Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

We use Fortinet FortiGate to prevent intruder connections to our internal network.

Fortinet FortiGate's unified view around network operations and security operations is good.

The solution is easy to integrate and configure with our ERP and other applications. I am satisfied with the integrated application protection provided by Fortinet FortiGate.

The Fortinet FortiGate 60E Series resolved the bottleneck problem and CPU usage that was previously experienced with the 60D Series. Now, our employees can check their emails without encountering any bottleneck issues, and the CPU usage remains stable at around 50 percent.

We are satisfied with the ability to remediate threats more quickly.

We are pleased with the amount of time saved in detecting our mean time.

The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features.

The Fortinet FortiGate 60D Series poses a problem by causing a bottleneck when several users access their emails simultaneously, as the device consistently consumes 90 percent of the CPU resources.

The reporting could be improved. Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting. However, reporting is crucial for network security, and it should be included as a standard feature.

The price and technical support have room for improvement.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for three years.

The local vendor support needs improvement.

Previously, I have utilized few other brands of NG Firewalls, which offer certain advantages. However, when comparing their price and performance to that of Fortinet FortiGate, Fortinet proves to be a strong competitor.

The time required for a basic deployment is roughly three weeks, whereas a full deployment involving customizations and optimization of rules and policies may take up to two and a half months.

We experienced a return on our investment, however, when it comes to security, it is challenging to determine a precise value.

The price is high compared to some of the other solutions.

I give Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

We saw time to value within the first month of using Fortinet FortiGate.

We deployed Fortinet FortiGate in one location and the maintenance was mostly handled by internally and sometimes a third party.

The use case varies depending on the customer, but we use all of FortiGate's features, including policies, web filtering, routing, etc. 

FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all these features on one device because it can cause performance issues. 

We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs. 

I have been working with Fortinet for nearly ten years.

I rate FortiGate an eight out of ten for stability. It is less stable than Palo Alto Networks and Check Point firewalls because there are lots of bugs in the latest firmware. 

FortiGate is scalable. 

I rate Fortinet's support a seven out of ten. We had to open several tickets due to the firmware bugs. We don't have an issue with the support team. It's more of a problem with the testers and developers. 

Neutral

I have also used Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls. Fortinet firewalls are cheaper and easier to manage. Palo Alto is more complex and harder to use, but it's more stable than FortiGate. Palo Alto doesn't didn't have as many models for small and medium-sized enterprises.

FortiGate is easy to deploy. The deployment time varies depending on the customer's network topology. How many policies does the customer require, and what kind of license do they have? FortiGate is easier than Palo Alto Networks and Check Point and takes less time.

We typically start by analyzing the customer's topology and understanding their requirements, including policies, routines, etc. We implement the device once we know what the customer needs. One engineer is usually enough to deploy FortiGate in a small or medium-sized environment. 

An enterprise project requires a more detailed analysis of the network requirements before implementation. That can take two or three days. Once we understand the network, it may take another two or three days to configure the device and one or two days to implement it. 

Fortinet has more device options that are affordable for small businesses than Palo Alto, and its enterprise-level models are also cheaper. Palo Alto also has a separate license for VPN connections and SD-WAN, but FortiGate offers these standard features. 

I rate Fortinet FortiGate a seven and a half out of ten. I deducted a few points because of the device's capacity, stability, support, and routing table issues. I strongly recommend FortiGate if a customer wants to use SD-WAN. Before implementing, you should understand the network's topology to minimize unwanted issues. 

The primary use case is for security purposes, mainly at the gateway level and for internal security, such as virtual training. We also use it for cybersecurity and internal communication, like having a portal. The main goal of implementing the product is to resolve security problems.

We have seen benefits. Recently, Sophos Firewalls and Palantir have also entered the market. However, FortiGate provides a higher throughput at a lower cost than these features and licensing. Our company acts as an integrator, and we work based on the customer's needs and requirements.

Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use. Anyone can easily maintain the box in small to large organizations. Even if we configure and hand it over to them, they can easily consider and register policies. And it's easy to monitor the end-to-end network through the firewall.

There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes. FortiGate's renewal cost is quite high, and our customer care team also receives complaints about it. The renewal part of the firewall is expensive. If a customer pays for the license in advance, they may lose their privileges.

For example, if the license of a box expires in one or two months, and the customer wants to upgrade, there are three to four months between the operation and the end of the current license. If I purchase a new license, it will only take effect from that date. So, it fails in the backward fetch, and I am currently busy setting it up. But if the customer is not processing the card for six months, they will not benefit from the system.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for two to three years.

I would rate stability a nine out of ten. It's a stable product. For the most part, it's very reliable.

It is also a scalable solution. However, as integrators, the scalability depends on us. There are many options available, and we can choose the size of the box based on our requirements.

The customer service and support are very good. Once we create a ticket, we can contact them using the ticket number, and they will provide the support we need. As for the contact names, there is no rate, but there are more challenges.

Neutral

We have used Sophos Firewall, Check Point Power EOL, and others. But none of them were like FortiGate. When we upgrade the license, it shows another one, two or three years from that date.

There are no challenges in the initial setup. The people required to deploy the situation are based on the customer's expertise. We handle various types of configurations, and sometimes there are additional requirements with load balancers on top of the firewalls. We need to integrate these firewalls with that ALG.

Generally, we consider security as a separate thing. These firewalls and the LOBs will take care of some further issues based on the customer's requirements. For smaller organizations, one person can provide or ensure a sort of service. We will need three more administrators or developers if there is more traffic or high-cost tech.

Generally, most of the customers maintain their solution on-premises, not on the cloud. I am a technical guy. I am involved in deploying the solution to our customers. I take care of the HCLM upgrade, inflation rate consideration, automation, and other technical aspects of the solution.

We evaluate the area first and then proceed with the implementation by creating a DMZ zone and policies such as CRM and CAP.

FortiGate is a bit pricey, but its unique features and specifications make it an excellent option for certain customers.

As an integrator, we have observed that the licensing cost and the upgrade process are important considerations. When we purchase a new license for one or three years and upgrade it to the existing box, the expiry date does not change from the original. It can create a gap of three, eight, or even twelve months for the customer. Consequently, they buy another box instead of going through the ticket process to get it fixed.

We definitely explore the options. We always understand the customer's requirements first and then offer solutions accordingly. We ask what the customer needs and what their budget is. If their budget is INR 10,00,000, and we find a product that matches their requirements, we will offer it. If FortiGate provides the same features and throughput but costs INR 11,00,000, we might still offer it to the customer. However, if FortiGate doesn't match the customer's requirements, we won't suggest it.

So the main differences between products are the features and specifications. If a product has the same throughput and features as another product but costs more, we may not suggest it to the customer.

The challenge is licensing. Hardware-wise, it's supportive, and the support is good. But the licensing and renewal costs should be lowered, and renewing the license and data for the new license is tough. So, only for licensing, we face challenges. I would rate it a seven.

We have many boxes, and we have changed all the boxes to other products because of this licensing factor only. Even for FortiGate, such a thing happens. If I have a hundred boxes and I want to renew the license, they suggest taking new boxes with three or four at least. So that is why customers are not liking FortiGate. They could provide the same license card along with the box, which is why customers are unhappy.

Overall, the product is a four out of ten because scalability, box performance, and support are all great. However, once it's commercially used, you can only use this box; no other options are available.

We can recommend it, but FortiGate's ability to capture the market, fix the order, and meet the requirements or opportunities is also important. As an integrator, we don't have any issues with it.

We primarily use the solution for security purposes. We use it as a firewall for protection. 

It helps protect our users, and we are able to initiate our own policies. It also provided good visibility and reporting. 

The management is very easy.

It offers very good security features. 

The reporting and monitoring are very good.

We can integrate the solution very well with other Fortigate solutions. 

It's stable and reliable.

The solution can scale. 

Pricing is reasonable. 

We do not need any other features.

We'd like more management across other integrations. It would be ideal if it could centralize the management, and we could therefore manage all solutions under Fortinet instead of managing everything individually.

In some cases, depending on the module and the age, performance could be better.

I've been using the solution for three years. 

The solution is very scalable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. 

We have 800 end users, approximately.

The solution is scalable. 

Technical support has been fine. However, we haven't really dealt with them too much. We haven't had any critical issues. 

We also use other Fortinet products, including the NFGW.

We also work with Cisco devices and solutions. 

We have worked with Palo Alto in the past. It has a pretty good performance. 

In the end, we moved to Fortinet as the cost was very good. 

The solution is very simple. The process is easy to understand. It's not complex at all. 

I helped deploy the solution. We had to integrate it with internal and external firewalls. 

We had the full functionality in place within five days. We had five people managing the deployment process. 

I integrated the solution myself without outside help.

The cost of the solution is reasonable. 

I'm an end-user.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We use Fortinet FortiGate for VPN. We connect the branches together for the HQ. That's why we are using the VPN, and we publish some of the websites in the HQ, and the users can access that website from outside with the two-factor authenticator and a token key. We are using FortiGate to control the connection between the branches. But, for the software, we are using this to collect the data to extract reports.

I like FortiManager.

Improvements depend on your specific needs. Currently, it meets my requirements. Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me.

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate for about ten years.

Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution.

On a scale from one to five, I would give its stability a five.

Fortinet FortiGate is scalable. If you are familiar with it, you can work from anywhere and do whatever you want. It is very easy to scale. We have about 500 users in our organization. It is not only engineering and not IT because we publish many websites from HQ to other branches. End-users use the Fortinet username and password to log in with two-factor authentication and the token.

Technical support is good.

On a scale from one to five, I would give technical support a five.

Positive

The initial setup was very easy. We had two third-party members and four of my team members implement this solution. It took us five to six days to install and deploy both the software and hardware. For the software alone, it took us about two days to implement. You need two people to manage and maintain this solution.

We had a third-party company help us with this implementation. They came and did the first setup, and after that, I followed the technical support from Fortinet.

Licensing costs are acceptable. I think it's cheaper than Cisco. We pay for the license on a yearly basis.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Fortinet FortiGate a ten.

We use FortiGate for security. Some clients use the whole Fortinet solution, including FortiSwitch, FortiAP, and FortiExtender, but FortiGate is my bread and butter.

We have a hybrid deployment. A lot of it is onsite, and we have data center collocations. Some customers do collocations with us, but others request connectivity to Azure or another cloud services provider. Fortinet has plugins for Azure, AWS, or Google that make it easy to configure VPNs out of the data center or off-site. 

Typically, we stick with Azure because their support is better, but we do have a handful of customers that choose AWS. We have the solution deployed across Canada. One of our biggest customers is a retail company with many little stores under their umbrella. We cover everything from British Columbia to a couple of sites in Newfoundland. I estimate that we have around 1,200 users.

We need to allow a set of websites or block another set. FortiGate gives us the ability to do it based on URL domain. It's so much easier because you input the domain microsoft.com instead of adding the specific URL. Other firewalls can't do that the way FortiGate does. It helps us with compliance and security.

FortiGate's web and URL filtering are unlike any other firewall I've used. The functionality of URL filtering in those solutions is problematic because everything is encrypted, and firewalls can't break that encryption protocol. 

Fortinet has an SSL proxy, so the encryption is done before the packet ever leaves the FortiGate. The URL filter is definitely one of the most helpful features.

My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint.

I've been using Fortinet solutions for about four or five years now.

I think FortiGate is going to be around forever. If I don't see their stock price double in the next two years, I'm going to be surprised. I think it's a very underrated solution. 

Scaling up only requires adding a router. Once you have your network in place and a basic template, you buy another router and add it to the mix. It's incredibly easy to add and configure devices. 

I rate Fortinet support 10 out of 10. The support gets better as you get more certifications. I'm trying to get my certification to see how much better it can be. With an NSE 7 certification, you can contact Tier 3 support directly. I'm already getting my cases resolved in 24 to 48 hours using Tier 1 and 2 support.

We used Juniper firewalls in the past. The two solutions are similar in terms of features, but Fortinet blew it out of the water with regards to pricing and user-friendliness.

The main difference is CLI versus GUI. You have to know what you're doing on a Juniper because it's all command-line based, but Fortinet is 99 percent GUI-based. You log in to Fortinet and check off what you want to allow or block. 

Our biggest Fortinet solution was 500 plus retail sites. This customer chose the whole nine yards, including FortiGate, FortiSwitch, FortiAPs, and the FortiExtender, which is the LTE router. 

I made the templates for the configuration for our bottom tiers because they were the ones rolling them out. I made a standard template config and wrote notes specifying necessary changes for each site. 

The primary difficulty was trying to understand our customer's requirements and concerns because they were with an old provider. The provider had a lot of things on-site that weren't necessary. Deploying the Fortinet solution itself wasn't hard. 

Getting there was hard because we had to sit down with the customer and their tech team to determine what was needed because they had old Cisco routers. That took about three weeks and required a lot of on-site visits, but it wasn't hard to deploy the solution once we got an understanding of the requirements was not hard.

We trained the customers to manage and maintain the solution themselves. The only maintenance we do is emailing them monthly when we get notifications from Fortinet about router upgrades. You can configure it and then forget it. 

We are the integrator/consultant for the solution. We are the one in between the client and the internet service provider.

FortiGate firewalls pay for themselves. We bought our first FortiGate when they came out with the 50Fs and thought we would never see the return on investment. However, they paid for themselves because we rent them out, and customers loved them so much that we just retired our Juniper and Cisco solutions.

Fortinet's pricing is more straightforward than other solutions. If Fortinet doesn't stick out when you're searching for a solution, you are a glutton for punishment. You only need to know two things when purchasing a Fortinet solution: your total bandwidth and bandwidth at the site. You need to estimate the future bandwidth with other solutions if your customer plans to upgrade.

You have to consider whether you'll need to resell your licenses or wait until they expire and get new ones. You need to worry about out-of-pocket costs with other solutions, but you could pay for a higher-tier Fortinet license. You don't need to worry about it for 10 years and still be under budget.

Fortinet encourages people to buy their base product and then add what they need. That mentality goes a lot farther in the game because it affords people security. That's how they got into the market and became so competitive.

We evaluated Meraki, Dell's old SD-WAN, and Cisco's Viptela. Price and flexibility were the main factors. Viptela, Juniper, and others make it so hard to pick a solution. You have to be highly specific about what you want, including the amount of bandwidth and encryption level at every site. You have to pick a different router per site, depending on your functionality and requirements.

I rate FortiGate 10 out of 10. It's a tremendous little firewall. It takes care of all your security concerns.  When people say, "I need to make my organization more secure," the first thing that comes to mind is Fortinet. Everyone is talking about Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, and Check Point but overlooking Fortinet, which is a relatively new player in the game. 

Fortinet's next-generation firewall is more affordable and user-friendly. They also have an extensive knowledge base online. Good luck finding that community support on a Palo Alto, Cisco, or Juniper website without paying.

It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything.

The GUI is good. I'm really happy with the ease of use of the firewall. Fortinet's support is also great.  

I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself.

I've had different models of Fortinet since 2009. They all are physical appliances. I had 300As, and now I'm on 300Ds. I've got a remote site with a different model, which probably is 60F. They are great little firewalls, and for bigger size places, they have 300 models.

I don't have virtual appliances. I don't have a virtual infrastructure. I have an older virtual environment with Hyper-V, and the servers are not up-to-date. It was a money thing. So, it was better to go with the appliance itself.

I'm happy with what they got. It is a great product. Sometimes, you're going to get a lemon—the way it initially happened with FortiAuthenticator 300F—but that doesn't happen very often.

If there is a problem, the next business day, they send it and get the replacement, and they help me configure it.

In terms of its users, everybody uses the firewall because they're going out. That's our egress point. So, there are about 20 users for that. We have a dozen IPsec tunnels with which we connect to different companies. So, security is a big part of it. I also have a remote location with about 10 users who use a different firewall.

We probably won't be increasing its usage. Now that I got Authenticator, it nicely compliments the Fortinet firewall. The size of the company isn't going to grow any more than what it is. So, we're good.

Their support is great, but it also depends on who you get for support. From the support perspective, they can help you do it yourself, which is always more beneficial to both parties. They can stop being so time-sensitive about the call duration and let a user help himself a little bit more.

It takes time to study this stuff, and I don't always have time to do it. So, I'm looking for a quick answer because I get interrupted all the time during work. I don't always have the time to study something and figure it out. So, I have to call them, but I don't always get somebody who really knows what they are doing. They don't know deep enough to help you. They're troubleshooting with you, and that's the difference between Level 1 and Level 2 support.

When I first got here in this job in 2007, they had Cisco ASA Firewall, but it was too cryptic. You had to enter all these CLI commands for a configuration. It also didn't do everything that Fortinet could do. It was very limited, and it wasn't easy to use. I know what I want to do, and I don't have to learn a special language in order to do it. I just want to be able to use some basic programming code that they have put into the firewall and use the GUI interface with it to actually visualize what I am looking at. Some of the Cisco products are not visual enough. That was one of the reasons I stayed away from it. Cisco is also very high-priced. They price themselves out of business a lot of times for equipment, but Fortinet is just great.

I've also used SonicWall before. It was okay, but it is better for bigger places. I was looking for a midrange-size firewall for a couple of hundred users, and I felt Fortinet was the right fit.

Its deployment and maintenance are easy. 

I pretty much used the support from Fortinet to do it. They're good about their support. I did it myself by being a nuisance to Fortinet. I kept calling them to ask questions. They had to remote on to it and see you do something you don't know how to do.

It was probably about $2,500 per firewall. It was all included. It included support, services, threat management software, and 24/7 FortiCare on it. Cisco products are more expensive.

Fortinet has got great firewalls. They do everything. They do FortiTokens for two-factor. They do the IPsec VPNs, SSL VPNs. They have a great GUI for you to know, but you still got to know the CLI commands. 

I would rate it a 10 out of 10. It does its job, and it is easy to use. The support is great.

My use case for Fortinet FortiGate involves different plans and consulting in the retail area, and I utilize it in various press scenarios. 

The configuration possibilities that Fortinet FortiGate provides are extensive, and the task configuration activity is fast and efficient for me. My group in the office has ten years of experience with Fortinet FortiGate, and we utilize AI services that help with problem-solving. EER represents a ten-year experience, and we have certified five people in Fortinet FortiGate.

I don't know how Fortinet FortiGate can be improved; I find it comfortable and appreciate it as it is.

I have used the Fortinet FortiGate solution for three years and a different firewall for more than ten years.

Stability is important, and I can be contacted via email for further details.

My experience with the SD WAN capabilities includes working with more than one company, including a small company and a big company with users ranging from twenty to nine hundred. The users can see the tracking.

I rate the support of Fortinet as internal departmental support, which helps me, although I have no other experience.

The pricing for Fortinet FortiGate is good; it's a competitive price.

I find Fortinet FortiGate preferable over Cisco for firewall solutions. Fortinet FortiGate works well for me, while Cisco does not work for me anymore.

I am the chief of the technical department and provide support. I rate Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.

We deployed Fortinet FortiGate SD-WAN into one of our customers, and they are satisfied. We utilized Fortinet FortiGate's data center solution; we took in three units: FortiGate ADC 1101 and 2600, and we deployed them into a customer, with no issues so far. The impact of these services on data center protection at scale is still on the launch side; the production will be up maybe this month, but so far, there are no issues.

The best features I have already seen in Fortinet FortiGate are the automatic updates, the easiness of deployment, and the capacity. These three features are the best.

A shorter response time when we have questions could improve Fortinet's first-level support quality. The knowledge base is comprehensive, so that is okay. For additional features that could make Fortinet FortiGate even better in the future, they have the SD-WAN, but I do not know if they have quantum VPN. 

I saw one brand that has a quantum random number generator, so maybe that could enhance security, along with a smaller version of their product to fit into the budgets of smaller departments.

I have been dealing with Fortinet FortiGate since April.

I think Fortinet FortiGate is overall stable.

There are a lot of people using it, maybe more than a thousand.

The technical support by Fortinet is okay; they are very responsive, and they know what they are doing. If you ask them questions, they can easily answer.

I have no experience working with any other firewalls before using Fortinet FortiGate.

I was not a part of the technical team that deployed Fortinet FortiGate for integrating SD-WAN capabilities. I am actually with the research team, and I relate the feedback I get from their experience with Fortinet FortiGate.

The pricing of Fortinet FortiGate is a little pricey from my perspective. It is expensive comparatively to its competitors. The brand has its own price concerning the licensing model of Fortinet FortiGate.

We are dealing with other vendors besides Fortinet; we are constantly searching for brands and comparing their features side by side. Besides Fortinet, we are currently dealing with Palo Alto, Sophos, and my friends also did Check Point and another Korean brand. For Sophos, we are mostly dealing with firewalls. The Sophos products we are dealing with are firewalls. For Palo Alto, we are in the same category with firewalls.

I would recommend Fortinet FortiGate to others, specifically for larger companies but not for smaller companies because of the price-sensitive Philippine market, where you would not find a lot of companies buying premium products. I do not know if I can see room for improvement in Fortinet FortiGate because I am not so techie myself. I would rate Fortinet FortiGate as a product an eight out of 10.

It is easy to use and update the software version. It is also useful for integration with other Fortinet products, because my office and company use Fortinet solutions. We are also using Fortinet FortiManager and FortiMail.

Fortinet FortiGate is considered the best in the European market for security reasons. I wouldn’t want to change to any other firewall.

At the moment, the main concern is the pricing and the type of licensing. Fortinet offers different types of licensing, and my idea is that the best approach is to have only one, two, or a maximum of three types of licensing.

It is very easy to use, and I don't have any issues at the moment. I also don't anticipate having any issues in the future.

There has not been any impact on my network performance by implementing SD-WAN. 

I have only used Fortinet FortiGate.

I have evaluated some options that could be tested in the future, but at this moment, I only use Fortinet FortiGate.

Fortinet is currently one of the five top players for security firewalls.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.