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Fortinet FortiOS vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
581
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Fortinet FortiOS
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (21st)
Zyxel Unified Security Gateway
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
MS
Associate Director IT Operations at Procento
Single-pane management has simplified firewall control and has improved risk mitigation
I would not say that Fortinet FortiOS is not very scalable. Generally, what happens is that for enterprises, we hire consultants who do the capacity planning and sizing to determine what kind of firewalls to put in place. At the same time, it is not only the number of users; it also depends on the number of WAN links coming in and everything, because we have been using Fortinet for bandwidth shaping and many other bandwidth-related functions. They should improve their machine learning AI capabilities of Fortinet FortiOS because there is too much competition. Other players are also improving and making a lot of changes in their UI and overall operating system.
reviewer2399337 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales and technical consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
User has benefited from stable performance and effective completion of security tasks
I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thinking about using a different solution based on open source because Zyxel Unified Security Gateway…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortinet FortiGate is among the best firewall solutions, having a significant market share in Egypt."
"It is a stable solution compared to other vendors."
"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."
"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are that it does the job effectively and protects our environment."
"Customers keep on improving their licenses. The solution remains scalable and flexible. On-premises deployments may have some limitations. However, cloud deployments offer a high degree of flexibility."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"Compared to other firewalls, the segmentation is much easier in FortiGate."
"The initial setup is easy. It's the easiest firewall installation process on the market. I work with three or four other products and this one is the easiest."
"The firewall options in FortiOS allow us to open up access to our vendors for EDI and all its features."
"The interface is good."
"I am satisfied with Fortinet FortiOS. It's a cool product and has a lot of UTM features. It has application control, web filtering, antivirus, IPS/IDS, DNS filtering, and many things in that firewall. It also has a web application firewall WAF feature. On the feature side, it's a good firewall."
"The pricing is excellent."
"The solution constantly adds features that are useful and user-friendly such as the ability to tweak firewalls through the CLI."
"FortiOS allows us to set up alarms for blocked websites and SSL verifications. When someone tries to access a blocked site, the solution sends a notification to the IT manager's mailbox."
"The solution can scale well."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
"The Zyxel Unified Security Gateway solution is stable and does its job effectively."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."
 

Cons

"The built-in logging and reporting is limited without FortiAnalyzer."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"The interface could be better."
"In my opinion, Fortinet FortiGate could be improved by making the appliance smaller than what we have here, as it is pretty big."
"The solution needs to improve its support."
"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."
"Their first-level support is often poorly trained."
"The solution is good, but they have poor marketing in Nigeria. They need to market their product better."
"The threat time interval lags a little, especially if there's a heavy load on the firewall."
"The technical support is good. However, during the holidays they can get a little slow to respond."
"They're using a lot of application-specific IC, so that may be causing some performance issues. And whenever a Fortinet adds new features, it can affect performance."
"For monitoring purposes, we don't have any option to monitor the ISP link."
"There is no flexibility."
"I would like to see more statistics in the monitoring part."
"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved."
"The product has some scalability and data management issues where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In my opinion, the pricing of the product is reasonable."
"The product pricing is reasonable."
"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."
"I rate FortiGate Next Generation Firewall a five out of ten for pricing."
"Pricing for this product is comparatively lower than other products. It's an affordable solution, but when expanding the number of users, they'll ask you to replace the model, so that's an added cost."
"I pay €1,200 per year for the license along with Fortinet's 81E firewall appliance. I would rate this pricing as 3/5 stars, and I believe the price is reasonably similar to its competitors in the market, being somewhere in the middle."
"Fortinet costs are 25% lower than the high-cost provider. There is an equipment cost and a recurring monthly cost for licenses and technical support."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"The pricing is competitive for the medium and high markets but for the small markets it can be expensive."
"We had a three-year license to use Fortinet FortiOS and we are going to renew it this year."
"It is not cheap; it is also not expensive. It is somewhere in the middle."
"A medium 100 or 200 Series box costs around $3000, and the software cost is around 55% of the hardware cost."
"The licensing for FortiOS is good, with a security license included when we update the main license."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiOS is good. However, central management is intuitive for the end-users. We had a lot of questions about central management, and sometimes they didn't use it and did their firewall management directly on FortiGate instead of using Fortinet FortiOS."
"The best solution in the category including the price in Thailand is Fortinet FortiOS."
"A yearly subscription might be around $20,000 to $30,000."
"The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market."
"This gateway is pretty cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Non Profit
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business357
Midsize Enterprise133
Large Enterprise189
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise23
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
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 ...
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiOS?
I rate the pricing for FortiOS as eight or nine out of ten. It is an affordable solution for us.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiOS?
I would not say that Fortinet FortiOS is not very scalable. Generally, what happens is that for enterprises, we hire ...
What do you like most about Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
I cannot definitively comment on whether Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is an affordable product as I haven't done co...
What needs improvement with Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden. I'm lo...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
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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
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
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Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiOS vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.