Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

The typical use case for Fortinet FortiGate is perimeter security, which is why our clients use this solution.

We are an implementer of Fortinet solutions.

It works well to protect the edge. For protecting the edge, Fortinet FortiGate secures any data traversing the network back to the cloud or data center through encryption. I have found it easy to configure, which results in no problems.

The security services provided by Fortinet FortiGate firewall are among the best. They have been in Gartner's quadrant for a very long time, which always helps.

Fortinet FortiGate has been able to secure mission-critical data effectively. It secures our customer's network properly, so that's always beneficial.

The ability of Fortinet FortiGate to provide network and security convergence is impressive, as they have stable features including application control. They also have advanced routing policies that set themselves apart in network security. Their solutions gel effectively with a single console for management, which is a significant advantage.

FortiOS is quite good in my experience with Fortinet FortiGate, and it works very effectively and is stable for companies. The customers have given feedback that FortiOS has been very stable for a long time. 

From a feature standpoint, it's easy to set up if people want to try and set up VPNs and other configurations. Policy control is quite nice, and we have a lot of experience with this solution, which helps us a lot.

Their support can be better, and there should be better policies for immediate replacement in critical situations. Their replacement policy varies depending on the type of support subscription. With the standard support subscription, if the device goes down, the customer has to first ship the box, and then Fortinet sends the replacement. With the higher support, the customer has to ship the device after they have the replacement. It would be better for customers to get immediate replacements even with a standard subscription.

I have more than 10 years of experience working with Fortinet FortiGate.

It is very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

If you size the solution correctly based on the customer's network, number of users, and throughput required, there is no problem regarding scalability, so I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

We have small, medium, and large customers who have opted for Fortinet FortiGate.

I would rate technical support from Fortinet an eight out of ten. Their technical support can be improved slightly as we sometimes experience delays in support for urgent customer needs.

Positive

The typical deployment model for Fortinet FortiGate is mostly on-premises. However, there is a virtual appliance available for cloud setups, but in India, most of the sales are for on-premises appliances.

Fortinet FortiGate definitely reduces the total cost of ownership because it offers better management capabilities through a single platform. Its widespread use makes skill sets more available, making it much more cost-effective for customers than other products which may require higher resource costs.

It is more affordable than Check Point and Palo Alto. Another thing is that all the features and the OS remain the same irrespective of the size of the device.

Pricing-wise, Fortinet typically provides one-year support with the firewall appliance. There is also an option for three years which is how their licensing works. They also offer add-ons for features to keep more logs or data, which is standard across their competitors as well.

The price-to-performance ratio for using Fortinet FortiGate is always better compared to any other competitor, so they are rated better than the likes of Check Point or Palo Alto.

The network availability improves when implementing a Fortinet solution; it's definitely much better for a customer compared to having no solutions in place. They are affordable overall.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.

On-premises

Fortinet FortiGate is commonly used by many customers in my region requiring a low-cost and better solution. Fortinet offers antivirus, next-generation antivirus feeds, DLP, application control, URL filtering, and IPsec VPN. These are the common use cases that many customers use, including IPsec, SSL VPN, URL filtering, DNS filtering, video filtering, and application filtering.

A useful feature of Fortinet FortiGate is its firewall capability because when I create and implement a rule, it is simple to execute. I just need to select the incoming interface, outgoing interface, and apply the source and destination, and that is all. This is the simplest way to implement the policy, and I can easily create a simple rule in this manner, which I consider one of the best features in Fortinet FortiGate.

When considering the effectiveness of Fortinet Unified SASE in providing consistent security policies across multiple locations, I find there is a very good positive response from many customers and from my side as well, as it provides centralized, verified policy creation. For many locations, I can create a simple policy from a centralized location without any difficulty, simply by putting one Fortinet FortiGate in the branch and creating a central policy from my head office.

I would like to improve the application filter aspect of Fortinet FortiGate, similar to other solutions that offer a simple click to select categories. If I do not want to block an entire category, there should be a provision to just enter the website or application, which I believe would be a beneficial improvement.

Regarding how stable and reliable Fortinet FortiGate is, I find it reliable as far as the rule implementation is concerned, and I can rely on the simple way of creating the rule. However, one feature that I cannot rely on is the application filter, which requires tedious steps compared to other solutions like Check Point and Palo Alto, where creating the application filter rule is simpler. In Fortinet FortiGate, I need to create and edit the profile and add websites according to my list, making it a bit cumbersome.

For around two years I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate as a partner, and I have deployed the Fortinet FortiGate firewall at more than twelve to thirteen customer locations.

In general, I think that Fortinet FortiGate is mostly used by small to medium enterprises, as it offers a low-budget option for security. Fortinet is the best choice for small enterprises because it provides security as per their requirement and comes under their budget, making the pricing very acceptable for medium-level and small-level enterprise customers.

My experience with the initial setup and deployment of Fortinet FortiGate is that it is very easy, as I just need to open the box and power on the appliance. I can register the appliance on a portal from the firmware, and within half a day, I can make Fortinet FortiGate live in any office setup with a simple policy.

When rating the technical support from Fortinet, I can say that I am personally not happy with it, so I would rate it at a six out of ten.

My frustrations with the technical support come from the need to log a ticket for issues with Fortinet firewalls and FortiSwitches, as I have to create separate tickets for each, which increases my workload and delays issue resolution since I must manage multiple tickets for the same problem.

Positive

I have integrated SD-WAN capabilities with Fortinet FortiGate when multiple customers have two ISPs, as it provides ISP redundancy failover with simple configuration. I have integrated with SD-WAN as well.

Comparing Fortinet FortiGate with similar tools in the firewall area, I find that Fortinet FortiGate does better in pricing for small to medium businesses, as they offer a good deal compared to other OEMs.

The last time I worked with Fortinet FortiGate was two to three days ago when I assisted a customer in migrating from Check Point to Fortinet.

I have not worked on a Fortinet FortiGate data center solution currently, as I have mostly deployed for medium branches and small offices.

These are all the improvements that I would like to suggest for Fortinet FortiGate.

My customers usually prefer deployment on-premises for Fortinet FortiGate.

My experience with integrating Fortinet FortiGate with third-party tools involves LDAP, which integrates very easily by entering the LDAP ID, username, password, and port number, making the experience fairly good.

I would rate this review an eight out of ten.

On-premises

I'm using it for web filter and then using it for VPN connection user to site, and I'm using it to make a virtual ID to link a real ID from the server to provider to my servers to publish servers.

I work with Fortinet FortiGate SD WAN. I configure the SD WAN to use two Internet service providers from two different service provider links. When one of them is down, the SD WAN goes down. I have to go to the SD WAN and remove this link from the SD WAN member. I confirmed that with the local provider and it's working. Sometimes, when a member of the SD WAN link is down, the SD WAN is down, and this is not the solution. I made the SD WAN for redundancy, however, when a member of the SD WAN link is down or I finish the quote of the Internet, all the SD WAN stops working and users experience problems.

With the web filter, when I go to post some websites under certain categories and open these categories, I experience some problems. 

Additionally, I face difficulties integrating Fortinet FortiGate with Active Directory. When I set preferences to use Active Directory users, it sometimes works and sometimes does not work. When I integrate Fortinet FortiGate with Active Directory and use this integration to make a web filter policy, the functionality is inconsistent. I have tried restarting the Active Directory domain controller and the firewall, but the problem persists. As a workaround, I use the MAC address of the user to define the settings.

I have been using the solution for about five years.

I haven't configured or experienced any stability issues.

It's safe and secures my network and applications in some sites. However, I have significant problems when implementing web filters, which is a very problematic issue for me.

I often ask for help from the local provider. I haven't found the required efficient help. Currently, I have problems connecting to some banking systems and departmental Texas portals. I have asked for help but haven't found assistance through the site or through the local provider. When trying to open a ticket, they reply with solutions that are not applicable to my situation.

Positive

I didn't have a firewall previously. That said, I did have a VPN gateway.

I haven't configured or used the initial setup.

I didn't choose or have knowledge about the implementation team.

The return on investment was good.

The setup cost was good. The Egyptian pound is declining, and upgrading Fortinet FortiGate yearly costs about $2000 USD, which equals one hundred Egyptian pounds. I maintain a business relationship with the vendor and receive support from them.

I considered switching to Sophos. Due to my previous experience with Fortinet FortiGate, I preferred to stay with Fortinet FortiGate.

The solution requires careful attention, and when problems occur, they typically don't repeat once resolved. 

I miss having local provider support here in Egypt. International support is difficult to obtain. Local support is preferable yet has become very expensive due to currency devaluation in Egypt. 

On-premises

Other

The typical use case for the Fortinet FortiGate firewall for my clients is its ease of use. My clients are using Fortinet FortiGate as SD-WAN.

The effectiveness of Fortinet's unified SASE in providing consistent security policies is notable because there is one security profile from either the head office or the branch office, allowing your profile to move seamlessly with you wherever you go. You have end-to-end visibility, and you can look at the analytics. To me, that moves towards SASE.

My clients appreciate it for its features. It is easy to install and manage, and it offers all-around protection, including web filtering, content filtering, IPS, and IDS.

My clients find the next-generation firewall feature of Fortinet FortiGate to be particularly valuable. It provides internet security, network security, cloud security, ZTNA, and SD-WAN security. There is a unified agent for FortiClient. There is centralized management.

Areas of improvement for Fortinet FortiGate include the need for more training and certification, especially when dealing with distributors globally, which presents challenges in product availability and delivery timelines.

There should also be more training and certification.

I have about 10 years of experience with Fortinet FortiGate.

I find Fortinet FortiGate to be a stable solution.

Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution, as you can start small, maybe with FortiGate 40F, and then move to FortiGate 60F or FortiGate 80F, depending on your needs.

It depends on who your distributor is. 

Neutral

It is not straightforward, but the implementation is pretty good overall. Every site is different for me. There is no standard site. We have a few different issues here and there, but overall, it's pretty good and straightforward to install. Its integration is not difficult.

It is a matter of learning and understanding the reasons why people need Fortinet FortiGate.

Fortinet FortiGate positively provides my clients' organizations with a high return on investment. There is visibility into network operations, allowing us to identify network issues. It has advanced security features. You can achieve about 200% ROI over three years, while enhancing IT teams' productivity by about 50%. It simplifies security across branches and enhances hybrid and cloud security. There is even a feature where you can predict the application performance.

It's very competitive.

Many users nowadays prefer agentless installations over installing agents on their devices, which presents challenges for endpoint security, especially concerning ZTNA, VPN, and endpoint protection.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

On-premises

In our organization, FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) serves as the main security system for our firewall needs. I have utilized it to manage the firewalls and some other security appliances, such as VPNs. Currently, my usage focuses primarily on firewall management. I set up rules, search for logs, and consult logs when issues arise. This approach covers most of our security management tasks.

One of the most valuable features of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is the ease of usability it offers. It is quite easy for me to learn to use. Additionally, FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) has improved our efficiency in setting up security and provided us with more visibility over some issues and incidents we previously faced.

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) could be improved by including more templates for setting rules or regular jobs. I do not recall if the software includes any AI features.

I have had experience with FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) for about five or six years.

When deploying FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), it required one week for the initial setup and just two hours for effective deployment. There were no significant issues during this process.

In my experience, there are usually no significant stability issues with FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW). However, updating the software during issues can be quite convoluted, especially if there is an unexpected attack, such as on a Saturday.

Customer service with Fortinet for FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) has been quite good. We experienced a major issue during one of the upgrades, and it took about an hour to reach support and rectify the problem.

Positive

Before using FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), we used Cisco for our firewall needs. Cisco presented a lot of usability challenges. Setting up firewalls and rules with Cisco was difficult and required extensive knowledge of their system, which led us to switch to FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW).

The initial setup of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) was relatively smooth. It took about one week for the complete setup and two hours for the actual deployment.

The deployment involved two people from my side, and we also had assistance from a vendor during the setup.

In terms of return on investment, FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) has been straightforward. It has notably improved our efficiency and visibility.

The pricing of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is reasonably affordable. It is suitable for mid-level and high-level companies, though it might not be cheap for small companies.

I would recommend FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) to others. Despite some issues with upgrades and vulnerabilities, Fortinet quickly addresses concerns. Overall, on a scale of one to ten, I would rate FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) as an eight.

My main use case for Fortinet FortiGate is for VPN and its appliances and for securing all of our remote locations.

A specific example of how I use Fortinet FortiGate to secure my remote locations is that we set rules on each of our locations about what traffic can and cannot go in, so we can allow certain connections for our partners such as Frontiers.

The best features Fortinet FortiGate offers are the built-in security functions, which I think are very nice.

We find the built-in security functions most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate, particularly web filtering, as it is all hands-on. Web filtering is our standout feature, and I don't want to add anything else about the features.

Fortinet FortiGate has positively impacted my organization by centralizing the way to access all of our network firewalls.

I wish Fortinet FortiGate's UI updates would be done in a more simplified way to improve it.

I choose nine for my rating because I think there's always room for improvement, and I think some of the things in the UI need to be adjusted so they're a little bit more simplified and not overcomplicated.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for at least three and a half, maybe four years now.

In my experience, Fortinet FortiGate is very stable, and it has been quite consistent during times of downtime.

Fortinet FortiGate's scalability has been keeping up well with my organization's growth or changes, as each location gets larger and we feel the need to put a Fortinet FortiGate in each one.

We have had to reach out multiple times to Fortinet engineers for customer support, and it has been great every time; they always seem to get to the bottom of it within one to two calls.

We did use a different solution before Fortinet FortiGate, but it has been so long that I cannot remember who it was; it may have been Palo Alto.

I believe we have seen a return on investment in terms of fewer employees needed, but otherwise, it is outside of my scope.

I was not directly involved in the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiGate.

We did consider other options before choosing Fortinet FortiGate, but it was a straightforward decision, and I am not quite sure what the other options were.

I do not have anything that is unique to us about how we use Fortinet FortiGate in our setup.

We do not utilize Fortinet FortiGate's data center solution, and we do not feel the need to consider AI and ML enhanced FortiGuard services within Fortinet FortiGate.

I would advise others looking into using Fortinet FortiGate to make sure that they get their configurations right from the start, as that means they have less of a need to get support involved. I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

Hybrid Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Our use case for Fortinet FortiGate is network administration and network security; this is the use for Fortinet FortiGate.

The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are security, configuration facility, and easy configuration. Additionally, we get very good support from the manufacturer. The major impact of Fortinet FortiGate for clients is providing a redundant path from the service locations or servers location to the users that are in another location; this is the best impact.

One area for improvement for Fortinet FortiGate could be the price, as my clients here are small companies, and they might not have the resources or money to always buy a Fortinet FortiGate solution or FortiGate products.

I have been with that platform for about two to three years.

In general, Fortinet FortiGate's stability is very good, but in some cases, there are unusual situations. For example, we have one client with high availability with two Fortinet FortiGates, where one of them has high processor and memory usage while the other one is low, and they work in a passive-active scheme for availability. The strange part is that one Fortinet FortiGate works perfectly, and the other one has high processor and memory consumption.

Most clients are in one location, but two or three clients have SD-WAN characteristics in their implementations.

I would rate their support a nine out of ten. The support is very good, but it's not always easy to find a Spanish speaker, as some clients don't know how to speak English and need support in Spanish.

I integrate SD-WAN features for some clients; specifically, I have three or four clients with SD-WAN integrations, while most of my clients are with one location. I find it easy integrating these capabilities.

Security is very good with Fortinet for my clients; this is one of the best reasons to make a decision to buy a Fortinet solution.

Fortinet FortiGate saves a lot of time in expert hours from an expert engineer because the administration of the Fortinet FortiGate solution is easy, which may lead to fewer hours of an engineer spent on Fortinet FortiGate. It could save approximately 40 hours a month.

I would recommend this solution to others; it's the best solution in the market. The main advice I give to people who consider using Fortinet FortiGate is for security and administration, as we can get complete visibility of the network.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution a 10.

On-premises

Other

I used Fortinet FortiGate to protect some perimeters, and I used it a lot for detection, filtering, domain control, and security functions and features. 

I worked for a company that used Fortinet FortiGate to provide services to many customers across various industries and through different environments. Some companies ranged from five to 50 to 100 users, and others were double that size, and even more.

We improved a lot of our users' security, including malware from outbound internet. It reduced downtime and helped detect and block malicious actions. The realization of benefits was immediate.

The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are that it's simple to implement all necessary settings, and it's quite fast. 

Their web interface to manage it is excellent, even compared with other providers. 

With Fortinet FortiGate, we improved security significantly. It blocks a lot of malware from the internet and even between our hosts in different networks, thus enhancing our security and reducing any downtime by blocking problems that could stop operations.

One of the most important areas for improvement for Fortinet FortiGate is the limited resources for tests. I was limited to a few interfaces for one month, and it would be great if Fortinet could improve these features in their test versions.

I used Fortinet FortiGate for three years in total.

I would rate the support with Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten. 

We had a few problems, and whenever we needed support, they attended to us in a few hours or days based on the severity level, resolving the problems with minimal impact on the environment.

Positive

They were using SonicWall and pfSense before switching to Fortinet FortiGate.

Fortinet FortiGate is more user-friendly when it comes to the interface and setting every feature you need, and keeping it working as expected to protect the network, while SonicWall is too advanced and very laggy and confusing to use. SonicWall does not do anything better than Fortinet FortiGate.

The initial setup for clients was very straightforward, easy to implement, and required few steps to keep it working with Fortinet FortiGate. It takes about one day, around ten hours of work for small companies and normal offices to deploy Fortinet FortiGate. That said, it might take longer for bigger networks. However, it's not too much time compared to other companies or providers.

It required around two or three people who understand the network to deploy Fortinet FortiGate, along with one or two more for setting devices or any changes and tests to ensure everything is working as expected. The total was somewhere around five people or slightly less, depending on your knowledge about the existing network.

I cannot calculate the exact return on investment from Fortinet FortiGate. We evaluate it based on the impact of downtime when we have problems in the environment, however, the ROI is less than a year. 

Fortinet FortiGate helps save time and improve efficiency by aggregating logs that help us understand what's happening, thus improving our detection time and reducing operational errors. We reduced our time by approximately 30% with Fortinet FortiGate.

Fortinet FortiGate's pricing is comparable to others.

I am currently working for another company and not using Fortinet FortiGate. The last time I used Fortinet FortiGate was on March 25th, just a few months ago. 

I work as a technical user in cybersecurity monitoring. My current company is a partner, however, I don't have any relation with sales. 

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Fortinet FortiGate a ten.