Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

It offers a proxy and a firewall.

It has a better processor than CheckPoint.

It's not intuitive, as the rules will be in the last place you look. You can look for a report for an hour, eventually getting a blank page. User experience for the administrator is basically not good as it needs to be more proficient.

I've used it for two years.

I have five ISPs, and it was hard to connect the LAN to the WAN. It did not go well and I had do to a roll-back.

The product is so stable I don't need to have a cluster.

I use a service given by the integrator and it's better than Fortigate’s. The integrator gives me a guarantee that they will immediately replace my machine if a problem occurs.

I use a service given by the integrator and it's better than Fortigate’s. The integrator gives me a guarantee that they will immediately replace my machine if a problem occurs.

I used an open-source product name Squid.

It's straightforward, and was transparent for the users.

We did it in-house.

It costs $200,000 and is only a bit better than the open source solution, which was free.

You don’t have to buy the Fortigate analyzer, as you can also get the reports using Fortinet.

It's fine as a firewall and as a proxy. You need to configure the rules right or else it will be hard to keep up with the logs.

The key features of this product are:

• Network security
• UTM Features
• Configuration and ease of deployment.
• IP/User/Device Mac ID/Device Type based policy configuration
• Traffic shaping
• Load balancing
• Ease of VPN configurations
• Explicit proxy
• Link segregation
• Application signatures
• Network object based HTTPS/SSL inspection etc.

In many organizations it helps to come up with the requirements of proxy servers, defining network traffic and the amount of bandwidth for any network object or specified user(s). It has also provided us with security compatibility with other network devices such as IP cameras, the video conferencing system, VOIP phones. It also logs & reports on individual users network activities.

The FortiGate series does not have that much troubleshooting & network testing features in its GUI, hence we’ll definitely be looking for some add-on features in near future.

I have been using this solution for the past year.

No issues yet.

No issues yet.

For massive logs & reports (over a month) we have to go for a separate logging & reporting device i.e. FortiAnalyzer/FortiCloud, as this is not available in Fortigate itself.

7/10.

8/10.

We started with FortiGate itself.

This product has a setup wizard (FortiExplorer) for the initial configuration, while the physical connectivity is done via a USB cable which is very easy to use.

We implemented the solution ourselves.

It is value for money product as we’ve purchased it with Fortinet's three-year warranty package.

We have evaluated Dell’s Sonicwall & Cyberoam.

Analyze your needs first before implementing this product.

• Anti-virus
• NAT
• VPN

It's the only security product in place that is responsible for guarding the network infrastructure deployed within the premises. The product has lived up to its expectation with no issues whatsoever.

The web interface could be made better.

I've used it for eight years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

We have managed to maintain the device without getting in touch with technical support. Credit can be given to the documentation provided.

This was the first security device that was deployed.

Setup was straightforward and the documentation was very clear which meant that there were no issues during the initial setup.

We had a vendor assist us who had decent knowledge about the product.

We also looked at pfSense.

The product has reached its end of life.

The unlimited VPN licensing. All of our remote locations (1000+) used IPSec VPN and SSL to connect to the cluster.

We went from being terrified about our firewalls screwing up to completely forgetting we had firewalls. I slept better and so did my manager.

A real-time log viewer in the GUI with the capability to filter traffic displayed. Cisco ASA's have this and it's fantastic.

I used it for four years. We had two devices that were clustered together in a high availability pair as the front end of an country wide, high visibility solution.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Customer service was decent with Fortinet - they were helpful and got the product to our doorstep quickly.

This is where Fortinet stumbles. The support is farmed out overseas to techs that are not very knowledgeable about the Fortinet products. The response time for a critical priority one issue was over four hours and they only responded because we threatened legal action for them violating our support contract.

They used to have Juniper products, which are terrible. The enterprise class firewalls do not support any sort of packetflow gathering such as netflow, and the devices didn't even support Juniper's proprietary jflow. Their SRX series routers, meant for home office use, had more features and capabilities.

It was very straightforward and we encountered very little problems. Fail-over occurred within a second with zero outages or anyone actually taking notice. Firmware updates were easy to apply in a live environment if required, and the GUI was very easy to understand.

I deployed it - I'm FCNSA certified.

If we used a similar solution that required a "per seat" license per VPN, we would have literally spent over 100x what the solution cost us.

We implemented the clustered firewalls for around $30,000, and each office had another Fortigate device at a cost of around $1,000.

Cisco was evaluated but we didn't want to pay for the VPN licensing.

It's an absolutely fantastic product. Just get your support contract clarified, and confirm the response times.

I am using different features of this product but the most valuable are -

• SSL VPN
• Web filter
• Explicit proxy
• IPS
• Application control
• Routing

I replaced my core router with a Fortigate appliance and it is performing inter-VLAN routing. I removed manual proxies and used transparent proxy using Fortigate security profiles, and implemented traffic shaping, web filter, application control, IPS and anti-virus. All the servers are protected by Fortigate security profiles.

• WAN link load balancing
• Reports
• Anti-virus.

I have been using this solution since 2013.

We faced some technical issues on the Fortinet side.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

6/10.

6/10.

I didn't use any other solution prior to Fortinet.

It was complex because there was a huge network with VLANs configured and routing protocols enabled.

We implement this through a vendor. I would rate their level of experience 8/10.

I would only say that Fortinet provides business and security returns at a cost substantially lower than the benefits derived.

We evaluated Sophos and Barracuda alongside Fortigate.

Our experience of using Fortigate is excellent and we strongly recommend it.

• GUI
• Flexibility
• Easy to configure
• UTM

• Option to control application = increased productivity
• Data leak prevention = increased security
• Anti-virus & IPS = increased security

I'm happy with the product, however the licensing fees could be lower.

I've used it for six years.

No issues encountered.

There is a specific way of deploying a Fortigate product, and the scalability is related to the new unit deployment so there are no problems here. If you need more power/space, you just have to add a new box.

It's very good, I've never had any problems with customer service.

It's very good, I've never had any problems with technical support.

I was using Cisco ASA, and I switched due to a lack of features (e.g. poor SSL VPN support).

It's a very simple setup as everything is well documented online and via the Fortigate channel on YouTube. Also, I posses a large amount of knowledge gained during the years that has helped me to deploy all my solutions. Even from the the beginning, it was easy as Fortigate has a great GUI and good online help,

We did an in-house implementation, with no third party involvement.

The product is deployed as part of, and an add-on to, the MPLS solution for the majority of my customers. There is no ROI as this is not the major expectation, as the ROI is coming from the whole solution, not just this product.

All the costs are for the annual licenses. The cost of the original deployment fell below £5,000, and licenses are priced at around £3,000.

We considered Cisco, however we decided to go with Fortigate as it provides a good set of the features for the price paid,

Enjoy it. The product is easy to implement, easy to manage, and easy to develop and grow.

• High Availability clustering
• SNAT/DNAT
• Policies section view
• Virtual Domains
• Logging and Reporting
• IPS

It has made our daily operations easier, as well as adding security, and stability to them. Adding or removing security policies is simplified through its web interface, or CLI. Additionally, troubleshooting is fast and effective, as everything is organized in a very understandable way.

Its web interface needs to be more stable, and more functional, through the variety of browsers. Additionally a nice add-on would be a “diagnostic sniffer” capability in the web interface.

I've used it for six years.

With different browsers, the web interface crashes. On newer versions of Fortios the problem has been minimized.

Not at all, it is as stable as it should be.

I believe that it is a little complex adding new firewalls in an existing cluster.

8/10.

9/10.

We are using different firewall solutions, in parallel with the Fortigate ones.

It was straightforward. Taking control of the device for first time is easy, and the cookbook manual is very helpful.

A vendor team offered five day training but the implementation was in-house.

We evaluated other solutions, but I was not responsible for taking the final decision.

Throughout the last six years we have been using Fortigate firewalls, and the experience we gained is only positive. These devices are easy to manage, operate and troubleshoot any issues that might rise. The use of virtual domains has added more security presence by only having one physical device, and it’s easy to create them. Also, by enabling other security features on the VDoms, the physical performance will not be affected.

• IPS
• Web filtering

We are making use of the VDOM feature to segregate the traffic, and apply policy to control that traffic.

This product can't show the NAT status or NAT logs.

I've been using ForitGate for over two years alongside FortiManager 300D.

I have an issue with NAT only, in that I can't allow traffic from outside to inside using a NAT pool.

There was a bug related to device stability with HA configuration. We face many attacks on the network which causes the CPU usage to become high and, with the older device, we started losing the heartbeat and control messages, causing HA split-brain and lag flapping.This issue has been fixed in the new release.

No issues encountered.

They're good.

They're very good.

No previous solution used.

It was complex to setup.

We used a vendor, ALU to help implement it.

• It's version of throughput is good
• It has a strong active cluster, as you can have between three and 32 units to a cluster

Finally there is a UTM Fortinet. It has given me complete oversight of my network in a centralized fashion, so I know what is going on at all times. It provides me with a solution that can automatically take control of situations when they arise, with the most intuitive interface. It stops you needing to be on the phone to tech support, or a local vendor, for days on end.

• Security
• LAN
• WAN

I've used it for three years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

8/10.

8/10.

No previous solution was used.

It was easy to set up.

The most important factor is that you choose a firewall or UTM solution that fits your organizations security requirements. Begin by determining what business problem you are trying to solve, what technical controls you need to implement (Firewall, IPS, NAC, VPN, endpoint, mobility, web filtering, malware detection, etc.). Then, determine what hardware features you need such as (HA clustering, link aggregation or 10Gb, port sensity), and what kind of throughput, and how many concurrent connections.