Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

The majority of use cases have been around UTM. Initially, they were famous for their UTM solution because nobody was offering what Fortinet was offering. 

We most probably use the latest version.

Fortinet has a very strong OS. They have a single OS through which they integrate all the networks and security operations. Our experience has been very good. Fortinet gives us a single fabric for the security and network teams. This unification has helped us a lot in providing Secure SD-WAN and other solutions, such as network switches, wireless controllers, FortiNAC, FortiAuthenticator, etc. They have a single pane of glass for all these from the monitoring and visibility aspect.

The integrated application protection provided by Secure SD-WAN is very good. Fortinet is a security-focused company. The features related to application recognition and how to enhance the performance and security of applications are pretty good.

The customers for whom we deployed FortiGate have become long-term customers of Fortinet. Even when they compare the solution with some of the other vendors, they're more comfortable with going with Fortinet and upgrading and refreshing the hardware and the software. It's a very good product, and the customer satisfaction is pretty good.

It impacts operational efficiency because we can quickly make the changes. For example, Cisco has some limitations in terms of the time it takes for any change to take effect, which impacts the operational efficiency, whereas in the case of Fortinet, they've got a very quick way of doing the changes and reverting them, which eliminates any downtimes because of the configurations. Their method for configuring and applying policies is very simple and easy. Because of that, it's very easy to do complex changes, and in the case of misconfiguration, revert those changes without much of an impact. Overall, Fortinet FortiGate brings a lot of operational improvements because of the strength of FortiOS.

Secure SD-WAN has helped us remediate threats more quickly. Normally, with the WAN solutions or the simple SD-WAN solutions, security is done on the hub side. With the Secure SD-WAN solution, we can apply security at the branch level, so unnecessary or malicious traffic doesn't reach the data centers or the hub site, which helps in improving the overall security posture. Also, we can tighten and apply a single security policy across all the branches or different segments of the WAN, which improves overall security. Fortinet offers different security measures for blocking malicious traffic and having a uniform policy across the entire organization. 

Secure SD-WAN has helped reduce our mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to resolve (MTTR). Applying a central security policy at the branch level immediately helps us to detect any malicious traffic and block it there, so the chances of anything reaching the hub or the data center side are less. It improves MTTD and MTTR because it has a very good interface where we can easily respond to all the attacks and manipulate things. Applying security with the help of Secure SD-WAN helps to mitigate attacks from where they are originating, which improves MTTD and MTTR.

Secure SD-WAN has helped reduce help desk tickets. Because of the operational efficiency and security, there are not many issues that impact the number of tickets.

With the help of Secure SD-WAN, we can provide operational efficiency because we can apply policies on an application-level basis. With Secure SD-WAN, we can apply a security policy per application. The central security application structure helps to apply all the measures from one central place and from the cloud. Because it's connected to many intelligence centers, it future-proofs a business and improves it overall. 

Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility.

From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They provide FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement. Recently, a customer had a requirement of getting some reports on their internet usage. Palo Alto has a bit better reporting than the Cisco and Fortinet firewalls, but we cannot get granular details about the user-level security, usage, etc.

Their support also needs improvement.

I've been working with this solution for around ten years.

It's very stable.

For small and mid-level enterprises, it has been a very good solution, and that's why they captured that market. Our experience with it has been very good. It's easy to configure and deploy. In our country, their main market is small and big enterprises, but they are gradually focusing on the performance aspect. It's being used in large enterprises as well as a firewall solution.

It's scalable. There were some performance issues a few years ago, but they've fixed them for better performance, optimization, and high throughput. Performance-wise, it's very good.

Support is one of the areas that they need to look into because as compared to some of the other companies, Fortinet's support is not that responsive. The product is very stable, but their support needs to be improved. I'd rate their support a six out of ten.

We used Cisco and Juniper. We switched to FortiGate because it offers a lot of features at a very good price point. Unlike some of the other vendors, you don't have many license restrictions. For large and medium enterprises, they provide a wireless controller, authenticator, and mail features. There are so many features integrated within FortiOS, whereas, with many vendors, you have to work with different products. It's very helpful for small organizations with tighter budgets. There's also the ease of configuration that helps to bring things online as quickly as possible as compared to some of the other solutions that have a learning curve and that take some time.

I mostly work on the pre-sales side. I discuss all the features, and then I work with the deployment team. They do the installation.

Its installation is easy. Normally, we get the scope and have the high-level design. After that, we go to the low-level design where we manage all the configuration templates. We have discussions with the customer and finalize all the policies that need to be applied at the site. We segment sites by size, traffic, application usage, etc. We apply the policies on a group basis, and then we apply the configurations on the controllers or the sites.

In our area, people are mostly interested in on-prem setup instead of cloud because not many controllers are located within the country, so the traffic has to be traversed outside the country. For banks and financial sectors, on-prem is more suitable, but small organizations can have it on the cloud.

We implement it ourselves. For small projects, one or two people are good enough because we majorly find all the things at the LLD stage. We have a team that works on the LLD and configurations, and then we've got an on-field team that takes those configurations and applies the changes. Normally, if the implementation isn't distributed across the country, not many resources are required. Two or three resources are good enough, but if it's distributed across different regions, then a larger team is required. Once we have the templates, things are posted automatically, so not much to be done at the sites. We just have to do connectivity and configure the policies. As compared to other deployments, we require much less staff for the deployment tasks.

It requires maintenance, but generally, the product is very stable and doesn't require much maintenance. Normally, there aren't many changes. If there are any issues, we definitely need to monitor and check. Most of the issues aren't related to the solution itself if you have implemented it in the right manner, so planning needs to be done in the right manner.

There's definitely an ROI. Having a centralized way of managing and applying policies across the entire organization always helps. The time to manage, operate, and resolve issues is much lower. When you have a central place to manage and do the changes, you get efficiency and time savings.

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.

It's a very good product. It has all the features required for operations. We strongly recommend using Fortinet for your edge or data center security or for your SD-WAN. FortiGate is doing very well. Fortinet has been capturing the security market, and now they're capturing the market for SD-WAN as well. They're a leader in Gartner's Quadrant. Their FortiMail and FortiWeb solutions are also very good. They provide all these solutions, and we have deployed all these solutions in the market. They're working perfectly, and customers have minor complaints about them.

Currently, no SD-WAN solution is interoperable with other vendors. Every SD-WAN vendor has its own solution. There's no standardization, so there isn't much interoperability. For example, we need a controller and branch-level software or hardware. Hardware is agnostic for some vendors, but normally, vendors also have their hardware. There are a few vendors that provide hardware-agnostic SD-WAN solutions, but Fortinet has its own hardware on which the complete SD-WAN solution runs.

Overall, I'd rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

I use it for a VPN. I use it as a gateway between locations. That's what I use it for.

They're Point-to-Point Networks, Metro Ethernet Networks, and over across the internet. We set it up with an AD VPN tunnel in between the various connections.

We use it for interconnectivity between the various sites to provide VPN tunnels. In contrast, service providers, even on Metro Ethernet and Point-to-Point Networks, cannot provide a secure connection between two points.

We've actually replaced 30 or more Cisco routers that were doing these VPN connections, and we replaced them with the FortiGates in order to provide Point-to-Point connectivity. It increased throughput on the various links, and it increased security.

Their VPN connection, their routing capabilities, their layer three throughput, and their firewall management capabilities that limit access from one VLAN to another are all the most valuable aspects for us. 

The solution is stable.

It can expand easily.

Support is helpful.

The product is significantly cheaper than, for example, Cisco. 

The user productivity has been good as they can, for example, transfer files easier. There is no slowdown. 

In their IPS Web Security Gateway, the reporting functions need to be a little bit more user-friendly for how to get the reports from it. That's one of the reasons why we don't use that function.

With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic.

I've been using the solution for two years. 

The stability is very good. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

We've been able to scale pretty well. It's not a problem of you need to expand. 

End users will be passing through it. Most of the accounting passes through it to various other locations. We have about 1,500 people on the product, technically.

We do have plans to increase usage. We have not completed the entire County yet. We've done 80% and still need to action the last 20%.

Technical support is very helpful. 

Positive

We used to use Cisco. We switched to FortiGate due to its throughput, ease of use, and cost.

Our needs are a little bit more complex than others. That said, overall, I would say it's about average in terms of the ease of setup. We got to do a VPN tunnel across, and it was AD VPN, it was something brand new. 

When I set things up now, it's pretty straightforward. When I first started, it was different as I'd never seen the technology before. When I first started, I'd never seen this technology, I didn't have a clue. Others may be in the same boat. 

Now that we're familiar with technology, this is very easy to set up. We've deployed 30 of them. I've got junior engineers that can follow my instructions and set up the FortiGate, and we're up and running. It gets easier over time. We've been doing this over the last two years.

We have up to two people needed for deployment and maintenance tasks. 

The deployment is completely done in-house. We didn't have any outside assistance. 

We did use Fortinet's tech support when we came into some problems. However, we didn't use any extra vendor.

Licensing is renewed every three to five years. They are less expensive e than Cisco. It has reduced the overall cost of maintaining a Cisco environment.

It's a package deal. There are no extra costs. 

We did not look into other solutions. 

I'd advise potential users to just implement the right size for you and what your needs are.

I'd rate the product nine out of ten. 

We are just a customer and end-user.

I am working with Fortinet FortiGate and FortiMail.

I assess Fortinet FortiGate firewall as a one-stop shop that helps me secure and protect mission-critical data. Fortinet FortiGate also has products for protecting the edge. Everything can be managed through one dashboard, so I cannot quantify the time saved. Fortinet FortiGate has helped me remediate threats more quickly.

At the moment, I cannot think of any areas where Fortinet FortiGate could be improved. In future updates, I would like to see more RAM and lower prices.

I have probably been using Fortinet FortiGate for eight years.

I would rate support from Fortinet as a nine.

I did previously use other software before Fortinet FortiGate. I was using Cisco and Sophos.

The installation of Fortinet FortiGate was very easy.

In the scenarios coming from Cisco, Fortinet FortiGate has helped reduce my total cost of ownership. In the scenarios coming from Sophos, it has not.

I would say I am average in my satisfaction with the licensing cost for Fortinet FortiGate. I am satisfied with the price-to-performance ratio that I get from using Fortinet FortiGate firewall.

I switched from Cisco and Sophos to Fortinet FortiGate because it is easier to manage.

I have been using the Fortinet FortiGate firewall for a significant time and I am very happy with it. I have seen a lot of time saved for my company from using Fortinet FortiGate. Fortinet FortiGate has helped me reduce Mean Time To Respond, or MTTR. Fortinet FortiGate helped my organization consolidate all of the tools in one application. This product does not require any maintenance from my side. I would recommend Fortinet FortiGate to other organizations because it is a one-stop shop for all security features in Fortinet, and I can manage everything on the same dashboard. The vendor can contact me in case they have questions regarding my review. I wish to be anonymous at the moment.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate in general as a nine.

The main work for Fortinet FortiGate is the SD WAN solution. They have a good SD WAN solution with the FortiAnalyzer and FortiManager. The company has more than one site, forty-five sites, so we need to connect it altogether.

The main feature in Fortinet FortiGate is the SD WAN functionality. Based on my experience, it was very easy to integrate Fortinet FortiGate with SD WAN. The benefits Fortinet FortiGate provides include easy connectivity, user-friendliness, scalability, and easy configuration management.

I believe Fortinet can make Fortinet FortiGate better with reduced costs, free certification, and improved security.

My experience with Fortinet FortiGate is approximately five to six months.

I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate as eight because there are other solutions that are more secure and more capable.

When talking about scalability for Fortinet FortiGate, I would rate it as nine or higher.

We have not needed technical support from Fortinet until now.

We moved to another vendor. We first moved to Cisco firewall, and then about six months ago, we moved to Fortinet FortiGate.

The initial setup for Fortinet FortiGate was simple. We worked with another vendor, and it was easy to configure and migrate with our current infrastructure.

We implemented through a vendor, through a third party.

There is a feature inside Fortinet FortiGate for AI and ML.

The Sophos XG was only for one branch. We mainly have a HQ Cisco Firepower FMC. I believe Fortinet FortiGate is easier.

There is a feature inside Fortinet FortiGate for AI and ML.

It is acceptable for my feedback about Fortinet FortiGate on PeerSpot to be with my personal name as a personal opinion without contact details or company name.

I am interested in being a reference for the vendor for Fortinet FortiGate, and it would be fine if the vendor contacts me with questions about my review.

In the future, I might have colleagues who can provide reviews about Fortinet FortiGate.

We plan to work with Fortinet Unified Sassy. I can recommend Fortinet FortiGate to other users.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten overall.

The main use case for Fortinet FortiGate is to monitor different systems of our customers. The solution handles the security of the company, manages VPNs, handles inside security, and integrates with NAC solutions while integrating every security device inside the company to ensure data protection. We are utilizing Fortinet FortiGate's SD-WAN capabilities. The network performance is handled effectively by the Fortinet FortiGate solution, and depending on the capacity of the solution, it can manage all traffic inside the company.

The main benefits of Fortinet FortiGate are security and the ability to manage all information throughout the company. This includes managing all data inside the company to prevent intrusions from outside.

There is always room for improvement. They could enhance their support in different ways, such as having technical support available during night hours.

I have used the Fortinet FortiGate solution for about seven to eight years.

Fortinet FortiGate is very stable. We have experienced no problems with the hardware, updated software, or management of the solution, with stability over 99%, making it a very good solution for us.

The solution is scalable.

The Fortinet FortiGate service is very good in Chile, making it difficult to improve upon.

Positive

We use both Fortinet solutions and Cisco solutions, depending on customer needs. The primary difference between Fortinet FortiGate and Cisco's firewall is pricing, with Cisco being more expensive.

It is a medium-sized deployment.

The pricing is competitive at this moment, and customers recognize that Fortinet solutions offer good pricing while providing a very good product. The stability is excellent for customers, and the capacity to integrate different solutions of the same brand is also very good.

They use other products to integrate information with different brands, including the NAC solution, which can be used for every brand in the market since it's based on the SNMP protocol.

We are not currently using the Fortinet FortiGate's data center solution. We are not using any AI or machine learning enhanced services at this moment as it's very new in Chile. Overall, I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.

We use Fortinet FortiGate as a border firewall and in the middle network for segmentation. It is used for inspecting security traffic from users.

The best feature of Fortinet FortiGate is value for money. It is very easy to deploy and scale.

It saves us costs and increases bandwidth throughput.

We have never encountered any issues with it. The price and deployment part of Fortinet FortiGate is good, but it can always be better.

I have been working with Fortinet solutions for about five years. We work with Fortinet FortiGate next-generation firewall, FortiAnalyzer, FortiManager, and sometimes FortiSwitch. We work with Fortinet FortiGate's hardware and virtual appliance solution.

Fortinet FortiGate is stable since we use HA availability solutions.

Fortinet FortiGate is scalable.

I would rate technical support from Fortinet a ten out of ten, the best.

Positive

We used Cisco Firepower and Juniper SRX, and a little bit of Check Point too. We switched to Fortinet FortiGate because of the best pricing.

Fortinet FortiGate has an easy setup.

We bought it from Azure Marketplace, not AWS.

We used an integrator for the deployment.

Its price is good.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.

I use FortiAnalyzer for reporting. It provides log management solutions for my enterprise, which is in the manufacturing sector.

FortiAnalyzer's capability to provide detailed reporting based on various criteria is highly valuable. It allows for better log management in my enterprise. The IPS functionality and the reporting capabilities of FortiAnalyzer also help in maintaining efficient operations.

I have around three years of experience with Fortinet solutions.

The solution has been very stable.

I must select the right size firewall to match my traffic flow rate. It is important to pick a large enough firewall to meet the site's specific needs. Like any hardware, it has finite scalability restrictions.

I have been satisfied with FortiGate support. Even though I work through a managed provider, I believe FortiGate provides good support.

Positive

At my last company, I switched from Cisco to FortiGate due to performance and functionality.

My service provider manages the setup, so I do not have direct experience with the initial setup.

My implementation is managed by a third-party provider, and I do not handle equipment directly.

It is hard to measure, but the return on investment with Fortinet has been good with improvements in operational impact.

The hardware is competitively priced.

I switched from Cisco due to performance and functionality improvements with Fortinet.

I never rate anything a perfect ten. There is always room for improvement in any product. I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

We use it for our security needs. It enables us to effectively manage and monitor all the websites our employees access.

One of the features I appreciate the most is application control which offers great flexibility.

They should consider making some improvements regarding the pricing. It could be more competitive and cost-effective. I would also like to know more about Fortinet's XDR offering, understand how it operates, and how we can effectively implement it in our network.

I have been working with for one year.

It offers reliable and stable performance.

I would rate its scalability capabilities ten out of ten. In my previous job, I worked with it, and the company was substantial in size. They used Fortinet's FortiGate in a Solaris environment, which was quite extensive. Now, I'm with a different company, which falls somewhere in the mid-range in terms of size.

I have had excellent experiences with its support team and they have been proactive in responding to my inquiries. I rate their support services a solid ten.  It is robust and efficient, and I currently have no difficulties in this regard.

Positive

Previously, we relied on Cisco WAFSA and Cisco AC, but with FortiGate, we have completely revamped our infrastructure and gained full control over security policies.

I set up a lab using Fortinet's FortiGate (FGT) within VMware on my laptop. Creating the lab environment was a challenge, but not overly difficult, so I would say it fell somewhere in between, not too hard and not too easy. I would rate it five out of ten.

When comparing it to other vendors such as Palo Alto and Check Point, it is on the the expensive side. I would rate it four out of ten.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

The most valuable features we found are the SD-WAN, FortiGate SD-WAN, and the standard UTM protection, among others.

If someone doesn't have a certified or skilled technician/engineer, certain configurations, like setting up VLANs and SD-WANs, might not be difficult but can be simplified within FortiGate. The areas that might require more expertise are related to setting up VLANs and configuring SD-WANs, among others.

Therefore, the setup process could be made simpler. 

I've been working with FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall for three years. We are currently working with its latest version.

I would rate it as a nine. It is a stable solution.

I would rate the scalability a five out of ten. It is not very scalable because scalability depends on the model. For instance, the FortiEdge, which is the entry-level model (the smallest model), supports up to about 15 users. Then the next model supports up to around 30 to 40 users, and the following one supports a hundred users. The price increases significantly with more users, which can be a concern.

If I make a guesstimate, I'd say about 20 to 30 of our clients, but they all have multiple branches. So, in total, we have about 200 FortiGate firewalls deployed for our customers, spread across 20 to 30 clients.

Most of our clients fall under the medium to enterprise category. We have clients from financial institutions and big corporate organizations. It's not an entry-level solution, as it might be challenging for small businesses to afford.

Based on the support we receive from our supplier, who is a reseller or vendor of FortiGate, I would rate it at about six. Because it takes time to get support from the vendor. So it is not very fast.

Neutral

I rate my experience with the initial setup six on a scale of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy. The initial setup of the solution is not difficult; if you have an engineer with certification and experience on other firewalls. For them, it's relatively easy. However, someone without certification and experience with other firewalls might find it a bit more challenging to grasp the FortiGate format and its platform layout.

FortiGate is primarily deployed on-premises. We also have a cloud option for certain referrals with tier-three engineers. We have it in our own data center in our cloud, and we also provide it to some of our customers. However, most of the ones I sell are for end customers, and they typically choose the hardware for on-site deployment.

The duration of the deployment can vary depending on different factors. The timeline can involve various stages, such as ordering from overseas, ensuring stock availability, and finally, setting it up for a specific project. As such, the duration can differ based on these factors. 

Eventually, once we have the stock, we can set up the firewall within about an hour.

I would rate the pricing in the middle, around five out of ten. It also depends on how you sell it. If you want to sell it as a one-time purchase, then I'd put it at a seven. But if you amortize it, it can go down to a four because some customers prefer to pay it off over thirty-six months, as the licensing is for that duration.

There are additional costs to the standard license. While the standard licensing fees include UTM and a few other features, for additional features like FortiAnalyzer, FortiManager, and other PCs that you might need, there are additional costs. For features like FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer, the additional costs do add up. So, while getting the entry-level firewall with basic UTM protection and web filtering is not too bad if you want to add features like analyzer reporting, cloud managers, and FortiManager, the costs can become significantly higher.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use Fortinet FortiGate for end-to-end advanced firewall protection.

Fortinet FortiGate is deployed both on-premises and in the AWS and Azure clouds.

Fortinet FortiGate makes it extremely easy to manage the entire security system independently of our enterprise. In our company, we operate multiple networks, each with its own distinct layers of networking. Whether it is a small or large company, each network will consist of various layers, including the first, second, and third layers, as well as Wi-Fi access points. Additionally, we have different access switches, distribution switches, and core switches. FortiGate allows for direct management of all these options, which is one of its core advantages.

FortiGate is highly user-friendly and promptly addresses security threats and vulnerabilities commonly found in the modern technology world. Additionally, Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises. They provide a range of firewalls, suitable for both small-scale businesses and larger enterprises. Overall, we are quite satisfied with their performance, and it has been working well for us so far.

Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer. Currently, these multiple products often confuse users and clients. It would be beneficial if Fortinet could offer a comprehensive integrated solution instead of separate products that cause user confusion. By providing an integrated solution, users would have access to all features and functionalities within a single window, eliminating the need to navigate through multiple windows. This approach would greatly improve the user experience.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for three years.

Fortinet FortiGate is extremely stable.

Fortinet FortiGate can easily scale using the cloud firewall option.

The technical support team is exceptional. They are consistently available and prompt in their responses, regardless of the region from which we open the ticket.

Positive

I used Cisco at my previous company and my new company uses FortiGate. FortiGate is better than Cisco. Where Cisco requires a person with great networking or programming knowledge, FortiGate does not. We can manage everything from its user interface. It provides comprehensive security fabric management, including Forti switches and access points. Additionally, FortiGate serves as a gate for our home, allowing us to monitor who enters and exits. Therefore, if we compare it to Cisco, monitoring the entire traffic becomes much easier.

The initial setup is straightforward. Fortinet provides step-by-step instructions in its documentation. The Fortinet engineers and support team are always available to assist, but even for a non-technical person, the deployment is easy.

The pricing depends on the FortiGate model we are using, ranging from $3,000 to $20,000 US dollars. We are using the FortiGate 600E, and its price falls within the midrange. The most expensive part is the renewal of the license subscription.

I give Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

Fortinet FortiGate offers a cloud trial that organizations can use in a test environment to evaluate the solution before making a purchase.