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Fortinet FortiSandbox vs MetaDefender comparison

 

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 FortiSandbox
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Threat Deception Platforms (4th)
MetaDefender
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
34th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (29th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (32nd), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiSandbox is 5.3%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MetaDefender is 1.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiSandbox5.3%
MetaDefender1.2%
Other93.5%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

AN
Security Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Advanced sandboxing has protected users from zero-day threats and has simplified secure file scanning
The smooth integrations between Fortinet FortiSandbox and other Fortinet solutions such as FortiWeb and FortiFirewall and with other Fortinet environments are what I really appreciate. We have minimum false positives during threat detection. Our clients have not given negative feedback from detection. As you know, it still needs some tuning after implementation. However, we never receive negative feedback for many false positives during implementation.
Eido Ben Noun - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Architect at Diffiesec
Multi‑engine detection has significantly improved secure file transfers and threat prevention
Some feedback indicated that it takes too much time to configure certain policies because there are many options. Some people appreciate this because you can configure anything, but I believe MetaDefender should have a wizard or general policies that can be used for 80 percent of customers. I use the expanded file type and archive coverage feature sometimes, especially for customers who try to scan large archives with the deep scan capabilities of OPSWAT and Deep CDR. This provides full protection because it scans every single file, but sometimes it takes too long. When discussing CAB files or archives for patching or server updates and BIOS updates and operating system updates, the scanning process takes too long, and it was difficult for customers who sometimes decided not to scan because the scanning time was excessive. I use the reporting and audit visibility features. Some capabilities are lacking in reporting because we do not have full statistics that are easy for users to understand. If something requires checking and then referring to documentation to understand it, that is too much for most users. When looking at one of the statistics, you can see how many files have been scanned and then you see a number out of 500 or a different number if you change it. It is not a number of files or scan processes; it is a number of files inside a file. When you scan a PowerPoint presentation file, for example, it counts as forty different files because of all the sub-files. I understand from customers that when they look at the visualization data or statistics, they do not understand what is happening there. Most customers I see do not use the file-based vulnerability assessment feature. It has some good results about vulnerabilities, but I am not certain if it is that helpful because many organizations, when they deploy a file and see that there are vulnerabilities, still deploy it because it is part of the code. It can produce results, but those results do not cause any action. Many products have something more advanced than vulnerabilities and static scoring. They have tools that can inform you about a vulnerability, whether the vulnerability is exploitable, if it is weaponized, and if someone can use this vulnerability in your environment. The file-based vulnerability feature works, but for most people, they do not take any action based on the results or block files because of file-based vulnerabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"he solution's GUI is good."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiSandbox are the analysis options, artificial intelligence, and the many interfaces it provides."
"The analysis engine is a very valuable feature."
"The solution extracts an attached file before reaching the user and notifies the user if there's something malicious in the attachment received along with an email."
"The GUI makes administration tasks straightforward."
"The scanner office document as well as PDF are useful. The most valuable thing is that you can emulate different operating systems without having the danger of getting something infected. It emulates several operating systems, and as a result, you either get the file or you don't get the file."
"It is an easily scalable solution."
"We have seen a measurable decrease in the mean time to detect or respond to threats, on the order of 20 percent."
"I like the simplicity, the way it works out of the box. It's pretty easy to run and configure. The integration of the network devices with the ICAP server was easily done."
"OPSWAT is the best alternative."
 

Cons

"Not practical for real-time web traffic analysis because users won't wait for the FortiSandbox to complete its analysis before accessing content"
"The use cases in Fortinet FortiSandbox are not good. It is difficult to upload a custom VM for Fortinet FortiSandbox. The integration of Fortinet FortiSandbox with other Fortinet or FortiGate firewalls is not good. VMs are already installed in the hardware and are working fine, but we tried to approve the custom VM many times but did not succeed."
"If we can have more dashboards, it would be good."
"Sometimes the technical engineer is very good and helpful, and sometimes we go through many processes until it gets escalated to a higher level or to another advanced technical engineer."
"For additional features, maybe a form of execution pain files in a non-virtual environment because it has threats that identify when it is being run in a virtual machine."
"The product is good but it could be speedier. In addition, it's quite complex."
"There could be more templates and a higher number of simulated VMs to configure more use cases. Sometimes we need to configure many use cases in many different environments, and if the number of VMs that we configure is limited, we have to remove some and reconfigure the environment if we need another environment."
"It should be easier to import custom virtual machines. Some of the VMs that are in FortiSandbox don't have the applications that we have in our environment. We need to import a VM with specific applications that we use in our environment. Have all the licenses because this is a real environment. You need a license for the Windows client you run on it. It's possible to import custom VMs, but it's a pain to do it. I would like a tool that simplifies the process."
"The documentation is not well written, and I often need to talk with support."
"Some capabilities are lacking in reporting because we do not have full statistics that are easy for users to understand."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license for Fortinet FortiSandbox depends on the use case."
"I rate the product's pricing a five or six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSandbox is not expensive."
"The solution is not expensive at all."
"The solution is unavailable at a lower cost and can be difficult to deploy."
"The price is competitive."
"There is a license to use this solution."
"We bought a three-year license, and that was pretty expensive. We agreed that it was really worth buying. It could be cheaper, but we understand that quality comes at a price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Healthcare Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise9
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSandbox?
The real-time analysis capability of FortiSandbox is beneficial for email analysis.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSandbox?
The cost is in the mid-range. It is not low and it is not high.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSandbox?
I think Fortinet FortiSandbox could introduce more automation tools and AI tools.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MetaDefender?
The pricing of MetaDefender is about hundreds of dollars. If I remember correctly, when someone attempted to buy from us one instance of OPSWAT, it was about nine thousand dollars for multi-scannin...
What needs improvement with MetaDefender?
Some feedback indicated that it takes too much time to configure certain policies because there are many options. Some people appreciate this because you can configure anything, but I believe MetaD...
What is your primary use case for MetaDefender?
I have used MetaDefender for one and a half years, deploying it in different environments and managing a team of professional services that deploy MetaDefender products in customer environments. I ...
 

Also Known As

FortiSandbox
OPSWAT MetaDefender, MetaDefender Core
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiSandbox vs. MetaDefender and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.