FortiSASE vs Fortinet FortiProxy comparison

The compared Fortinet FortiProxy and FortiSASE solutions aren't in the same category. Fortinet FortiProxy is ranked #11 in WSG , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 5.8% mindshare in the category. FortiSASE is ranked #9 in SASE , with an average rating of 7.5, and holds a 7.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fortinet FortiProxy users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of FortiSASE users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiProxy and FortiSASE based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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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

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

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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Adnan Kallas

Sr. Network & Security Engineer at Data Consult

Superior threat protection with robust IPS and antivirus capabilities

The main use case is to protect internal enterprise users in an enterprise network. Users from different departments such as finance, IT, and sales who want to access the internet, search social media, or visit websites are protected from potential threats when using Fortinet FortiProxy. It allows…

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Peter VanDorp

Cyber Security Analyst and Network Operations Supervisor at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Improved our operational efficiency because we manage one system now that manages all the sub-pieces to it

Deep packet inspection is easier to deploy in the FortiSASE environment. It's much simpler to configure one-touch deployment. It was considerably more convoluted to get that to work using FortiClient. All that processing horsepower is happening in Fortinet's cloud infrastructure, reducing the load on our local routers and on-prem FortiGate firewalls. There wasn't much of a learning curve because we are already a Fortinet organization. We still use all the same pieces, but the interface is slightly different. Still, I don't think the average user would have difficulty picking the solution up. They've got some excellent documentation and support to help you through any questions you may have. FortiSASE lets us manage everything from one web interface. That's the most significant benefit. We also use FortiManager, but it could only do so much when we only used on-prem systems. We still need to touch the EMS server and a few other interfaces to make all the pieces work. FortiSASE puts everything in one place. If something doesn't work, you've got support there to help you out. Previously, we had local support, but it's more complicated because you needed to explain your environment. The SASE environment is under their control, so they know what it looks like and what they're dealing with.

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

"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."

"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."

"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."

"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."

"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."

"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."

"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."

More iboss pros

"It helps to secure the networks at the DNA level and ensure proper identification and filtering of DNS traffic."

"I liked the tool's ability to provide detailed access control. For example, we could allow users to watch YouTube videos but not post comments. This level of control wasn't available in FortiGate."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its granular access control. For example, users can browse the main site if you allow access to Amazon, but it stops them from visiting secondary Amazon websites without specific permission. This granular control is really helpful."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiProxy are its simplicity and performance."

"We can use Fortinet FortiProxy configuration for your network."

"The most valuable feature is intrusion prevention (IPS) and antivirus profiles. These features help control user activity, ensuring that they access only permitted websites and protects from downloading viruses."

"It is a really stable solution."

"It seamlessly integrates with various security products, enhancing threat intelligence and improving indicators of compromise."

More Fortinet FortiProxy pros

"The technical support from Fortinet is highly commendable, and I rate it as nine out of ten."

"Overall, I'd rate the product eight out of ten."

"It's very stable."

"This advantage is having the ability to create an SPA unit of FortiGate."

"It is easy to integrate with Fortinet."

"It has AI-based detections for any signature-less virus or any unknown vulnerabilities."

"The product can scale."

"We utilize the web filtering part of FortiCASB for our network security."

More FortiSASE pros

Cons

"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."

"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."

"Its pricing could be better."

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

"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."

More iboss cons

"I see that the solution's interface is not in French...It would be good for our company if we could have the tool interface in French."

"Fortinet FortiProxy should improve by adding more documentation and guides."

"Fortinet FortiProxy should integrate AI/ML technologies. Its pricing needs to be more flexible."

"Its power supply process for some of the proxies needs improvement."

"Integration with existing infrastructure was generally easy, especially if you had tools like LDAP. However, I had to go through a lot of documentation as it was my first time working with a proxy server. We did experience some issues with certain web applications not working properly after implementing Fortinet FortiProxy."

"Its web filtering capabilities could be improved."

"For IT administrators and managers, the reporting features are the main issues that should be addressed in order to improve the performance, security, and effective utilization of the product."

"They are trying to improve the features of FortiSASE, however, many FortiSASE gates still cannot connect. While connectivity from outside to inside is okay, inside to outside is not."

"While stability is generally good, we faced some difficulties during updates."

"They need to have more concise or precise ways to come up with the return on investment for convincing or presenting this to customers."

"FortiSASE is a work in progress. One area where there is room for improvement is the ability to use FortiSASE on an endpoint that doesn't have the client on it. Other solutions do that by building a VPN tunnel from their on-prem router into the SASE environment. FortiSASE doesn't have that feature yet, but it is on the roadmap for Q3 of this year. I've seen it in their development environment."

"FortiSASE is an expensive product and the cost is indeed high."

"The GUI and connectivity, along with the support offered, are some of the areas of concern in the product where improvements are required."

"While connectivity from outside to inside is okay, inside to outside is not."

"Improvements should focus on security."

More FortiSASE cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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 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."

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

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

"The solution is neither too expensive nor very cheap."

"It can be considered expensive, with a limited lifespan and support that eventually requires updating to newer solutions."

"Price-wise, Fortinet FortiProxy is moderate - not the highest among competitors, but not cheap either."

"It offers a more cost-effective solution than alternatives like FortiMail, FortiGate, and various Barracuda devices."

"The tool's pricing is in the middle."

"It is a cost-effective solution."

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

"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price."

"I can only speak about the pricing for education users because we get discounts. Other users aren't going to get the same price, but FortiSASE is competitive with the other products out there. All the solutions came in at the same price, so it just came down to the product that works best for us."

"I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

21%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?

Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.

See all answers

What needs improvement with iboss?

I have the same complaint about them that I have about other software companies. Sometimes when you call in support, ...

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What is your primary use case for iboss?

We are a PreK-12 public school district, and we use iboss to filter internet content for our students at home and sta...

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What do you like most about Fortinet FortiProxy?

The tool's most valuable feature is traffic inspections.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiProxy?

One issue is the limitation in using Fortinet FortiProxy for remote users, as it requires users to be members of the ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Fortinet FortiProxy?

Before implementing Fortinet FortiProxy, study your enterprise architecture and know your needs. Consider using the h...

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What do you like most about FortiSASE ?

The integration with the company's existing security infrastructure enhanced our security posture since it was a stra...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiSASE ?

The pricing for FortiCASB is competitive and not expensive. I rate the price as eight out of ten. There may be additi...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FortiSASE ?

Improvements should focus on security. Although FortiCASB performs well in many areas, I believe its security aspects...

See all answers

Comparisons

Zscaler Internet Access vs iboss

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 15% of the time

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 13% of the time

Cloudflare One vs iboss

Compared 11% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 9% of the time

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Fortinet FortiGate SWG vs Fortinet FortiProxy

Compared 55% of the time

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Fortinet FortiProxy

Compared 8% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Fortinet FortiProxy

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Fortinet FortiProxy

Compared 6% of the time

Skyhigh Security vs Fortinet FortiProxy

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiProxy Competitors

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs FortiSASE

Compared 23% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs FortiSASE

Compared 20% of the time

Netskope vs FortiSASE

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs FortiSASE

Compared 11% of the time

Axis Security vs FortiSASE

Compared 1% of the time

More FortiSASE Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiProxy

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

FortiSASE

March 2025

Download FortiSASE product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

FortiProxy

No data available

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 FortiProxy is a secure web gateway that provides advanced web filtering, malware protection, and SSL inspection capabilities. It is designed to protect organizations from web-based threats and prevent data loss by enforcing granular policies for web access. FortiProxy is available as a physical or virtual appliance and can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud. FortiProxy uses a combination of signature-based and behavior-based detection techniques to identify and block known and unknown threats. It also includes advanced features such as sandboxing and machine learning to detect and prevent zero-day attacks. FortiProxy can inspect SSL traffic to detect and block threats hidden in encrypted traffic. FortiProxy provides granular control over web access by allowing administrators to create policies based on user identity, device type, time of day, and other factors. It also includes pre-defined categories for web filtering, such as social media, gambling, and adult content. FortiProxy can also enforce compliance with regulatory requirements such as GDPR and HIPAA. FortiProxy integrates with Fortinet's Security Fabric, allowing it to share threat intelligence with other Fortinet products and provide a coordinated response to threats. It also includes a web-based management console that provides real-time visibility into web traffic and allows administrators to quickly respond to security incidents.

Fortinet FortiProxy is a comprehensive web security solution that provides advanced protection against web-based threats and allows organizations to enforce granular policies for web access.

Fortinet

FortiSASE is a comprehensive security solution that combines SD-WAN, security, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) capabilities in a single platform. It provides secure access to applications and data from any device, anywhere, and at any time. FortiSASE offers advanced threat protection, real-time visibility, and control over network traffic, ensuring that organizations can securely connect their users and devices to the cloud and on-premises resources. With FortiSASE, organizations can simplify their security infrastructure, reduce costs, and improve their overall security posture.

FortiSASE Benefits:

Easy to use and set up
Good value for the price
Provides accurate and reliable results
Compact and portable design
Comes with helpful instructions and customer support

FortiSASE combines the following key elements:

Networking: FortiSASE provides networking capabilities, including SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network), WAN optimization, and network traffic routing. It allows organizations to optimize and secure their network connectivity.
Security: FortiSASE integrates multiple security services, including next-generation firewall (NGFW), secure web gateway (SWG), secure web application firewall (WAF), and zero-trust network access (ZTNA). It offers comprehensive protection against various threats, such as malware, intrusions, and data breaches.
Cloud Security: FortiSASE includes cloud-native security services to protect cloud-based applications and workloads. It offers secure access to cloud services, cloud-based firewalls, and security for multi-cloud environments.
Zero Trust Security: FortiSASE follows the Zero Trust security model, where all users and devices are treated as untrusted and must undergo strict authentication and authorization before accessing resources. It enforces granular access controls and micro-segmentation to limit lateral movement within the network.
Secure Web Access: FortiSASE includes secure web access capabilities, enabling organizations to enforce web filtering policies, block malicious websites, and protect against web-based threats like phishing and malware.
Visibility and Analytics: FortiSASE provides centralized visibility and analytics to monitor network traffic, security events, and user behavior. It helps organizations detect and respond to security incidents and provides insights for ongoing security improvements.

FortiSASE aims to simplify and streamline security operations by integrating multiple security functions and network services into a single platform. This approach allows organizations to reduce complexity, improve efficiency, and enhance overall security posture.

Reviews from Real Users

Peter VanDorp, Cyber Security Analyst and Network Operations Supervisor at a non-tech company, says that "Deep packet inspection is easier to deploy in the FortiSASE environment. It's much simpler to configure one-touch deployment. It was considerably more convoluted to get that to work using FortiClient. All that processing horsepower is happening in Fortinet's cloud infrastructure, reducing the load on our local routers and on-prem FortiGate firewalls."

Jose-Rivera, Account Manager at Telefónica, that FortiSASE is "Reliable with good security and helps with network optimization".

Fortinet

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.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

March 2025

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