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Fortinet FortiGate vs Safe-T Secure Application Access comparison

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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 ZTNA
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
595
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (2nd), WAN Edge (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Safe-T Secure Application A...
Ranking in ZTNA
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (26th), Access Management (35th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the ZTNA category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 6.5%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Safe-T Secure Application Access is 2.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ZTNA Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate6.5%
Safe-T Secure Application Access2.0%
Other91.5%
ZTNA
 

Featured Reviews

VR
Practice Head at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Unified security has protected diverse environments and supports consistent policies everywhere
I would say 8 out of 10 regarding the stability of Fortinet FortiGate. It requires a lot of bug fixing and what I understand, Fortinet is fast enough to provide bug fixes and patches, but usually I suggest Fortinet should do thorough testing of their releases and software releases and once probably they can reduce the frequency of new releases but make it stable. That's what my recommendation is. As far as the core objective of Fortinet FortiGate is concerned, I think they are meeting the targets but I guess for rolling out new features and new updates, they are doing a bit of hurry just to cope with the market dynamics. But possibly, I understand that they are compromising on the quality of the software and stability. So over there they have to improve. Rest of the aspects, I guess they are doing pretty good. We are happy. Regarding my experience with Fortinet FortiGate in comparison to maybe some other vendors such as CyberArk, Fortinet is in the top three and they give a lot of competition to their nearest peers in the market. But I guess Fortinet is really struggling in software-defined LAN, Wi-Fi, and FortiSwitches space. So they have to make their products more affordable in Forti-switching and Forti-WiFi space. They are not able to compete effectively with the nearest competitor HP Enterprise and HP Aruba.
it_user787671 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer
Needs to be easier to configure and to display logs more simply
We use only it for scanning files for viruses. That's the only feature we use in this product It needs to be easier to configure, it should be something that's working well with other sources. It should be something that allows me to see the logs simply. One to three years. Sometimes it doesn't…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a good product. It does what we want it to do so. I didn't find many false-positives or things like that. We mainly use the IPS and URL filtering features, and they are pretty good."
"Valuable features include the performance, stability, and virtual domain ability as well as the management that it provides."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"Fortinet FortiGate has positively impacted my client's organization because we have know-how of FortiGate; we could debug problems, we could set up our settings as planned, and I appreciate the easy way of configuration, that we can use parallel GUI and CLI, or CLI and web interface, which we can use in parallel."
"The main benefit I have seen from using Fortinet FortiGate is the protection it offers because I can see threats that come through in real-time, and if they are blocked, I can see that."
"If companies are thinking about the security of their network, they should consider FortiGate as a gate to the internet."
"I like the common administration and the possibility of adding Fortinet defense systems."
"Fortinet FortiGate is one of the most solid and secure firewalls as long as you keep it up to date. The price is right; it's not very expensive."
"If you want a very flexible system that you can easily integrate, and develop interfaces for it or plug-ins to other application environments, it's probably the most flexible"
"You can easily integrate it and fit the system to your organization's needs, and that's a very huge advantage."
"Safe-T is very good for users because it has a plug-in for Outlook."
"From a technical point of view, products are stable and scalable, and we do appreciate the personal touch the sales engineers (SE) support and development bring, as well as the personal touch of the sales support, the free online, and web-based training."
"the security level is very high. After we tested it and checked all the security aspects of the product, we found that it's highly secure."
"This product allows us to actually send it straight from our email to the other person's email in a safe way, where we can meet all our regulations and still keep the data in our control."
"Safe-T SDA has allowed my organization to secure my office applications and makes it harder for hackers to be able to hack into my internal office web applications."
"At the end of the day it's really good and really improved."
 

Cons

"The customization could be improved. Cisco, for example, is much better at this. They need to work to be at least as good as they are."
"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"Its load balancing feature could be easy to configure."
"The product’s price is high."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"The platform's compatibility with Wi-Fi equipment needs improvement."
"The area that Fortinet may improve is customer support. When you have an incident, situation, or open a case, the support is not as good as Cisco or other platforms I have tested."
"Setting up Safe-T SDE is very complex. It is not straightforward, and it requires much understanding on the concepts of the product."
"I'm not sure what advice I would give others about this product because I don't like Safe-T."
"In terms of improvement, they need to be much more strict regarding the roadmap, about timelines and when new features will be up in production."
"The Outlook agent is not working well for installing it in the entire office."
"Better UI. A better UI for the people that manage all the processes of Safe-T. Some of the UI is not as intuitive as you would like it to be."
"One important thing that we haven't found in this product is the ability to provide a read-only view for documents. Also, the ability for the customer to add annotations to these documents."
"When we have something that we want improved, it takes a little bit of time until it can be fixed."
"The cloud solution is not that great especially with Swiss customers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing costs are very low."
"I rate FortiGate's pricing a five out of ten."
"It is more affordable than Check Point and Palo Alto. Another thing is that all the features and the OS remain the same irrespective of the size of the device. Pricing-wise, Fortinet typically provides one-year support with the firewall appliance. There is also an option for three years which is how their licensing works."
"The price of FortiGate is reasonable as I plan to buy new switches. The initial gadgets are already booted, and the pricing seems normal on the market. As for additional costs, I haven't subscribed to many extra features, so I'm only using what I need. 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."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is the lowest in the market."
"Fortinet is competitive price-wise."
"The price is fine."
"Here in Brazil, we're going through difficult economic times and the tax on the dollar is high. All the solutions from minor competitors are growing in the market. The prices have come more competitive."
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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
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Transportation Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business373
Midsize Enterprise139
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...
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Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
Safe-T SDA, Safe-T, Safe-T Software-Defined Access
 

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
Government of Israel, eviCore Healthcore, Glen Imaging, Sarin, LBG, Rollomatic, Boegli-Gravures SA, Banque Heritage, Groupe Minoteries, Temenos, ZEK, RLM Finsbury, Harel Insurance, Meitav Dash
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate vs. Safe-T Secure Application Access and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.