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Fortinet FortiManager vs IBM Tivoli NetCool comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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
6.8
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Tivoli NetCool
Ranking in Network Management Applications
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiManager is 4.4%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool is 3.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiManager4.4%
IBM Tivoli NetCool3.5%
Other92.1%
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

SudeepMaydeo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The setup is very simple."
"The functionality is good; it has good features and it works well for us, with multiple features in one box, which helps to avoid needing a lot of equipment and makes it unique."
"It is easy to deploy to licenses."
"My advice to anybody who is researching this product is that it is quite easy to use and the learning curve is not steep."
"The centralized management of policies and certificates, coupled with the capability to handle multi-site deployments effectively, provides streamlined operations."
"I pushed templates from FortiManager to our site, and they were deployed successfully."
"I appreciate the ability to connect via SSH through Fortinet FortiManager to the FortiGates I manage. This feature allows me to gather information about the interfaces without having to physically connect to the device. This is a convenient aspect that I find valuable."
"It's a very rich, robust product."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
"Full featured - event/fault management, performance management, topology map, discovery, RCA, event enrichment, Proviso will chart data from almost any source with a variety of aggregation options."
"The solution is a complete package; it has various useful elements including inventory management and incident management packaged inside it, and anything is possible with Tivoli since it is quite a robust system that offers a lot of useful integration capabilities."
"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."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
"The tool had many built-in automation capabilities."
"The solution is very fast, there's no lag or delay between the IBM solution and the other solutions like Huawei and Nokia."
 

Cons

"The price is a bit too high."
"The solution should be more open to other products."
"I didn't like the connectivity with FortiManager and FortiSwitch, which was buggy and annoying and had fewer features."
"Within the management of some features on FortiManager, specifically the management of user objects used for VPN service, FortiManager is quite weak."
"It requires a lot of resources. This is the main challenge."
"The GUI and the whole process of configuration should be improved."
"Pricing-wise, it could always be less, even though it is less expensive than Palo Alto."
"The product is not very stable."
"Customization and integration that you need to do to make the product fit your needs is very complex. It is not a product that somebody could easily pick up without any prior training or experience."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release."
"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."
"I think the UI should be updated and made more presentable and eye-catching. Compared to NCE in Huawei, NSN in Nokia, the UiPath and Ubiquiti, it feels very old legacy."
"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."
"UI is outdated, very old legacy."
"The product is pretty costly. It's definitely not the least expensive option."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For us, it is a little bit expensive."
"Compared to Check Point or Cisco, Fortinet FortiManager is more affordable but it is still on the higher end."
"Fortinet FortiManager is costly."
"FortiManager is a bit expensive - I would rate its pricing three out of ten."
"Fortinet FortiManager is a low-priced product."
"The pricing is based on a licensing model by feature."
"If you compare Fortinet and Palo Alto, Fortinet is cheaper, but if you compare Cisco and Fortinet, sometimes Cisco is cheaper because Cisco gives us more discounts because of the size. Cisco isn't cheap, but sometimes, we get a big discount from them."
"FortiManager is reasonably priced - I pay around US$40,0000 per year, which covers fifty locations."
"The price of the product is too expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiManager?
The most valuable feature is the centralized management console.
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.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiManager?
I would like to see functionality that simplifies my life. I understand that adding new devices should be simplified.
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...
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The main challenge is its licensing model, which is very complicated.
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Tivoli NetCool
 

Overview

 

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)
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiManager vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.