Fortinet FortiManager vs IBM Tivoli NetCool comparison

Fortinet and IBM are both solutions in the Network Management Applications category. Fortinet is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.8, while IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.0. Fortinet holds a 4.6% mindshare in NMA, compared to IBM’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Fortinet FortiManager

Read 72 Fortinet FortiManager reviews

5,146 Views
978 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM Tivoli NetCool

Read 13 IBM Tivoli NetCool reviews

1,231 Views
997 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiManager

IBM Tivoli NetCool

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

IBM Tivoli NetCool and Fortinet FortiManager both aim to meet network management and security requirements, with FortiManager often favored for its superior security features and integration.

Features: IBM Tivoli NetCool provides excellent network event management, real-time monitoring, and performance analytics. Its event correlation and customization options aid in IT management. Fortinet FortiManager offers comprehensive security policy management, automation capabilities, and integrates seamlessly with Fortinet's security fabric, focusing on security and control.

Room for Improvement: IBM Tivoli NetCool could enhance its integration capabilities and ease of operation, while improvements in interface simplicity would benefit its users. Fortinet FortiManager may improve by offering more in-depth configuration options, enhancing user-friendly aspects, and expanding device compatibility further.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Tivoli NetCool provides a reliable deployment process backed by strong support, yet Fortinet FortiManager stands out with its streamlined deployment model and highly responsive customer service, facilitating quick implementation and ongoing assistance.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Tivoli NetCool involves significant setup costs but delivers high ROI via detailed analytics. Fortinet FortiManager also requires a substantial initial investment, however, its advanced security features provide a robust ROI, often perceived as more cost-effective in the long term.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiManager vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiManager vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 884,976 peers since 2012

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 FortiManager

Ranking in Network Management Applications

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Tivoli NetCool

Ranking in Network Management Applications

14th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiManager is 4.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool is 3.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiManager	4.6%
IBM Tivoli NetCool	3.0%
Other	92.4%

Network Management Applications

Featured Reviews

SudeepMaydeo

Global Head of IT Infrastructure at EPL Americas

Ensures seamless integration and centralized visibility for network security operations

The version upgrade from a single dashboard for all the firewalls in one click is the beauty of Fortinet FortiManager as the most impactful feature in managing our network security. Fortinet FortiManager's policy management enhances our security protocols by enabling us and giving integrated centralized visibility, which has proven to be very healthy. Because of this, we have identified some of the vulnerabilities in our systems, and we mitigated them through Fortinet FortiManager. The central dashboards and the visibility are what appealed to us to go with Fortinet FortiManager. Fortinet FortiManager has adapted to changes in our network scale and complexity as we have geographically 18 international locations, all equipped with firewalls and some cybersecurity initiatives and IT infrastructure initiatives.

Read full review

Petar Ganev

Senior Enterprise Monitoring Engineer at Commerzbank

Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed

There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict. And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly. Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FortiManager's most valuable features are web-based or web-rule-based policies, SD-WAN, and the ease of upgrading to new firmware."

"Fortinet has the option of synchronization in the cloud, so you can manage everything if you have a cloud account."

"Being able to push consistent firewall rules and configuration changes across multiple FortiGates saves a ton of time and reduces errors compared to managing each device individually."

"It makes management very easy."

"It's a very rich, robust product."

"The main benefit of Fortinet FortiManager is the ability to control all the devices from a central location, view their statuses, and manage their configurations and updates from a single management console."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

"It is a stable, reliable product."

More Fortinet FortiManager pros

"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."

"The feature I have found most valuable with NetCool is how it collaborates all the alarms, and then it does a predictive analysis, providing a consolidated alarm view and management."

"It's very easy to use."

"The scalability of monitoring, the breadth of supported network components, the scale of the number of monitoring events, and the flexibility in customization make this a well-rounded product."

"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."

"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."

"The tool is much easier to manage than running scripts and figuring out how many endpoints have been exceeded."

"The solution has very good integration capabilities."

More IBM Tivoli NetCool pros

Cons

"There is a degradation of performance if we activate logs on FortiManager."

"The solution could improve by having better integration with other solutions other than Fortinet."

"The scalability has room for improvement."

"Troubleshooting for Fortinet products is more difficult than competing products like Cisco and Palo Alto."

"The solution has to be enhanced to manage new switches."

"I would like to be able to manage other products such as Endpoint and FortiAnalyzer through FortiManager. That is, the integration with other solutions needs to be improved."

"The SD-WAN solution is difficult to manage on FortiManager because you need to share some configurations on the firewall side. Sometimes you lose all connectivity with the firewall, so it is challenging to apply the default configuration to the SD-WAN solution."

"The presence of Fortinet in our region (Nigeria) needs to be stronger."

More Fortinet FortiManager cons

"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release."

"The solution is too expensive."

"UI is outdated, very old legacy."

"It was a bit expensive to purchase but the benefits outweigh all the cons by far."

"Tivoli NetCool's has medium scalability - there are some problems with its replications not being mature."

"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release. IBM develops new features for Power BI or Cognos Analytics, which is good. As of now, we use Cognos Analytics, we are not using Power BI. They have the Insight concept but we don't like that."

"From a customer perspective, it is quite an expensive solution to initially implement and then support."

"The solution is not user-friendly."

More IBM Tivoli NetCool cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet FortiManager is a low-priced product."

"FortiManager isn't expensive, but its cost is dependent on which services are required."

"The licensing costs depend on how many devices you want to use."

"The price point is very good."

"Pricing could improve a little bit so I rate it a seven out of ten."

"For the licensing fee, we paid around 10,000 to 15,000 euros."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."

"The solution requires you to have a license for every device, as well as for any advanced features being used, which makes it costly for high-volume users. However, for a large-scale environment with a lot of customers we have found it to be a worthwhile investment."

More Fortinet FortiManager pricing and cost advice

"The price of the product is too expensive."

"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."

"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Management Applications solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	35
Midsize Enterprise	16
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiManager?

The most valuable feature is the centralized management console.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiManager?

I am satisfied with the licensing cost, and I would rate it an 8.5.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiManager?

I do not use Fortinet FortiManager daily, but I can speak with my security team and ask them what areas need future improvement for Fortinet FortiManager. When I installed it, I found it somewhat d...

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool?

The main challenge is its licensing model, which is very complicated.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool?

NetCool is the manager of managers in the stack. It basically combines the devices of the whole network. We are the mobile network operator, so we use it to assist us in cross-domain correlations a...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 48% of the time

Cisco DNA Center vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 8% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 6% of the time

AlgoSec vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 4% of the time

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Fortinet FortiManager

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiManager Competitors

OpenText Network Node Manager vs IBM Tivoli NetCool

Compared 16% of the time

DataMiner vs IBM Tivoli NetCool

Compared 15% of the time

HPE Intelligent Management Center vs IBM Tivoli NetCool

Compared 11% of the time

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager vs IBM Tivoli NetCool

Compared 9% of the time

DX Spectrum vs IBM Tivoli NetCool

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM Tivoli NetCool Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiManager

March 2026

Download Fortinet FortiManager product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Tivoli NetCool

March 2026

Download IBM Tivoli NetCool product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tivoli NetCool

Overview

Fortinet FortiManager offers centralized management for FortiGate devices, ensuring easy synchronization with cloud accounts, automation, and policy deployment, enhancing network security and performance.

Fortinet FortiManager provides comprehensive oversight and streamlined operations for FortiGate environments. It centralizes the administration of firewalls and other Fortinet devices, simplifying their configuration and deployment. Users benefit from its efficient automation and policy management capabilities, which reduce implementation times and enhance security protocols. FortiManager features seamless integration and robust monitoring within a single interface, offering visibility across network operations. While it requires improvements in documentation, platform integration, and licensing clarity, it remains an essential tool for large-scale network management.

What are the standout features?

Centralized Management: Simplifies administration of multiple devices from one console.
Automation: Speeds up policy deployment and reduces manual tasks.
Zero-Touch Provisioning: Facilitates easy device setup and deployment.
SD-WAN Management: Provides tools for managing wide area networks effectively.
Intuitive GUI: Offers a user-friendly management interface.

Why should users consider Fortinet FortiManager?

Ease of Use: Users appreciate the straightforward management processes.
Scalability: Adaptability to large-scale network demands.
Comprehensive Visibility: Detailed insights into network performance and security.
Reduced Implementation Time: Faster setup and configuration processes.

In the finance and healthcare industries, Fortinet FortiManager enhances security and compliance by streamlining policy management and deployment across multiple sites. Retail sectors benefit from its scalable network management, ensuring continuous and reliable connectivity across branches. Education institutions use it to manage complex security infrastructures, effectively handling multiple devices and networks to safeguard sensitive data.

Fortinet

IBM Tivoli Netcool delivers near real-time, consolidated event management across business infrastructure, data centers, complex networks and IT domains. The software provides full management and automation to help you deliver continuous uptime of business services and applications.

IBM

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiManager vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool

March 2026

Free Report: Fortinet FortiManager vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiManager vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Fortinet FortiManager vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool report.

See our list of best Network Management Applications vendors.

We monitor all Network Management Applications reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.