Fortinet FortiOS Reviews

The solution is basically an OS for Fortinet.

Security and authentication are the most valuable aspects of the product. The classification of the websites is helpful.

The solution is stable and reliable.

We have several access points on FortiGate, which were procured long ago. Those are not supporting the present firmware update we make on the UTM. Therefore, we cannot get the latest firmware updated on the UTMs. I was thinking that if we need to get rid of these physical devices, we should move to some cloud-based system.

The only problem that we are facing at the moment is that all the devices of FortiGate, whether it is for FortiGate's access points or authenticator or controllers or UTM, is in the FortiOS. They are interrelated and interdependent. It means if I buy a FortiGate car, I have to run FortiGate OS, I have to fill in FortiGate fuel, and I have to run it on a Fortinet road. I can’t mix and match it with different solutions. There is no flexibility.

The initial setup is a bit complex.

We would like to have NMS built into the solution.

We’ve been using the solution for the last ten years.

The solution is stable. We’ve never had any issues with the product. It’s reliable. There are no bugs or glitches.

If I need to scale it up, then again, I have to change the entire family of it.

The amount of users connected at any given point is something around 6,000, including the students and the people on move.

We never use tech support from Fortinet. We get support from a local supplier.

We are tied to Fortinet and therefore did not use any other product.

Initially, the solution can be a bit complex to set up. It’s not simple. There’s a learning curve. You need to train on it a bit first.

We have ten to 12 people on hand who are specialized in FortiOS and can handle deployment and maintenance tasks. We have a total of 20 people working on maintenance.

The pricing is pretty high. I’d rate it at a two or three out of five in terms of affordability.

Since the pandemic, a lot of things have gotten exponentially higher. Also, for us, the final price is dependent on the dollar conversion rate. You can get a license for one or up to five years.

Since we are tied to Fortinet and could not use anything else, we did not compare it to other solutions.

We are customers and end-users.

I’d rate the solution seven out of ten.

I’d recommend the solution for an enterprise user. However, it may be a bit much for a small or medium-sized organization.

The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are its simplicity, highly user-centric, and performs well. The line speed and for heavy traffic, is helpful for us.

Fortinet FortiOS can improve by limiting the need for the CLI and GUI combination. The more functions they can have on the GUI and less on CLI would be helpful.

I have used Fortinet FortiOS within the last 12 months.

The stability of Fortinet FortiOS has been good, I have not had any issues at this point.

Fortinet FortiOS scalability has been good. However, we only have a small setup. 

The support offered by Fortinet FortiOS is good.

The initial setup of Fortinet FortiOS is straightforward.

The price of Fortinet FortiOS is less than $10,000 annually. The price of the support is reasonable compared to competitors.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS a seven out of ten.

FortiOS's most valuable feature is a next-generation firewall that can be used as the APT solution in advanced threat protection. The IPS feature is also very good and can sometimes detect threats that are not detectable by the Palo Alto firewall.

The threat time interval lags a little, especially if there's a heavy load on the firewall.

I've been working with FortiOS for over four years.

FortiOS is one of the most stable solutions.

FortiOS is very easy to scale.

Fortinet's technical support is good.

The initial setup was easy and could be done without an integrator or other external assistance.

Compared to other firewalls like Palo Alto, FortiOS is easy to deploy and upgrade - for example, an upgrade of Palo Alto takes at least thirty minutes, but Fortigate can be done in around ten. I would rate FortiOS eight out of ten. 

Fortinet FortiOS provides a full UTM experience, including UTM profiles, firewall rules, remote access, VPN connection, IPSec, and SSL connection.

I have found the most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiOS is the low maintenance.

The central management can improve in Fortinet FortiOS. It is sometimes difficult to manage all the devices.

I wrote my opinion about changes to the SSL-VPN authentication directly on the Fortinet forum, and they said that right now they will not change it. Hopefully, in the future, they will change the SSL-VPN authentication for groups and users.

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS for approximately five years.

The stability of Fortinet FortiOS depends on the operation being done. If we are using the basic functions I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiOS a five out of five. If we are using the advanced functionality I would rate the stability a three out of five. Overall the solution is stable.

The support from Fortinet FortiOS is good. However, there are times they give a five out of five level of support and whereas other times they give a one out of five.

Fortinet FortiOS's installation is easy.

The scalability of Fortinet FortiOS is good. However, central management is intuitive for the end-users. We had a lot of questions about central management, and sometimes they didn't use it and did their firewall management directly on FortiGate instead of using Fortinet FortiOS.

My advice to others is for them to read the instructions on how to use the solution.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS a nine out of ten.

We use FortiOS for the internet router and firewall for our customers' offices. In some of the smaller offices, there is only one FortiGate, but the hub site may have a pair of firewalls in an HA configuration.

Performance-wise, I think FortiOS is much better than its Juniper counterpart. Based on our actual experience and performance metrics, FortiOS-based products are much better than Juniper. We've experienced some trouble with Juniper in the past and some unstable, unpredictable performance on Juniper devices.

They're using a lot of application-specific IC, so that may be causing some performance issues. And whenever a Fortinet adds new features, it can affect performance. I don't handle implementation, so I have to ask my frontline engineers to implement new features, like software-defined WAN service. But I'm not sure these are stable and acceptable because this project is still in progress. FortiOS and all the other firewall products are adding SD-WAN service, and this kind of service needs a lot of resources from the fabrics, the hardware, and the software. Still, I think we have more confidence deploying this service with FortiOS than using the other brands, like Juniper.

I've been using FortiOS for more than 15 years.

Fortinet provides sufficient support, and their response time is reasonable.

We have a team of around 10 engineers that manage FortiOS-based devices and all other firewall brands. 

FortiOS has a UTM feature, for which you have to buy an annual subscription. Most brands of firewalls will also have such a subscription.

I rate FortiOS at least eight out of 10, and we recommend it to our customers.

It's very easy to use.

The SD-WAN, IPS, application control and web features are all very valuable aspects of the solution.

We haven't had any issues with the solution. It's been pretty good in general. 

We would like to see the ability to maybe monitor applications that use the SD-WAN. They need to integrate more with the SD-WAN.

We would like to see lower pricing. The price is high.

I've used the solution for a long time. It's been maybe ten years. 

We have about 100 users on the solution. 

I've also worked with Check Point. 

We have three years' worth of licensing before we have to renew anything. We renewed it about two years ago. The pricing could be a bit better.

I'm a customer and an end-user.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It has worked well for us overall, and we are happy with its capabilities. 

The solution is great for data protection in our company, including site too site and SSH.

The stability of Fortinet FortiOS is great.

The product needs a feature that allows users to create another site on a VPN.

We have used this solution with our clients for two years and are currently using version 11. Additionally, we deploy this solution on-premises.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. We have a large number of clients using this solution with their users.

We have had a good experience with customer service and support. They are very fast.

The initial setup was very easy to configure.

We implemented it through our in-house technical team.

I rate this solution a nine out of ten. The solution is very good but needs a feature that allows users to create another site on a VPN.

FortiOS is just an operating system. That's it. It's a firmware FortiGate is running. 

FortiOS is the foundation of the Fortinet secured fabric.

You can have virtual domains. On top of each virtual domain, you can see the independent system. When comparing Fortinet with other vendors, the good part is you can set different priorities. It depends on different VDOMs. In my case, I have two VDOMs. One is called a VPN VDOM; the other is called a web filter VDOM. Usually, for other vendors, no matter how many domains, just one primary device is always a primary one. However, for FortiGate, you can separate them. In my case, I have machine one, and machine two. FortiGate one, Fortigate two. And for each FortiGate, we can have multiple VDOMs. In my case, I have two VDOMs. If you want to save money, you can split the workload, and this capability helps us save on costs.

It's very flexible firmware. 

I really like it overall. It really meets lots of my requirements.

The initial setup is easy.

It's easy to use. 

The solution is quite stable.

Right now, all the features meet my requirements. It's not lacking in any way.

I have more than ten years of experience with the solution. 

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable. In terms of hardware. We are in a cycle right now to handle hardware replacement. We've been using the hardware for seven years now. 

I have more than 400 stores nationally in Canada. I have it in every  different location. For each store, for business continuity purposes, we have two internet connections. One is the primary internet connection; the secondary is the LTE. 

LTE is expensive, so we always use the primary, like cable or PPPoE. Unless the cable or PPPoE fails, then we switch traffic to LTE. Even for LTE, we control the traffic. For example, we have backup traffic. For LTE, we don't allow the backup traffic to go through LTE since LTE is for business continuity purposes only.

For redundancy, you build up the HA environment, meaning, at a minimum, you have two devices to work together. The secondary is always just sleeping there, dormant. When the primary fails, then you switch over to secondary.

However, for Fortinet, on top of this, you can have multiple VDOMs.

I'm a very senior tech guy, and therefore I would rarely need their services. However, I will say they have been much better, and we find them helpful. 

I've had previous experience with Cisco products.

The initial setup is very good. I'm a Cisco guy; I'm used to the command line interface. Therefore, right now, from my command line point of view, I like it. The hierarchy of the command line is very clear and it's very easy to change as needed.

The license is based on the machine itself, not on how many users. That's why we backhaul all the internet traffic to my head office, so in my head office, I only need to buy one license. To access the internet, we have a VPN tunnel. 

I'm not sure of the exact costs. I didn't purchase it, I just use it. 

I've compared the solution to Palo Alto and Cisco. 

Right now, more and more services are moving to the cloud. In terms of the cloud, the IP address changes so frequently. Today you see this IP for this service, the next day, without notifications, they may change IP to other IP addresses. So, originally, all firewall rules were based on the IP address. Now, it's not based on the IP address; it's based on the service. I can see Fortinet has already worked on this. For example, they provide internet service, which I remember, even though I haven't tried it yet. There's an internet service called Office 365. You just use this; you don't need to know the exact IP address or something; you just use this name. In the background, Fortinet updates this, updates all the information about this group, so you don't need to. The firewall keeps retrieving all that information from Fortinet, so you don't have to worry about the frequent change on the cloud side.

So far, I'm very satisfied with this device. Compared with other vendors, like Palo Alto and Cisco, I'm delighted with FortiGate, to be honest.

I'd rate it ten out of ten.