We use Fortinet FortiGate to prevent intruder connections to our internal network.
Head of IT at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Is easy to integrate and configure with our ERP and other applications
Pros and Cons
- "The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
- "Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
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.
What is most valuable?
The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features.
What needs improvement?
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.
Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiGate
May 2026
Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiGate. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for three years.
How are customer service and support?
The local vendor support needs improvement.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
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.
How was the initial setup?
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.
What was our ROI?
We experienced a return on our investment, however, when it comes to security, it is challenging to determine a precise value.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is high compared to some of the other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Corporate Marketing Executive at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Offers diverse features for threat detection and operational efficiency
Pros and Cons
- "Fortinet FortiGate has SD-WAN, FortiView, antivirus, sandbox, and IPS, which are generally well-known features."
- "Fortinet FortiGate has a threat detection capacity compared to other vendors."
- "Fortinet technical support is lacking, as OEM support is slightly better."
- "Fortinet technical support is lacking, as OEM support is slightly better. Improvement in their technical support could include response time as well as having more technically sound people in tech support."
What is our primary use case?
Generally, government and PSU, diamond companies, textile companies, and chemical companies are using Fortinet FortiGate in the Gujarat segment. We are also working with the Fortinet FortiSwitch and Fortinet AP.
What is most valuable?
Fortinet FortiGate has SD-WAN, FortiView, antivirus, sandbox, and IPS, which are generally well-known features. Fortinet FortiGate has a threat detection capacity compared to other vendors.
What needs improvement?
Fortinet technical support is lacking, as OEM support is slightly better. Improvement in their technical support could include response time as well as having more technically sound people in tech support.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have more than 12 years of experience with Fortinet FortiGate.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This product is very scalable because Fortinet offers models ranging from thirty gigs to six thousand series and also offers solutions as VMs, making it highly scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Their support could be better.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are working with both Fortinet and Check Point. Fortinet FortiGate is better compared to Check Point because I have worked with the Check Point model CP15,500.
What was our ROI?
Financial and operational ROI from Fortinet FortiGate is very fine compared to other products.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is no challenge in Fortinet FortiGate pricing. There is a little bit of extra cost for FortiManager and logging and reporting solutions. Fortinet can offer solutions such as FortiAnalyzer and FortiManager for free for SMB customers.
What other advice do I have?
We are not working with AI features in Fortinet FortiGate, but from my knowledge, FortiGuard is using AI tools for threat intelligence and protection.
We recommend Fortinet FortiGate to other businesses with similar security needs.
I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Buyer's Guide
Fortinet FortiGate
May 2026
Learn what your peers think about Fortinet FortiGate. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Director of Infrastructure at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Enhance reporting and operational efficiency with detailed insights
Pros and Cons
- "FortiAnalyzer's capability to provide detailed reporting based on various criteria is highly valuable."
- "FortiAnalyzer's capability to provide detailed reporting based on various criteria is highly valuable."
- "Like any hardware, it has finite scalability restrictions."
- "Like any hardware, it has finite scalability restrictions."
What is our primary use case?
I use FortiAnalyzer for reporting. It provides log management solutions for my enterprise, which is in the manufacturing sector.
What is most valuable?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have around three years of experience with Fortinet solutions.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has been very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
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.
How are customer service and support?
I have been satisfied with FortiGate support. Even though I work through a managed provider, I believe FortiGate provides good support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
At my last company, I switched from Cisco to FortiGate due to performance and functionality.
How was the initial setup?
My service provider manages the setup, so I do not have direct experience with the initial setup.
What about the implementation team?
My implementation is managed by a third-party provider, and I do not handle equipment directly.
What was our ROI?
It is hard to measure, but the return on investment with Fortinet has been good with improvements in operational impact.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The hardware is competitively priced.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I switched from Cisco due to performance and functionality improvements with Fortinet.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Computer Networks and Systems Support Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 11-50 employees
Provides good threat intelligence feeds, but the advanced models are expensive
Pros and Cons
- "The solution provides good threat intelligence feeds."
- "The advanced models are expensive."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution on the perimeter. We are a government entity. We have other organizations monitoring our network. We also have our own firewall to separate the DMZ and different things on our external servers.
What is most valuable?
The solution provides good threat intelligence feeds.
What needs improvement?
The advanced models are expensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for five to six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The tool’s stability is good. I rate the stability a seven or eight out of ten. The stability could be improved.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The tool is very scalable. It connects to its own wireless access points. The firewall is supported by other technologies. We can add more products and extend the features and the network.
How was the initial setup?
Fortinet has a tool that migrates all the policies from the previous firewall to the new one.
What about the implementation team?
The vendor helped us with the setup. It was quick. We connected the new firewall first. Then, we exported the policies from the live firewall to the new one. On a weekend, we deployed the new firewall.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
If we buy licenses for a longer duration, we get discounts.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Fortinet has better models, but we are using the one within our budget. It's a good product. Besides Fortinet, we're using Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Defender, as well as the safety features that come with these products. There are many products in the market. The monitoring team is using Palo Alto. Palo Alto is better than Fortinet, but it's more expensive.
What other advice do I have?
We use Fortinet for VPN, too. We have not faced any major issues with the tool. It has a lot of capabilities that enable us to customize tunnels and allow traffic from certain countries or regions. The vendor provides cloud-based models, but we do not use them because they are subscription-based models that are not within our budget.
The vendor has a lot of free and paid training courses. It is the best way to learn about the product. It is similar to Palo Alto. All the good companies have a lot of training materials and training courses to understand the product. The initial versions are free of cost. The certifications will help people understand the process and make administration easier. The cloud version has AI features.
Overall, I rate the product a seven or eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior IT specialist at SAUDIA ALIRLINES
Has robust security features, comprehensive threat protection, intuitive user interface, and seamless integration
Pros and Cons
- "Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
- "There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for managing access to our data center, regulating the communication tools employed among servers, and ensuring overall security.
What is most valuable?
Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory. The graphical user interface is straightforward to navigate.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect. It was somewhat challenging as I delved into the logs during an incident. Navigating through the logs to trace the specific information we needed, as well as generating the corresponding report, proved to be less intuitive. In comparison, when considering Sophos XG, which we also use, the logging and reporting functionality is notably more efficient.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with it for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It offers good stability capabilities.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have approximately two hundred users within our company.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate its customer service and support ten out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What was our ROI?
Its performance justifies the cost, there is a prominent ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is very reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
I would highly recommend it. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten due to the reporting and logging issues.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
IT Engineer at a aerospace/defense firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Helps reduce our cybersecurity risks, enhances security, and performs well
Pros and Cons
- "The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
- "The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
What is our primary use case?
We utilize the Fortinet FortiGate firewall to safeguard our network and provide secure VPN access from external locations.
We implemented FortiGate because we needed a firewall to protect our data.
How has it helped my organization?
FortiGate helped us meet our ISO requirements.
In the time we have been using FortiGate, we have not had any security breaches.
FortiGate has reduced the risk of cyberattacks that can disrupt our production. Since implementing FortiGate we have not dealt with any such attacks.
I'm unsure whether centralized FortiGate management enhances efficiency, but our experience with it has been exceptional. We haven't encountered any issues, and the operational aspects have been seamless. Additionally, there was no downtime, which is crucial for our operations.
Our Fortinet security fabric has enhanced security across our industrial control system. By safeguarding our production environment and ensuring the security of VPN access granted to individuals, we have achieved comprehensive data protection. We have not experienced any incidents that would have occurred if our firewall was inadequate.
FortiGate does a lot of research, and the product is regularly updated, especially in the ransomware area. I know of a couple of other companies around us that had some ransomware incidents, but we never have. From that perspective, FortiGate has helped mature our approach to cybersecurity a lot.
What is most valuable?
The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable.
What needs improvement?
The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex. While FortiGate offers greater functionality than other firewall solutions, its user interface could benefit from simplification.
I would like the log viewing process to be improved to provide a clearer understanding of the logs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability of FortiGate ten out of ten. We have never had any issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We used the limit of our FotiGate firewall which was around 150 users and we never noticed any performance issues.
I would rate the scalability of FortiGate eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Our decision to switch from FortiGate to Sophos was solely driven by the seamless integration with our existing Sophos antivirus system. Had this integration not been an advantage, we would have maintained our FortiGate system.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was straightforward due to our understanding of the product and its operation. It was completed in one day by a team of two.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of FortiGate is comparable to that of most other firewall solutions and is more affordable than Cisco.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Fortinet FortiGate eight out of ten.
Except for the firmware updates we have to do now and then, there is no other maintenance required for FortiGate.
We had FortiGate deployed in one location in a big server room. We have 150 users.
I would recommend FortiGate to anyone. FortiGate is an out-of-the-box firewall with good pricing and excellent features.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Technical support engineer at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
Enables me to easily see the events and make a decision about next steps
Pros and Cons
- "The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
- "I would like to see improvements in the support from Fortinet. Here in the Philippines, whenever we have problems with a Fortinet product, we mostly ask for support from distributors and resellers and not directly from Fortinet."
What is our primary use case?
It's mainly used to secure our clients' network access because they do not have any servers. The only things we have connected to the FortiGate firewall are access points, CCTVs, and a printer. It's just used for web browsing and internet access.
How has it helped my organization?
It definitely helps with intrusion prevention. When managing a firewall, you need to create policies to dictate the traffic flow within your environment. And once you enforce a policy, it has an intrusion prevention assistant that you can activate, so it's not just acting as a firewall.
Like most next-generation firewalls today, it helps control network traffic. I don't have any problem managing the network traffic within our network. It's very easy to access and manage.
FortiGate has also helped reduce the risk of cyberattacks. If such an attack happened, the main consequences for us would be data breaches, where some of our company's most important information might be leaked and used by other people. That would endanger our production and security.
And with the System Events page, I can easily access and see the events that are happening within the device and the network. It's easy to track if something has happened and, based on that, make a decision about the next step that I should take. I can see if it is severe or if it is just something that is not critical but more than a nuisance. Even in that case, I have to think about the steps that I will take to prevent it from happening again.
Mostly, it's about protecting the internet access of our end users in the production area of our company. It protects us during our web browsing and from internet-related activities.
What is most valuable?
The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup.
It also provides us with visibility because we are able to track the IP addresses, as well as the type of device, OS, vendor name, and the name of the devices.
In addition, Fortinet Security Fabric helps us meet regulations and compliance requirements.
The built-in APIs enable us to integrate with different vendors, such as TP-Link and Luigi. We did not have any problems with the integration. It's very easy to configure and connect. This helps reduce deployment time, but that has more to do with network knowledge than with the product. If you're familiar with basic networking, it would be easy for you to understand the application of a certain device and integrate it with the API of your choice.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with Fortinet FortiGate for about 10 months.
How are customer service and support?
I would like to see improvements in the support from Fortinet. Here in the Philippines, whenever we have problems with a Fortinet product, we mostly ask for support from distributors and resellers and not directly from Fortinet.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I don't know why our company acquired FortiGate because I'm not the account manager. I'm just the technical person who installed the product. But I can assume they just looked at other companies that are securing their networks and decided to secure their internet access like those companies do.
How was the initial setup?
Including the reconfiguration of the network setup, the deployment took at least five days. But the actual deployment of the device only took one day. There were four people involved.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I have no idea what the difference in pricing is if you buy it from a reseller or distributor compared to Fortinet, or even if Fortinet gives that option. The pricing is justified. It's a little pricey, but what you pay for is what you get.
What other advice do I have?
I can't say how much it has reduced MTTR because I have not experienced any issues with FortiGate.
When I first built the FortiGate firewall, it enabled me to learn more about the network security field.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
Deputy Vice present at PVR Ltd
A tool that offers security along with great technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The response from the technical support team has always been excellent."
- "The graphical user interface of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is an area of concern where improvements are required."
What is our primary use case?
I use Fortinet FortiGate SWG in my company for security purposes and the SD-WAN in our networks.
What is most valuable?
The network load balancing is one of the best features of Fortinet FortiGate SWG. Fortinet FortiGate SWG's SD-WAN compatibility with any of the providers is also one of its good features. The security devices work well with the solution, and it works well for anything pertaining to security, including the HTML files and VPN, which is beneficial for our company.
What needs improvement?
The graphical user interface of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is an area of concern where improvements are required.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Fortinet FortiGate SWG for three years. I use the solution's latest version, which is Fortinet FortiGate 100F Series. I am an end user of the solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight and a half out of ten.
My company uses Fortinet FortiGate SWG in around 350 locations spread across India, and we have a user base of over 5,000 users.
How are customer service and support?
The response from the technical support team has always been excellent. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
There were no issues with the product's installation phase. In our company, there were some initial things like checking the networks and managing the area of whitelisting in the firewall.
The solution's installation process doesn't take longer than an hour.
The solution is deployed on an on-premises model since my company has security gateway appliances across the company for 350 locations.
There was a team of six engineers in my company to take care of the implementation part of the product.
What about the implementation team?
I was a part of the design and implementation team of the solution in my company.
What was our ROI?
Earlier, in my company, we had constraints in regard to the link load balancer and the site getting isolated because of the internet. Now, the good part is that the failovers and integration have become entirely seamless, and the site remains connected, meaning, in our company, we don't see the site getting isolated.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG a seven and a half out of ten since it is not a cheap solution, though I feel it is a good product for the money one pays.
There were no additional costs apart from the licensing charges of the product, and the extra payments were related to the shipping charges so that it could be shipped to multiple cities.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
My company plans to use FortiAnalyzer and FortiManager.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
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Updated: May 2026
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