Fortinet FortiGate-VM Reviews

It is a complete package, and it has complete offerings. It fit the needs, and our customer is happy with it.

It should have the SD-WAN feature. This would increase the number of features that are available in the box.

We have been selling this solution for one year.

I would rate Fortinet FortiGate-VM a nine out of ten.

The product is quite flexible.

There seems to be a lot of very useful feature sets.

Technical support is very helpful.

We found the initial setup to be pretty straightforward for the most part.

We've had issues with integration. It hasn't gone well.

We have had some stability issues.

There are some instances where configurations can get complex.

I've only really been dealing with the solution for the last six months. It hasn't been too long.

We've had some stability issues. The product could be more stable.

We are not in production just yet, and therefore it would be hard to comment on scalability.

Technical support has two tiers. Typically, if we need help, we have to reach out to Fortigate, who will direct us to help in Bangladesh. If we still need assistance, then it goes directly to Fortigate and they have engineers who can assist us.

We're largely pleased with the amount of assistance we receive. 

I've only really used Cisco solutions in the past. I've only recently been introduced to Fortinet.

The installation process is very easy with FortiGate VM. We can easily deploy it. That said, we did run into issues with some customer requirements and our engineers were forced to get involved. Occasionally, it takes too much time to configure certain aspects. However, a basic configuration is pretty easy.

I didn't require any outside help in order to deploy and configure the solution. I didn't need the help of outside consultants, integrators, or Fortinet techs.

Our clients tend to deal with the licensing aspects of the solution.

We're partners of Fortinet.

We're using the latest version of the solution.

We have been using the solution while we have been waiting for the hard drive version of the solution, which has been delayed.

I would recommend the solution to other organizations. I'd rate the product eight out of ten.

This firewall appliance is part of our overall security solution.

Using this product protects our company from attacks that come from outside of our network. At the same time, we get better speed and performance when connecting to the internet.

This product is affordable and it's a good, high-performance appliance.

The updates are regular, so we're sure that the attacks are somehow mitigated at the front-end of our gateway.

The technical support is not very responsive and is an area that needs to be improved.

We have been using Fortinet FortiGate-VM for almost two years.

Since we first implemented it about two years ago, we haven't experienced any major problems aside from the firmware that we needed to have upgraded.

I am okay with the scalability, although we had to upgrade the appliance as our requirements increased. We currently have more than 170 users, and we may increase our usage next year.

The technical support is not very responsive. The last time we contacted them was when we encountered slow performance because of the firmware. We needed to upgrade it.

The initial setup is very easy.

We deployed this product with the help of the vendor.

Of all the firewalls that we compared, FortiGate is the cheapest and most affordable, so we are satisfied with the pricing.

Prior to selecting FortiGate-VM, we evaluated Meraki and one other solution.

At this point, aside from technical support, we have no issues with this product. It has everything that we need at the moment, and I cannot think of any other features that should be there.

My advice for anybody who is implementing FortiGate-VM is that they need to understand how their business operates and what their requirements are. They need to understand the technology in terms of security and performance before they purchase any devices.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

In the years that we've been using this product, we've deployed it five or six times. Most of our customers have dedicated firewalls, either physical or virtual format and a few are on a shared platform. We're authorized sellers of the product and I'm the founder and managing director of our company. 

The best feature of the solution is the EPM bundle, a lot of our clients are interested in that. Truth be told, it's quite difficult to roll that out because we have very little trust in the FortiManager and the FortiAnalyzer integration and technology.

The solution could be improved by making deployment easier and dispensing with the reliance on FortiManager, as well as FortiAnalyzer to get any meaningful reporting out of it. If they could exclude both of those from the whole equation so that it bundles direct to the firewall, that would be a big improvement. It should be decoupled from the whole ecosystem, the security fabric side of it, and that would improve things. I get the feeling we have limited functionality if we just look at the data itself, and that's not cool when you're spending thousands of dollars on a product.

The technology is just not there yet in terms of UX and true integration. We have had endless woes with our Analyzer services and the Manager seems rather rudimentary on its own. We believe that the actual Fortigate should have all this disparate functionality baked-in.

I've been using this solution for close to six years. 

The stability is absolutely awful. Every time Fortinet releases a new version, there's always some bugs that you absolutely can't avoid, so stability from our perspective, in between maintaining the service on the FortiGate, is really tricky. It's difficult to trust the quality. 

The solution is scalable if you have the budget. If you don't have the budget, it's not tied into customer budgets very nicely. There are too many moving parts and it is too expensive.

Technical support is horrific, absolutely terrible. I'd give them a negative rating. 

To install a FortiGate is a complex task. The installation engineer need to be strong technically and familiar with FortiGate. The end user also needs to be well versed in their network and have a firm technical grasp on their business requirements and how those translate to what the firewall is capable of doing/ enhancing. This can drive a prolonged pre-install and installation process.

I would recommend this solution. As a piece of tech, as a firewall, it's really good. Local channel support in South Africa is very strong. The functionality of the gate is good. I think it probably surpasses many of its competitors. So I would recommend it. I'm very familiar with the realities of looking at it so I'll be very open with my customers in recommending FortiGate and at the same time explaining the pitfalls to them. 

I would rate this product a seven out of 10. 

I use FortiGate-VM for testing.

The user interface, stability, and scalability are the most valuable features. It's also simple to deploy. 

I have been using this solution for one year. 

Stability and scalability are okay. 

I haven't used technical support.

I like FortiGate-VM for constructing VPNs. It's easy to deploy. I would recommend it. It's quite easy.

I would rate FortiGate-VM a seven out of ten. Not a ten because I think that Cisco is better.

We provide Fortinet services to our clients, sometimes on-prem and sometimes on cloud. 
We are a system integrator which makes us a partner of Fortinet. I am an information technology solutions manager.

I like the web filtering and I like the IPS functionality.

Data reporting could be improved and also in terms of performance, some improvement should be made on VM, it should be more optimized. Scalability of the solution could also be improved. 

For an additional feature, Fortinet should add more SD-WAN with caching as a special functionality. It should be integrated with Fortinet. 

I've been using this solution for five years. 

Stability is good enough. It's not that problematic for now.

Scalability is a problem because the solution is VM. As a VM, you cannot have much scalability.

The Fortinet technical support is generally good. There are times when we don't get an immediate response and it requires escalation but that's all. 

The initial setup is straightforward. Deployment time depends on the case but can normally be done anytime from two hours to two days for it to be functional.

FortiGate-VM would be for more like a cloud or on-premise SMB environment. And for anyone wanting to scale-up and get big performance, it should be used as a physical appliance.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

We primarily provide the solution to our clients. We typically use it in the financial services industry.

The solution is very easy to set up. It doesn't take a lot of time and offers a quick deployment, so you can start using it almost right away.

It's a very secure product. The security provided is excellent and an organization can feel very safe while using it.

The scalability of the solution needs to be improved.

The price model is not transparent by any means and should be made more clear. What's included in the packages is often not very obvious.

I've been using the solution for two years at this point.

The stability of the solution is pretty good. We don't have any blocks and we don't have problems with the solution in terms of bugs or crashes. We have a monitor. We have an aux for many services. It really is problem-free.

The solution has some issues with scalability. I wouldn't say it's easy to scale at all.

Also, with the pricing model being so confusing, companies can't really wrap their arms around what the final pricing would be when they scale up, which makes it difficult for budgeting purposes. 

We don't use technical support from Fortinet. Rather, we get it from a local company. They are okay. They aren't terrible, however, they could be better. Their service is average at best.

The initial setup is straightforward. We didn't find it to be complex at all. 

Deployment is quick and easy. It takes a maximum of two hours to handle everything.

The pricing of the solution is strange. We don't understand exactly how it's calculated or how it works.

We recommend this firewall often and we've actually used many solutions previously. Since we chose this one, we've been overall quite happy with the results. We recommend it largely due to the fact that we use the solution ourselves. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. If it wasn't for the pricing model and the scalability issues, I would rate it higher.

The client wants to use the solution for a mix of things, however, I can't recall exactly what they are at this time.

The user interface is the most valuable aspect of the solution.

It's important that, over time, the solution just keeps up with additional features. There's nothing specific that comes to mind, however, it's important for Fortinet to stay as much on the edge as possible, as far as keeping up with what's out there.

The solution is fairly complex.

I've probably been using the solution for three or four years at this point, although I'm not exactly sure.

We don't really need to worry about stability. Most of the time, what we were running into is just trying of get the client familiar enough with the solution, so that way they can deal with it going forward on their own. There's a little bit of training going on at the outset.

That's primarily why we steer clients in the direction of Fortinet. With this solution, clients have the potential to grow in the near future. It's just one of those items that we wanted to make sure they had. It's something that is robust enough to be able to handle growing. It's somewhat robust without breaking the bank, initially. 

Our organization doesn't use the solution ourselves, so we don't have a large number of users on the solution. Out of 160 people, maybe a third use it here. It's different, of course, with clients, who use it more extensively.

We've never had any technical issues on the solution and have never had to reach out to technical support. However, I've heard that they are quite helpful. I just can't personally speak to the quality or responsiveness of their services.

For those trying to troubleshoot on their own, the solution doesn't really need or have tutorials, however, you can find so much information online, it's not necessary. It would be nice it newly released features had a bit more information. It doesn't happen often, so it's not too big of an issue.

We previously worked with a lot of open source products.

The solution's initial set up was pretty complex. There were a lot of on-site VPN connections to set up, so we went through a lot of additional setup for the clients.

The deployment was pretty quicksand was probably completed in just a couple of days.

We didn't need a consultant or integrator. We handled the implementation ourselves.

Since we don't primarily work with the solution, I'm not sure what the licensing costs are.

We aren't really a customer or reseller, however, we do occasionally recommend the solution to clients from time to time.

The entity I was recently researching for was looking basically to replace some existing solutions. That was the reason why they were asking me to help them do some research. I, on a normal basis, don't do that much with it anymore. However, because I have access, I've been helping them.

I'm not using the latest version. I may be using the one before that, although I don't know the exact version number.

I would warn other organizations that there are some places where some people run into some roadblocks, and they're not sure what to do. My experience in the past has always been that, at least, the support is actually really good. Therefore, if they're running into a situation that they're not sure about, it's probably better to call and seek professional help, as opposed to trying to force it, because it can get confusing really quick.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.