Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

We primarily use the solution for security - for the firewall.

The solution has a variety of excellent features.

The cloud base that they have on offer is great.

Overall, the solution is very good and we've been very happy with it.

The solution is very user friendly. The user interface in particular is quite nice.

The integration is great.

The customization could be improved. Cisco, for example, is much better at this. They need to work to be at least as good as they are.

I've been using the solution for one year so far.

So far, the stability has been very good. We haven't had any issues at all. I haven't had issues with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's great.

I haven't run into any issues when it comes to scaling. If a company needs to scale it should be able to do so without much of a problem.

I haven't really dealt directly with technical support. Once, when I ran into an issue, I spoke with my local partner. Other than that, you can find the answers you need via the help navigation.

Therefore, I can't speak to the helpfulness of technical support. I can't speak to whether or not they are responsive or knowledgable.

I have been satisfied with the help I've received from my local partner, however. They've been quite good.

We do use other solutions as well, such as Cisco. We find this solution to be better in general, and more user-friendly. That said, Cisco does do customization better.

The initial setup is not complex. It's pretty straightforward. We found it to be quite simple.

When I bought it, I found that the user interface made everything pretty easy from the start. They also have very good help features that can assist you if you get stuck. It was pretty easy to configure the items I needed to.

The price is pretty much standard with the competition. It's not overly expensive.

That said, if you want to have a good security VPN or firewall, then you should invest more than money and pay interest in local devices. If you want a better network structure and better security, then you need more local devices.

I use FortiGate quite a bit. I'm just a customer and end-user. I don't have a business relationship with the company.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate the solution at an eight. I've been pretty happy with it so far.

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 the firewall for the most part. It's to help us with security on our network.

The solution has a very good set of rules.

The customization potential is quite impressive. It can be customized based on our licensing contracts.

The initial setup was pretty simple. We didn't find it to be overly difficult to execute on.

Technical support is rather helpful.

We find the stability to be pretty good.

We didn't have any trouble setting up the solution.

We find the pricing to be fairly good.

The ease of use could be improved. 

We've been using the solution for about five years. We have been continuously working with FortiGate itself throughout that time. It's been a while.

So far, the stability has been pretty good for us. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. I'd describe the stability as reliable.

I can't really speak to the scalability of the solution, as it isn't as aspect I handle. I've never tried to do it, so I'm not sure how it works.

We have about 50 users on the solution. About one third have access to it.

We only really had one issue in the past where we had to deal with technical support. We needed some restoration of some data. It wasn't a bad experience. We were satisfied with their level of service. They seem to be knowledgeable and responsive.

In terms of the initial setup, the process was not complex at all. We found it to be very straightforward and easy. We didn't run into any issues setting everything up.

We have one engineer that handles ongoing maintenance for us when we need it.

The pricing is fair. I don't feel that it is too expensive.

I've been good with using Fortinet. It's a fine tool. 

Overall, I would recommend the solution to other organizations.

I would rate it a nine on a scale from one to 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.

Our clients' main use case for Fortinet FortiGate is for the firewall on the outside perimeter to the internet. Some of them have started using it for SD-WAN.

We are software integrators. 

Our clients like the packaging because it's an appliance. It has specific chip sets to accelerate different features in the product.

Additionally, it's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there.

In terms of what can be improved, they do have certain features that you can only configure through a CLI and there's no GUI interface for it. That's a pain. But it's nice that the user can do everything one way or the other.

They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for at least the last 12 months.

Fortinet FortiGate is pretty stable.

It is hard to judge this year because of everybody working from home. Everybody is using up a lot of bandwidth so I'm not sure if that is a cause for some of the instability with the Forti client. The only place we've seen instability would be updating Forti client with their software called EMS.

So pushing out the client with EMS, like a client update to remote users, has proven a pain in the butt. But that could be because the end users' VPNs are maybe a little bit unstable just because of the high bandwidth demands. It is hard to determine. Maybe it is because some of these users are in remote areas, or non-urban or smaller towns, as opposed to being in an urban area where bandwidth is a little better.

We never jump ahead and say, "Oh, yes. 6.5 just came up. Let's jump on that." We'll probably just wait six months and see what goes on first. And I guess that's probably what a lot of people do because it's protecting your intellectual property and everything which that company owns.

I'm not saying that there's no instability. People will generally just wait and not jump out unless they're testing in the lab. They're not going to jump out and put the first revision that comes out on their firewalls.

In terms of scalability, it scales very well.

They have different models for different sizes. Obviously, if you buy too small and you have to upgrade, then it's a box swap. Some other vendors can just add another unit and you cluster them together. In their case it's more of just switching the box out for more performance boxes if you go too low.

Their technical support is very good.

Every time we've had to open up a case or get their help, if we surpass that person's ability, it gets escalated right away. So it's very good. It usually gets resolved within a day or two.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward.

In terms of ROI, they're inexpensive. Because they're inexpensive, they're just everywhere, in the Federal Government, schools, everywhere where budgets are fairly tight. And it is a very good product. It's a product that's built that if you need to you can add a different box and remove that feature from your main FortiGate and just run it on a different box.

So if you need to expand, you can always do it that way too.

They have good integration if you have multiple firewalls and it allows you to be able to push out policies to all of them at the same time.

Fortinet FortiGate's pricing is pretty hard to beat.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Fortinet FortiGate a 10 out of 10.

The purpose of this solution is to provide intrusion protection and more robust endpoint security for small offices. We are providing an enterprise solution for a small business by adding endpoint protection coupled with Intrusion Detection and Protection.  For small offices needing HIPAA compliance, we need to make sure we are providing robust protection instead of the default modem gateway provided by the ISP.

The Fortinet product provides enterprise capabilities in a small footprint at a price point that is more attainable for a small business. The product meets the IPS/IDS/Endpoint protection that small organizations need for their HIPAA and PCI compliance.  While the end user may not understand the true capabilities, the managed service provider can more easily deploy and maintain this small footprint product.

The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was based on other reviews and leadership in this space. Being able to have a VPN solution as well as integrated access points is a plus. For me, it's all about simplicity. When you look at my particular model for a managed service provider, it's basically to help simplify, protect, and remain compliant. When you're trying to implement something, it's about making sure it is simplified. This seems to fit the bill.

The product has enterprise capabilities, which means there are a ton of configurations possible.  What I'd like to see in the product is more of a branch in the box wizard deployment for those that are not as well versed in firewall and routing.  For a small business, the firewall should be able to self-configure for a Unified Threat Management configuration with 2 SSIDs for protected wireless network for internal gear and a guest wireless network for employee cell phones and guests.  I'd like to open the box, plug in the router behind the cable modem, and check a few boxes, and the rest is done automatically.  I don't want to have to build a configure VLANs, SSIDs, security protocols for each port, and try to figure out and understand all the layers in an effort to deploy a solution.  It's great to have those capabilities in case you need them, but for most of the offices I am trying to deploy these into--it should be a branch in a box.

I've only been using the solution for a few weeks. It's very new for us.

Stability has been fine. I've had no questions about the stability of it. It seems so far it is staying up. I haven't had any issues to speak of.

I haven't really pushed this product from a scalability perspective. Certainly, if you look at the performance metrics, the F series appears to have really expanded the capacity and capabilities beyond past models. If you look at 40E versus 40F, there's a fairly substantial difference. For a small office, it's going to be just fine.

I haven't reached out to technical support and therefore can't speak to their level of responsiveness.

N/A

The initial setup is complex for me due to my lack of experience with the Fortinet FortiGate product. The complexity can be a good thing, however, as there's a lot of really good features associated with it. Where it could be simplified is in having that easy deployment option, and then you can start going down and trying to get into the nitty-gritty and figure out when do you need the extra features.

Right now, I'm just in a test environment getting all the firmware up and tested. Then, once I have it tested, I'll take it to the client location and yank out their WiFi mechanism, their WiFi router, and put this in.

I'm currently handling the implementation for a client.

ROI is somewhat difficult to measure when you are mostly talking about deploying a product for endpoint security.  If your environment stays protected, then it was a good return on investment.

When you look at these endpoint security systems and firewalls, these products a few years were way too expensive for a small business. Now we have enterprise level security in a footprint that is less than $1,000.  For offices that have 10-25 computers needing protection, this is a better solution.

The good news is that Fortinet does have a good support network as well as their education academy to help someone get up to speed on their product.

We primarily use the solution just for internal segmentation and connection of some ranges using IPSec.

Currently, the solution is saving costs for us and blocks applications effectively using layer seven.

The solution's most valuable aspect is the IPS for potential mitigation from the cloud inside our network. 

The VPN SSL is important for us. 

The web filter is very good. 

The GUI is okay.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The documentation provided is okay, I find that sometimes, with other startups, it's hard to find a good amount of documentation in order to assist you with the product. In this case, the solution offers a good amount of detail.

The solution offers good analyzing capabilities.

I'm not sure if the solution is really lacking anything major. For us, it works okay.

They seem to have made a lot of improvements since the last release.

Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away.

We've been using the solution for about ten years at this point. As it's been about a decade, I'd say we have quite a bit of experience with it.

For the most part, the memory and the CPU are good. It's generally stable. We don't face any issues with this aspect of the solution.

The scalability is fine. If a company needs to expand it, they should be able to do so without any issues.

We only have about 40 users on the product currently. It's not a big company.

For now, the product is good as it is and we don't have plans to increase usage in the future.

By and large, technical support is good. It's okay. It's not bad. It could be better, however, they do answer our questions when we have them. We're mostly satisfied with the level of service they provide. Of course, it could always be a bit better.

Sometimes the first contact is useful, and sometimes you don't get the kind of help you need right away. It would be nice if it was more consistent.

We also use Sophos. We use both solutions at the same time.

We didn't face any complexity when handling the initial implementation. The process is quite straightforward.

The implementation itself can sometimes take less than a week. On average, you should expect it to be about a week in total.

I didn't need the assistance of a reseller or integrator. I handled the implementation myself.

We're charged a licensing fee on a yearly basis. I'm unsure of the exact cost to the company, however. I'm not sure if there are other costs over and above the standard licensing fee.

We also looked at Juniper when we evaluated FortiGate. FortiGate is much easier to use in comparison which is why we chose it. The documentation was also better. That, and there was no integration for SSL in Juniper.

We're just a customer. We don't have a business relationship with the company.

Overall, I would recommend the product. It comes with a very good set of features.

I would rate the solution ten out of ten. We've been quite happy with it.

This Fortinet product is a firewall system, acting as our perimeter firewall. Generally speaking we use this system as a security product to defend from any attacks and to protect our internal network. We are very happy with the security features afforded by this product.

The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, IPS, and even SD-WAN.

In terms of what could be improved, the FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment

In terms of the FortiGate IPS, we haven't gotten additional tools because they are not free, and we have to purchase them to maximize this IPS feature. As long as they can perform some basic functions to meet our business needs, that is okay. I'm okay with this feature right now, so far.

In the next release of FortiGate the price could be better.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate since May of 2018.

This product is very stable.

Fortinet FortiGate is a very scalable product.

It is managed by the IT department, so only they use it.

Their support is quite good.

The initial setup is quite simple.

Not including the preparation, setup took about three days to just unpack them, connect it to the power, power it on, and do some initial configuration. That's just the three days, but we took about two weeks for the preparation and planning.

We had an external partner to help us and to work together with us to do the initial setup.

On a scale of one to ten I would give Fortinet FortiGate an eight.