Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

We have created a virtual cloud on-prem, providing services to our different IT domains in terms of software, database and ERP. We've also created a virtual firewall handling the security and protecting servers in the network. No unwanted or unauthorized user can access the servers. That's a good sign of security and the handling of the network. It provides us with oversight. I'm a senior network engineer and we are customers of Fortinet. 

With the Covid pandemic, the VPN has become the most valuable feature. With the majority of traffic connecting from remote locations, the VPN provides stability and reliability. The antivirus and its IPS, intrusion prevention system, also helps with stability.

In our environment, we need multiple virtual firewalls to facilitate end users and customers. Fortinet doesn't provide that but they really should include that feature. 

I've been using this solution for three years. 

Overall stability of the solution is good. I am totally dependent on this device. Basically, it's deployed on the edge of our network. All the software and HR, admin, every department is behind this network. And every user connects their internet services via the VPN. 

Scalability of this solution is good, we can add devices whenever we like. 

Whenever there's an issue and we contact support, the response is positive. The support is impressive. 

We previously used Cisco ASA but that model didn't support the latest technology, and was also very expensive. The main issue that caused us to switch solutions was the throughput of the interface. Cisco was providing us with one gig interface. Because of our gradually increasing bandwidth and network requirements, we had to move to more bandwidth and a 10 gig interface, which Fortinet provides. Although Cisco provides the same on a different model, that model was very expensive. That's why we chose to switch to Fortinet Firewall.

The initial setup is simple. It's only complex if the design hasn't been sorted or tested. If we're deploying, we study the network, traffic patterns, and traffic path, which is, I think, the most important thing about deploying any network device. We can easily create or delete, modify or customize and optimize the feature, the network, the routing, the policy, and the different features of this device. Most of the time we carry out the implementation ourselves, deploying in different phases; firstly connecting the network, and then partially shifting the traffic phase by phase. When we removed ASA and shifted all the traffic to Fortinet, the overall performance and overall working was very impressive. Downtime probably came to a total of 15 to 20 hours. We have multiple groups using this product - I would estimate somewhere between 12,000 to 13,000 users and the solution is used continuously. 

I think the licensing of Fortinet is in the middle range. We also had a demonstration from the vendor that gave us the confidence to work with these devices. We purchased the solution on a bundle basis which the vendor offered us. There are additional costs if we enable a new feature not included in the bundle.

I think Fortinet is a cheaper, stable, scalable, and reliable device. 

From my experience, I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

In most cases, we use the solution as a firewall to access the internet. For example, we use Cisco Wireless for our clients to have access to the network and we use within the same solution the FortiGate Firewall for them to access the internet as well.

The solution offers very easy usability. 

The product can scale well.

The solution is extremely reliable.

The pricing and licensing models are pretty good. 

The user interface, both the web and CLI versions, are very good.

The solution overall is quite good. It works how we need it to. I can't recall seeing any features that are lacking.

We haven't had any breaches in our organization, however, I have read in journals that there have been some issues.

There may have been some bugs after an update, however, that has since been resolved. We saw a few bugs in the web field and when we ran an update it was resolved in the new version. 

Some resources must be accessed via web fields. We were not able to access them at first. However, it was a simple task to fix it and that has since been resolved.

The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced.

I've been using the solution since I started at my current company. I began my employment here about a year ago or so.

The solution is quite stable. It doesn't give us issues. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash on us. It doesn't freeze. It's reliable. Fortinet has created a really reliable solution.

We've found the scalability of the solution to be very good. If a company needs to expand on this solution, it can do so with ease.

We have between 2,000 and 3,000 users on the solution currently.

We do plan to continue to use the solution going forward. We have no plans to change anything.

I've never contacted technical support. Having never dealt with them, I can't speak to their responsiveness or knowledgeability. I don't know enough about them from any kind of personal experience.

I also use Cisco wireless solutions. Our company uses both simultaneously.

While I did not participate in the main part of the installation, I've discovered from deploying small FortiGates such as FortWiFi 60E, that it's good. It's not too complex of a process. It's pretty straightforward. It's easy.

We've found the pricing to be fair and the licensing model is quite good. It's a reasonable cost. It's not too expensive.

That said, I do feel they could work on the pricing policy a bit.

Right now a license to use some of the simpler features like web filtering or antivirus, you have to pay about 80% of the hardware price to have a license for a year. That's a bit too much for such basic features.

We use a variety of Fortinet products. We are using mostly FortiGate 200E and we have some of FortiGate 100E and the FortiWiFi 60E.

We are not using the latest version of the solution at this time. We have version 6.0 and it completely meets our requirements. When we will have to update it we will do so. However, that is not so necessary right now. We will not update it until we need to.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. It's been a positive experience overall.

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for edge protection as well as the VPN and SD-WAN.

The solution has many valuable features. We tend to use all of them.

The initials setup is pretty easy.

The solution offers very good documentation.

The solution can scale well.

We've been happy with the technical support we receive.

The product is reliable and stable.

The support costs and licensing are sometimes so expensive. They should work on their pricing model.

I've been using the solution since 2018. It's been a few years at this point.

The stability is very good. We don't deal with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

The scalability is very good. If you need to scale it as an organization, you can do so.

We have 100 users. They are largely network engineers, however, we have technicians and active users.

We do plan to increase usage in the near future. We have more projects coming up.

We've used technical support in the past and we've had pretty good experiences. We're satisfied with the level of support we've received.

Their documentation is always good too. We've accessed cloud documentation via the portal and have found it to be helpful. The articles are very complete.

We previously used Juniper. We switched due to the host and the usability of Fortinet.

The initial setup isn't complex at all. We found it to be quite easy. It's straightforward.

The deployment took us about three to four weeks or so.

We use two people for deployment and maintenance.

I handled the implementation myself. I didn't need the help of a reseller, integrator, or consultant.

The solution is pretty expensive. That said, we see the value of the solution as it provides great value to our organization.

We pay to license the product on a yearly basis.

I'm not sure of the exact amount we pay, however, as it is not an aspect of the solution I handle directly.

We are customers and resellers of Fortinet products.

We work with both on-premises and cloud deployment models.

I definitely recommend this solution to other organizations. We've had a positive experience.

In general, I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. If the pricing were better, I would rate it higher.

IPS is the main use case because we want to protect our devices, users, and data from external dangers. 

We most probably are using the model of the last year. If the services connected to the hardware are possible on the cloud, we always prefer the cloud. The hardware must be placed on-premises. 

Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies.

We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID. 

They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. 

They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company. 

I have been using this solution for the last two years. 

It is stable, and I don't see any cons of this. 

Currently, everyone who is connected with the company is using this solution. We have up to 240 people.

I have interacted with them but only through emails. There were separate tickets and stories, and I don't remember right now how it was.

It was just a product for home-usage. It was a Cisco device from the small business series. It was less advanced than the similar devices available in the market currently. It was a huge step forward for us to switch to FortiGate.

It was a huge jump for us on the administrative side to implement this kind of hardware because we previously used just a simple product for home-usage. 

We hired a consultant to do this for us and to explain how the system works. After a few weeks, we did new certifications and training for this, and now, it works well for us.

I would recommend this solution. We plan to keep using this solution.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

We mostly use the solution for our internet-facing firewall.

The next-generation firewall features are the solution's most valuable aspect.

The implementation and deployment are pretty simple.

The pricing is very good.

We've found the solution to be pretty stable.

The solution isn't really lacking features per se.

The product does need better support in the cloud environment. It's not exactly cloud-native right now.

The solution needs to do more on the deployment in the multi-cloud. For example, clients have GCP and AWS. How do we deploy FortiGate in a cloud environment? Right now, there's no solution for that.

We're worried that the scalability isn't as good as it could be.

We've been using the solution for about two years or so. It hasn't been an extremely long time, however, it's been a while.

Stability, in our experience, is quite good. It doesn't run a lot of unexpected downtimes or anything of that nature. We haven't encountered any serious problems. There have been a few minor items here and there, however, by and large, it's quite good.

The solution isn't exactly scalable, especially when it comes to the public cloud environment. We'll need to scale up, so we will have to figure out how to do it effectively.

We primarily work with medium and large enterprises.

We find the solution to be pretty straightforward to set up and deploy. We didn't have any difficulties with implementation. 

The deployment takes less than a week. It's a pretty quick process.

We provide maintenance services for our clients.

We actually provide deployment services to our customers that need it. We can handle this aspect for customers.

The solution is on the cheaper side. There are other products that are competitors that are much more expensive.

That said, the pricing isn't just based on licensing costs. There are add-on costs as well a company will need to consider.

We are more of a solution integrator. We are not a straight reseller. We are partners, however. We recommend people to use products. That said, we don't actually resell the actual boxes.

We use different versions and deployments of the solution. It really is dependant on the client and their needs.

We mostly work with Fortinet. It's the main solution we recommend and use.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. We've had a pretty good experience.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We are a managed services company, and we are also a partner with Fortinet and Cisco Meraki. The firmware that I just started using is 6.4.4. Most of the FortiGates that I sell are 60E and 60F. For some of our larger customers, I have got a handful of FortiGate 80, 100, and 200.

Fundamentally, its primary purpose is security at the edge of the network. I have got some clients who are starting to use the SD-WAN feature for a multi-location setup. I have got other clients who are using a lot of IPSec tunnels. I also have some clients who, with the increase in remote workers, are taking advantage of the FortiClient product that ties in. They are using that for remote VPN connections. 

We are a managed services provider, and I would say that it has improved the way our client's organization functions. I would also hope that it is seamless for them. They don't even know it. The biggest improvement for us is that it allows us to do more with a smaller staff.

One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent.

One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them.

FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works.

Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware.

The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack.

I have been using this solution since 2007.

If you have the firmware version 6.4.3 and are using FortiLink in VLAN, it has trouble with tunneling networks for a wireless network. It won't give it a route to the internet. I found it just last week. There was a version back in 6.2 where it required 12 characters for the password of a wireless network on Web 2.0 as opposed to the traditional eight characters. The problem came when you wanted to edit it. If you upgraded to that firmware from a previous version, it wouldn't let you save any changes without changing the password, making it a requirement. That was kind of problematic for a while, but for the most part, it has been pretty stable and responsive.

It is easy to scale as long as you start with the right firewall. Our clients are of different sizes. We have clients with the home office with two or three employees. One of the clients has about 26 locations in all four time zones and about 400 employees.

I haven't used their official tech support, which is actually a good thing. The reason I haven't used their official tech support is that they have a support mechanism in place. I have direct access to a local sales engineer, and when I have problems, I call him up on the cell phone. Based on that, they definitely support their partners 100%. They are definitely channel driven, and it shows.

I have deployed SonicWall, WatchGuard, Cisco ASA, Rockies, and Palo Alto. The biggest reason I went with Fortinet is that it felt like it has got Palo Alto type of functionality at a much more reasonable price point.

I spent seven years working at the state level education, and budgets were tough. We had SonicWall subscription services. I could replace them with the brand new FortiGate with a three-year subscription for the same cost. That really changed things. The single pane of management that they have was just the frosting on the cake.

It is pretty simple. For example, I just set up a new network with a 100E, and I have got four stackable switches. It will run a network with 23 access points. I set up all the VLANs, routing, rules, and other things. It won't take more than four hours of work. I am getting ready to box up and ship it out. It will be plug and play once it gets to the site.

Take the training. They've got free training that is available online, and there are different levels for technical training. It is crucial. If you sign up as a partner, which doesn't cost you anything, the training is free. If you want to go for the test and get certified, you got to pay for the test, but the actual training materials are available to every partner for free. I would say that definitely take advantage of those. When you have new employees as network engineers, make this training a part of the routine.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten. I have been using it for years, and I do try to evaluate it on a regular basis and continue to stick with them. I just don't have a lot of bad things to say about them. Aside from their product, I'm a also fan of their company and how they do business, which makes it easier to do business with them. I don't necessarily appreciate the business practices of some of their competitors. It is nice not to have to worry about that.

We are selling FortiGate 60E and 200E. I mostly look after imports and finance, and my sales team and my corporate manager look after the business. Currently, we are buying renewals for our customers from a local distributor.

Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable.

They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. 

Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired.

I have been using this solution for almost two years.

It is 100% stable.

It is scalable. We have more than a thousand users. 

The support from the FortiGate team is good. My engineers never complained that they are facing any problem with Fortinet in terms of support.

It is very easy to install. It is way easier than Cisco.

The deployment duration varies from customer to customer. It depends on what features they want to utilize, what is their scenario for IP addressing, and what security level they want to implement. It also depends on the policy and the planning of the technical teams. My engineers and the customer's engineers sit together, and they plan the activity and take care of everything. After that, they decide what to implement and how long it will take. Sometimes there are physical, logical, or IP addressing problems, so it all depends on the customer and our implementation planning. I have three guys for deployment. 

Its price is affordable and lesser than Cisco. Cisco is expensive.

In terms of licensing, there is only one issue. If a customer's license has expired a month ago and they do the renewal after one month, Fortinet renews the license from the start of the previous month. The activation of the product is done from the previous month, not from the date of renewal. The customers usually shout and complain that because they are paying today, the renewal should start from today. The support contract renewals or licensing should be renewed from the date of renewal, but Fortinet starts from the day it had expired. It is a loss for customers. They might have had some problems because of which they did not take the license one month before. Fortinet should work on this. Cisco doesn't do this. Cisco always starts from the day they apply for the license.

We plan to keep selling this solution. Fortinet has launched new partnership levels. They have removed the silver partnership. We were a silver partner previously, and we have now become a premier partner or something like that. So, we have to improve our partnership on new levels.

I would definitely recommend this solution. We always support customers and recommend buying Fortinet. It is a better, more stable, and relatively cheaper product than Cisco. We supply Cisco only when a customer forces us to go for Cisco.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for a firewall plus as an overall UTM. We do not, however, use it as an SD-WAN.

The solution is very, very easy to use.

The user interface is very nice.

The product seems to offer pretty good customization.

The configuration of the product has been very straightforward and simple.

The reporting on offer is quite good.

The initial setup is straightforward as well.

We've found the pricing to be pretty good.

Technical support from the partner has been very helpful.

The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on. We haven't actually tried to implement that, however.

I've been working with the solution for close to ten years. It's been at least a decade at this point. It's been a while.

We haven't had any issues with the solution's stability. It's very reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. I can't recall experiencing bugs or glitches at all over the time I've used it. 

The scalability of the solution seems to be pretty good. We haven't had any issues in that respect.

Currently, our organization has about 125 users on the product.

While I don't have a direct line to Fortigate, I have used our partner support. They have been excellent and we are quite satisfied with the level of service we receive from them. They are knowledgeable and responsive.

The initial setup is not complex at all. I found it to be very straightforward. This was due to the fact that we had this solution procured along back in 2007 or 2008, as a smaller firewall, a FortiGate 60C.

We don't have anyone that handles maintenance full-time. It's an on-call situation. If we have issues or need maintenance, we raise a ticket and it is dealt with.

The pricing of the solution is fair. We don't find it to be overly expensive.

I've never looked at other products and therefore would not be able to really compare this solution to anything.

We are just customers and end-users of the product. We don't have a business relationship with Fortinet.

I'd recommend the solution. It's very simple and easy to use. On top of that, it offers peace of mind.

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.