Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

The firewall system we have implemented in my company serves as the gateway to access the internet. We have different VLANs set up on the firewall for various networks. 

We enforce security measures based on policies. When it comes to security, we have web monitoring, application filtering, and MAC address filtering implemented on the firewall. We also utilize VPN and SD-WAN architecture. Everything is functioning well. 

Additionally, we have two ISPs connected for load balancing. We send the logs, and audit logs to FortiCloud for analytics and statistics. 

Moreover, we have an alerting system for FortiGate, which is also functioning properly. The firewall operates in question mode, using round-robin connections, and handles routing as well.

FortiGate is a very good product. It offers a wide range of features, and its availability is almost everywhere. The support, both local and international, is good. Also, they provide certification programs for the next-generation firewalls, which is beneficial. 

The product speaks for itself and holds a strong position in the market. In our company, we highly recommend FortiGate to our colleagues and other IT professionals. Furthermore, it offers cost advantages compared to other products.

The improvement that I would like to see is in the licensing. The licensing process is a bit high. 

Additionally, there have been several vulnerabilities in the firewall. It is hackable, some of the images are hackable. So, upgrading to the latest patch, but these improvements would be more profitable for companies like ours.

I would like to see improvements in license costs and the handling of vulnerabilities.

I have been working with FortiGate NGFW for ten years. I currently use the FortiGate 101E model at a customer site.

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. It provides a stable network, and I can connect to remote sites as well. I find it reliable because we use SD-WAN. There are no major issues, except when there is an Internet outage. But overall, no significant problems.

The scalability is very good. I would rate the scalability of the solution a nine out of ten because I have encountered no issues so far with the product. The scalability is excellent, very good.

We have 150 users using this solution. Moreover, we have plans to increase the usage. Maybe next year, I plan to upgrade to a newer version of FortiGate, and we have a plan to increase our user count by ten percent by next year. So I'm considering a more powerful firewall for better performance. That's the plan.

In terms of support, they are very responsive. If you reach out to them, they will contact you within 15 minutes. Managing FortiGate is easy and simple compared to other products. It's not too complex. 

Even if we miss renewing our licenses, FortiGate provides a grace period of 90 days, which is exceptional. Most products only offer 30 days. That's the best part, in my opinion.

The support is excellent. I've had very positive experiences with FortiGate's support team. They are friendly and always available. Their support is available 24/7 via phone, email, or chat. 

They even offer remote access if we need help with configuration or auditing logs. Their support is reliable both locally and internationally.

The availability of product support and its manageability were important factors for me. I found it easy to manage, not too complex. 

Additionally, the product is readily available in my country. Based on the information I found on the Internet, FortiGate seemed to meet my requirements.

The initial setup is straightforward. The setup is pretty simple. However, it acts as an authentic gateway between my routers and the internal network. All the traffic goes through the firewall in cluster mode. If one firewall goes down, the other one takes over until we have time to replace the faulty one. We typically use the firewall for a period of five years before considering a replacement. 

The device is connected to the server room on-premises. We configure it locally, but we utilize FortiCloud for logging and analytics. We manage the number of assets (FortiGate assets) we have, which is manageable through the cloud. That's all.

I have used Barracuda, Sophos, Palo Alto, and more.

My advice would be to start by conducting a Proof of Concept (POC) and test FortiGate NGFW in your own environment. Go through all the necessary configurations and spend around one or two weeks to become familiar with the solution.

After that, you can proceed with the purchase. But if I were to advise someone instantly, I would simply say, go ahead and give it a try.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

Our primary use cases for FortiGate are SD-WAN and the next-gen firewall.

Most clients in the Philippines seek a cost-effective solution that can secure their network, and FortiGate is often their first choice. If your network is secure, there's less downtime and threat exposure, increasing overall efficiency. 

Fortinet's secure SD-WAN helps us remedy threats faster. It's user-friendly, and you can see everything on the FortiGate dashboard through a single pane of glass. Secure SD-WAN has reduced our mean time to detect. We haven't had any significant issues so far. 

SD-WAN has reduced our help desk tickets by making us secure. Many of our clients switched from other brands to Fortinet, and they feel that the FortiGate box and the added security FortiGuard provides have exceeded their expectations. 

FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features. 
FortiGate has always had good interoperability. Their fabric enables you to integrate a lot of products into one vendor. 

The secure SD-WAN gives you a tool for failproof your connections, especially with a branch-to-branch setup. FortiGate also comes with FortiGuard, which is an excellent threat-detection service. They have their own R&D and threat intelligence for FortiGuard.

While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up. 

We have been using the solution for more than two years.

I rate FortiGate an eight and a half out of ten for stability.

I rate FortiGate a nine out of ten for scalability. 

I rate Fortinet support a nine out of ten. 

Positive

We also use Meraki. FortiGate has advantages in terms of usability. Also, if we don't pay for the Meraki license, it becomes useless. 

Deploying FortiGate is straightforward. It typically takes about three days to deploy and configure the solution. One person is usually enough to deploy it. 

Most of our clients are still using the FortiGate D Series, so they have gotten their money's worth. 

Fortinet is much cheaper compared to the other leading platforms. However, most of our customers are asking for bigger discounts on license renewals. 

I rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten. 

First, we use the solution as a native firewall. After a native firewall, we use IPS. We also use NGFW features like antivirus, IPS, and shaping, which are very important features for companies. We also manage all of my products with FortiManager or FortiAnalyzer and collect online data. For another feature, we try to use SD-WAN products. The SD-WAN feature on FortiGate was implemented for a company with thirty or fifty branches. We had a good experience with the conversion between Cisco and FortiGate for secure access points because Now I'm a consultant for network administration, and we have a challenge with choosing one of these, and so for example, someone, if I actually choose a Fortinet product, SD-WAN based on Fortinet, sometimes someone chooses SD-WAN based on Cisco, but because my special is Cisco, I prefer SD-WAN based on Cisco.

One of the weaknesses of the solution is something we noticed, especially after comparing the tool with SD-WAN features, since, unfortunately, in a massive scale size environment, the solution is not good. It cannot be recommended for massive scaling in terms of size, especially for businesses with more than 1,000 branches.

Cisco is very stable, especially on the larger scale side, and it's very important for SD-WAN features. If you try Next Generation Firewall for a big company, then it is good to purchase a Cisco product. However, Cisco's price is a little high and more than Fortinet's prices. But for small companies, it is better to choose Fortinet and FortiGate products, which is important.

A company needs a tool for accounting. Unfortunately, now we don't have any accounting, especially for the quarter and control side. We don't have any solution in FortiGate. However, Sophos Firewall has it, so it is good for Fortinet's next version.

I have been using FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) for more than eight years. I am just a technical person, so I'm a solution designer, a network architect involved in network security.

In FortiGate, after FortiOS Version 5.6, it is stable, and there is no problem. However, we had many problems with FortiOS Version 5.0.5 in FortiGate. Now, when we use FortiGate's FortiOS Version 7, we don't have any problems. The solution has improved, and it is a good product now. For a larger scale, my recommendation is to choose a Cisco product like Firepower Services because, in a massive-scale business, stability is very important.

When I survey FortiGate and FortiGate products, I see that they have a good performance, especially in terms of next generation firewalls. In the future, improving such features and performance is absolutely better. Juniper has a better performance compared to FortiGate.

Speaking about technical support, I have a good experience with design, especially in terms of security design and security architecture.

In level one support, they connect to customers directly, which is a part of our work, and we should solve customer problems. But I prefer staying in level two, where we develop, implement, and solve huge and complex problems, because I have had a good experience with this for more than ten years. Also, I think I have good behavior when under heavy pressure.

I think price-wise, the solution is totally reasonable since it has many products to serve, starting from small homes to massive scale sites. A company can choose from one of the offerings by the solution company. Also, it's very important to choose a contract support level. Some companies may choose RMA with support twenty-four hours and seven days a week. So, it depends on the contract support, I think. The Fortinet appliance is a reasonable purchase for companies.

Regarding the license costs, when you choose the 100 series, it is completely different from the 1000 series. It's very important, and so when you choose one-year support or five-year support, or seven-year support, the pricing depends on which one you choose.

In Iran, we have a massive sanction, so we don't use direct support. We don't talk about this. But, concerning my country and direct support from Fortinet, I can't speak about this event. So, in Iran, I don't have an idea about the use of support since we don't use direct support, but we do get indirect support.

When planning to choose FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), the scope of the company is very important. Also, it is important for a company to consider if they want one gig, ten gigs, or another concurrent pair concurrent session. Totally, a company's scale and size are very important. After that, for example, we use a prototype with a five gigabit per second, including the performance. However, if we compare Cisco, Fortinet, and other things, Firepower is very good because Cisco's Firepower is a big and active solution which is very strong compared to Fortinet. However, it's very important for a company to have a native firewall, so such companies can't choose from Fortinet series. So, it very much depends on the situation of the company. So, before that, we review a company's requirements and survey network. After that, usually, I recommend the solution. Also, it is very important to have a budget. For example, a company can first tell me about its budget, like, one billion dollars or whatever. After that, we choose a guide and recommend choosing one of the solutions.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

We have deployed this firewall for many companies. Our clients are financial and medical companies.

It enabled our clients to reach locations and access their applications easily with no latency. It provided ease of access.

Its threat prevention capabilities are most valuable. 

It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall. 

The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI.

I faced a lot of issues when I was trying to deploy the firewall through FortiManager. The firewall is stable, but FortiManager is too buggy, and it doesn't work properly. It gives too many errors.

There are some issues with Fortinet SD-WAN. It's quite complex.

I've been using this solution for more than four years.

It's a very stable product.

It's scalable. We have plans to increase its usage.

Most of the time, they are helpful, but there are times when they don't resolve an issue right away. They take the log, and then they take their time to give input on the issue. Most of the time, they take one or two days to get back after analyzing the logs. Instead of that, they can just schedule a session to resolve the issue right away because sometimes the issue impacts the production environment, so we need to resolve that issue as soon as possible. Overall, I'd rate them a six out of ten.

Neutral

I have worked with other firewalls. Fortinet FortiGate is better than Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls. It's more user-friendly.

I have deployed it for a bank at a core level. On the perimeter, there was a Palo Alto firewall, and at the core level, we deployed the FortiGate firewall at DC and DR locations. After that, we deployed SD-WAN. We replaced the MPLS switch with the Fortinet SD-WAN device, so the whole branch traffic comes to the SD-WAN box, and from there, it comes to the FortiGate firewall, and then it goes to the Palo Alto firewall for the internet access and resource access. While migrating branches from MPLS to SD-WAN, we did require a maintenance window.

There was no difficulty. It was very user-friendly. I have had many difficulties with the Check Point firewall. I have deployed major projects on the FortiGate firewall. I migrated more than a thousand branches on Fortinet SD-WAN and implemented FortiGate super massive firewalls at DC and DR locations. There were no complexities. Only at one location, I had an issue related to SD-WAN, but my query was resolved by Fortinet's local team.

It's an on-premises firewall for the DC and DR locations. I have never worked on cloud projects, but if there is any opportunity to deploy it on the cloud, I will do it. I have only done on-premises deployment.

I am an implementation engineer. I deployed and configured the whole firewall. I also troubleshot any issues. When I had any queries, they were clarified by Fortinet's engineers.

Its pricing is good. It's average or normal as compared to Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls. 

I didn't evaluate other options.

I'd recommend this firewall to others. Most of the time, when I do PoCs, I recommend Fortinet FortiGate. It's quite easy to manage and deploy.

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.

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.