Fortinet FortiGate Reviews

• Complete and cost-effective next-generation firewall features with app identification, and IPS and URL filtering with SSL inspection.

• Better manageability
• Straightforward deployments
• Streamlined and reliable upgrades

Customers have more time to focus on security because maintaining the firewalls is completely hassle-free.

Grouping/tabbing (not only by interface) in the policy table of the web GUI would be a great addition.

I have used it for two years.

We have not encountered any deployment issues.

We have not encountered any stability issues. Stability has dramatically improved over the previous main version branch of FortiOS; 5.2.x and 5.4.x are stable enough for critical environments.

We have not encountered any scalability issues; proven that you properly sized the FortiGate model that fits your environment.

Customer service is sufficient.

The tech support is not excellent; this is where Fortinet saves money compared to others... But plenty of free, clear and public documentation is available and this compensates for the most part the tech support shortcomings.

We previously used Cisco ASA. We switched because the old ASA has no next-generation features.

IMHO It is the most straightforward enterprise-level next generation firewall.

All implementations were done in-house.

ROI is very high, it has hands-down the best price/performance/features ratio in the market...

The licensing model is straightforward, easy to understand and purchase; prices are fairly low compared to other vendors.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated Check Point and Palo Alto Networks.

In version 5.4, they added a WAF feature that is absolutely unique for this kind of product; no other NGFW product can also be a WAF and this is a great added value...

FortiGate/FortiWifi:

• IPS
• Application control
• IPsec & SSL VPN
• Web filtering
• E-mail security
• Data leak prevention
• Wireless security and wireless controller
• Central antivirus (FortiClient)
• HW & SW token controller (FortiToken) etc.
• FortiManager

• Central management
• Administrative domains (can group devices according to geographical are, functionality, admins, etc.)
• FortiGuard management
• Logging and reporting
• Configuration version control and tracking
• Firmware management
• Scripting
• 
  
• FortiAnalyzer

• Centralized security log analysis and forensics
• Centralized graphical reports
• Customized reports
• Scheduled reports
• Queries
• Content archiving/data mining

Routing and security policies, central management and all of the other features help us to improve network performance and implement organization policies.

They could improve vulnerability scanning.

I have used it for three years.

We encountered a few stability issues; maybe one case per year.

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

Technical support is 10/10. They respond and offer solutions very fast.

We previously used Cisco solutions. They are more expensive, have fewer features, are more difficult to use, and response and help from
technical support is not quick.

For Fortinet solutions, the initial setup is very easy.

They are very cheap compared to other vendors.

Fortinet solutions are very easy to implement, proven, certified and tested.

There is no need to buy physical firewall hardware when you host multiple customers requiring individual secure access to their FW. You just create virtual domains (VDOMs).

You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances. The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system.

1. sFlow and NetFlow

I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE.

NetFlow is a network protocol developed by Cisco for collecting IP traffic information and monitoring network traffic. It is not supported on FortiGate for those who have a NetFlow analyzer/collector already setup in their network.

2. Policies

To control traffic in a firewall, you need to create and apply policies to the FW interfaces. By default, policies are sorted by FW interfaces and this makes FW interfaces an integral part of the policies. Zones provide the option to logically group multiple virtual and physical FortiGate firewall interfaces. Then, you apply security policies to those zones (logical groups of interfaces) to control traffic flow on those interfaces.

In a FortiGate unit with a lot of interfaces (including virtual interfaces), there is a high probability of having duplication of policies.

These devices are very stable.

They are easily scalable with multiple built-in interfaces. It supports a minimum of 10 VDOMs. VDOM supports all dynamic routing protocols like RIP, OSPF, BGP, and IS-IS. You do not need to reboot after enabling the VDOMs.

Area for improvement - there is one big configuration file with no separations for the unique VDOMs. Maybe they could separate individual VDOM configuration files with the root VDOM configuration file referencing the individual VDOM config files.

Customer Service:

Customer service is great, an eight out 10.

Technical Support:

I will give technical support an eight out 10.

We previously used different solutions as well. We did not switch, we have different requirements for different customers.

The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out if you have experience with other security appliances.

It was an in-house installation.

The ROI is great. These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive.

Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco. Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make.

I already have experience with Cisco ASA, so it was simply a customer preference and well within the budget.

Great appliances, and it is affordable.

The most valuable features for us are

• VPN
• WebFilter
• Firewall

It's features are highly customizable. This means that when our different business groups have different needs, the implementations can be customized to meet the demands of those groups and needs.

I'd like to see an improvement in the Bandwidth Management and Traffic limit control.

Also, the licenses are expensive, turning off some users.

We've used all units for five years, except the FortiGate 200D which has been in use for one year. Alongside FortiGate, we also have FortiAnalyzer 1000B and the FortiManager 200D.

There have been no issues with the deployment.

There have been no stability issues.

It has not been a problem to scale it.

Customer service is very good.

Technical support is very good.

I depend on different products from different vendors depending on the required function.

The initial setup is simple in the CLI or Web GUI.

An in-house network engineer implemented it using the best practice recommendations from the vendor.

The appliances and licenses are expensive, and I know some people use other vendors because of this.

You should know the customization you want from the beginning, and plan your requirements appropriately.

• Flexibility
• Flow tracking
• B2B VPN

It's good for what it is. I could achieve the same results with a pfSense firewall. This one just comes in a nice hardware package.

Better documentation about usage of the CLI. I learned most of what I know in diagnostic functionality through saving SSH sessions with the customer support staff while in WebEx sessions.

I have tried looking up the manuals. They are OK in some respects, but I feel exhaustive documentation about the CLI "with examples" should be there, and I feel it's not.

I'm saying, hey lets consolidate some of the primary real world scenarios like:
Section A: - Troubeshooting B2B VPN peering with a business partner or client when initially setting up the VPN tunnel.

Inevitably, there are always quirks and nuances between the fortigate vendor versus peering with a Palo Alto or an ASA firewall or even a Juniper SSG.

Imagine providing all steps, command line syntax, and GUI (if available) and how to take steps to debug the flow and see what's failing.
Sometimes it's super hard to figure out what's wrong with a fortigate VPN unless you know the commands on the CLI to see the flow and how to interpret it.

If they had all the methods / syntax and the "how's and why's" for a scenario; even possibly an instructional video showing how via the CLI and gui alongside the documentation. It would be like the pearly gates had opened and I had gone to heaven.

I have used it for three years.

I never encountered any stability issues. It is a very stable product.

Scalability's not been an issue for my org. We only utilize it for certain applications.

Technical support is excellent, although it can be a bit difficult to understand the tech. As with most support staff from almost all vendors now, the support comes from somewhere across the pond.

On the site where the FortiGate is stationed, it's never been changed out.

Initial setup was straightforward.

Buy the support package! Upgrades, advice about upgrade paths, and troubleshooting help is paramount. There have been some times where, without it, I'd have been dead in the water.

This was an in-place firewall when I integrated the site to my org.

Figure out what features you want, and what policies you want. Look up how to do it in advance, and create an implementation plan.

Plan for policies, routing, NATting, etc. Create a step-by-step process in advance, possibly create the environment in a DEV sandbox, test it, then implement.

It has a good feature set. However, sometimes you are forced to solicit technical support to get it working.

Also, I find the web interfaces sometimes do not display things properly.

The UTM (application control) features have been very important, because they have solved many issues that other firewall providers have not developed as Fortinet has.

A clear example of this feature advantages is blocking and allowing the Google suite. For example, without UTM, we would not have been able to execute some customer requirements like this one:

A customer asked us that some host on their LAN is going to be assigned to be a POS workstation. They needed that workstation to have permissions to some applications and some URLs, and they needed to block users from opening sites like YouTube, Google+, and Google Drive, but they needed to get in to some POS URLs hosted in the Google cloud. We were working with rules allowing some specified URLs, but it didn’t work because the subnetting IP address the customer needed to be allowed, sometimes matched the YouTube service. Google support engineers told us they rotate their IP addressing subnets to be more secure and they do not always attach an IP address to a domain name. So, sometimes the customer’s workstations were able to open YouTube sites too.

The way we could block YouTube and allow the customer POS URLs sites, was by configuring an application control sensor, where we were able to block some categories like this:

Another requirement was to allow some specified applications, so we configured the next sensor structure:

Another customer reported to us they had issues working with Gmail attachment files; they could not do it. Executing some packet captures and with the Fortinet TAC help, we found they were using the latest Chrome versions that use the QUIC Google protocol, which is not supported by Fortinet because it is not a valid protocol. We proceeded to block the QUIC protocol using an application control sensor.

After this blocking action, the customer was able to work without any issue.

It can block applications in level 7.

Even though other companies have latest-generation firewalls, FortiGate’s database is bigger.

They could improve performance with all the UTM features working.

Sometimes, we have seen that when you enable the antivirus sensor, customers report slow web browsing. We know this is normal, but we would like to know if it is possible to make feel the customer their web browsing is fast with not as much delay. The antivirus sensor analyzes all the protocols and packets we specified, and this is an important performance affectation. In my personal point of view, I don’t think it is a serious issue, but we receive many reports from users who browse the web with antivirus sensors applied to their firewall policies.

I have been using it for seven years.

It is working in route mode, with all UTM licences active; it has FSSO configured to give permission to the users. It is configured to provide VPN SSL service.

I have encountered stability issues only when we enable all the UTM features.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support is 9/10.

We have been using FortiGate solutions for eight years. We have been upgrading when solutions in the family become unsupported.

The initial setup is easy; no issues with doing it.

My company did not evaluate other options. They decided to purchase FortiGate directly.

Work a lot with all of the UTM features because they can be very helpful right now with configuring firewall policies. The policies became very whole.

With the application and web filters, we were able to block social network websites and any other websites that could lead staff being less productive. We were able to stop use of VPN applications on the school’s network. We were able to prevent the use of torrent applications.

It was used in a school network, so it kind of helped in preventing staff and students from getting carried away with their browsing.

I feel they need to work on the alert and event logs. We were not able to get anything much out of it when we were facing issues. Not sure if it was a configuration issue; we were, in fact, not able to see any system-related logs.

I used it for two years. I had to replace it as the number of staff increased to beyond its limit.

We did have an issue with it hanging occasionally. But then later, we figured out that it was handling traffic beyond its limit.

Technical support is average.

This was the first device we used.

It was installed by the IT solution provider while setting up the school.

It is a good device for a medium-sized company. But if you have over 150 staff/devices, I wouldn’t advise using this.