Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern. There are cheaper alte...

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

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What needs improvement with Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto....

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What is your primary use case for Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

People are mainly using it for zero trust web access. Menlo Secure is built from the ground up to provide zero basic ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

Secure file sharing and data protection is not exactly what Menlo Secure is designed to do. While it can handle some ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

Appgate SDP vs iboss

Compared 3% of the time

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Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 9% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Cisco Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

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Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Menlo Secure

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Menlo Secure

Compared 17% of the time

Prisma Access Browser vs Menlo Secure

Compared 13% of the time

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Menlo Secure

Compared 12% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Menlo Secure

Compared 7% of the time

More Menlo Secure Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

September 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

September 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

September 2025

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Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

No data available

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

Overview

iboss offers a comprehensive security platform designed for diverse use cases such as web filtering, data loss protection, corporate proxy services, and URL filtering.

iboss integrates advanced features to address dynamic security needs, leveraging its strength in SASE, ZTNA, AI initiatives, and cloud integration, while ensuring seamless operations for remote work. It excels in historical forensics, malware protection, and flexible cloud deployments. Users benefit from comprehensive traffic scanning, robust malware detection, and PaaS capabilities that reduce hardware management. An intuitive admin console ensures efficient management with content filtering and low false positives. SSL decryption enhances security, while DLP protects data in AI conversations. Deployment is rapid and scalable, allowing effortless integration with emerging technologies.

What features does iboss offer?

Granular Web Filtering: Provides precise control over web content access.
Traffic Scanning: Monitors data through multiple ports for security breaches.
Malware Detection: Ensures superior protection against malware threats.
PaaS Capabilities: Eliminates need for hardware management.
SSL Decryption: Enhances data protection by decrypting secure connections.
DLP Capabilities: Safeguards data during AI interactions.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Scalability: Adapts quickly to growing demands and emerging tech integration.
Rapid Deployment: Reduces time to implement security measures.
User-Friendly Admin Console: Facilitates efficient operations management.
Low False Positives: Increases accuracy of threat detection systems.

iboss finds significant application in sectors such as education, where web filtering for K-12 is crucial, and in corporate environments requiring robust proxy services and URL filtering for network security. Its adaptability is essential in scenarios demanding flexible, decentralized security frameworks, particularly for remote work setups.

iboss

Fortinet FortiGate excels in providing integrated VPN, firewalling, and Unified Threat Management (UTM) with centralized management and high availability. It supports remote access and comprehensive threat protection, making it a preferred choice for securing networks.

Fortinet FortiGate offers a robust security platform with features such as strong intrusion prevention, application control, and web filtering. Its integration with Active Directory and SD-WAN functionality provides scalable solutions for large networks. Users appreciate its ease of use through centralized management interfaces, ensuring robust security with flexible configurations. However, FortiGate could enhance its graphical interface and technical support responsiveness, address firmware bugs and costly licensing, improve logging, integrate better with third-party tools, and strengthen scalability and memory for log storage. Complexity in configuration and the need for intuitive features are noted challenges, and there's a demand for advanced security, zero-trust capabilities, and AI integration.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN: Secure remote access and connectivity.
Firewalling: Protects networks from unauthorized access and attacks.
UTM: Offers a comprehensive approach to threat management.
SD-WAN: Optimizes traffic routing for efficient network performance.
Web Filtering: Controls and monitors web access and ensures Internet security.

What benefits or ROI should be considered?

Centralized Management: Simplifies administration and monitoring.
High Availability: Ensures consistent security and network availability.
Scalability: Adapts to the needs of growing networks.
Comprehensive Threat Protection: Provides robust security measures.
Ease of Use: Minimizes the complexity of security management.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries like education, finance, and government. Companies use it for firewall protection, VPN, and SD-WAN capabilities, ensuring secure perimeter and data center security. It facilitates remote access management and traffic routing optimization, offering reliable security and connectivity solutions.

Fortinet

Menlo Security Secure Application Access

Menlo Security Secure Application Access makes zero trust access easy, giving users secure connectivity to private applications, including web and legacy applications. At the core of Secure Application Access is the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser, which fetches, secures and delivers the content for users.

In addition to providing simple-to-deploy, clientless ZTA, Secure Application Access and the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser protect applications from attacks such as session hijacking, cookie manipulation, and other tactics that employ protocol manipulation.

Secure Application Access protects applications from Internet threats and provides granular controls for added protection of the application and associated data. These security controls include Read-only/Read-write, Upload/download, Copy/paste, AV scanning, Sandboxing, and Data Loss Prevention.

Last Mile Data Protection

Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection identifies and prevents sensitive data from leaving your company by meticulously inspecting all file uploads and user input across browsing sessions. Leveraging the Secure Cloud Browser, users are protected from the internet and you can protect your organization from data loss with comprehensive traffic monitoring and controls. This approach addresses the growing concerns surrounding data leakage in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT.

By identifying sensitive data through file types, regular expressions, or predefined libraries, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection empowers security teams to regulate data input into AI platforms and prevent unauthorized uploads. This capability provides crucial protection for intellectual property, PII, and other confidential information.

The solution leverages the Menlo Cloud Security Platform's visibility and control over traffic to reliably detect and prevent data leaks originating from both browser submission forms and non-browser traffic. With the ability to inspect encrypted web traffic, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection enforces DLP policies consistently across all users and devices, ensuring comprehensive data protection.

Menlo Security

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate vs. Menlo Secure

September 2025

Free Report: Fortinet FortiGate vs. Menlo Secure

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate vs. Menlo Secure and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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