Fortinet FortiOS Reviews

Our company is a partner and we install the solution for our customers as a firewall for remote VPN use. 

We also use the solution to protect our own company that includes more than 1,000 users. 

The solution constantly adds features that are useful and user-friendly such as the ability to tweak firewalls through the CLI. 

The solution's graphic interface could be a bit more responsive and include notations when changes are made

I have been using the solution for seven years. 

The solution is stable. In seven years of use, I've only encountered two or three occasions where a bug affected the firewall's behavior. 

I rate stability an eight out of ten. 

The solution is very scalable and it is quite easy to add users. 

I rate scalability a ten out of ten. 

Technical support has issues with knowledge base at the first tier. It sometimes takes hours of explanation before support fully understands and can troubleshoot or escalate problems. 

Response time could also be improved. 

I rate support a six out of ten. 

Neutral

Our company has always used the solution and is not interested in other products. 

The initial setup is easy, it only requires one engineer, and the main interface is self-explanatory. 

Users who are familiar with the solution can always dig further in the CLI to change the properties. 

We deploy the solution for our company and our customers. 

One engineer spends about two days configuring, testing, and deploying. 

The solution is easy to configure and has good performance. 

Anytime I have thought of a possible feature I'd like added to the solution, it seems the developers are on the same page and it is available within a few months. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

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.

I am using Fortinet FortiOS for firewall security.

The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiOS network segregation, UTM, and antivirus, freight management protection, such as DDoS. Additionally, the command-line interface(CLI) and the graphical user interface(GUI) are easy to use. The architecture makes sense, and the commands in the CLI are organized well. They have quite a lot of features are easy to use, and are user-friendly. Any novice can use Fortinet FortiOS without an issue.

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS for approximately eight years.

The stability of Fortinet FortiOS initial setup is simple and it is user-friendly. To do the whole process of transferring the firewall configurations and updates took approximately one day. 

We have approximately 2,000 users that use what hardware Fortinet FortiOS manages. All types of verticles are passing through the solution.

I rate the support from Fortinet FortiOS a four out of five.

There is some room for improvement in the support.

Fortinet FortiOS initial setup is simple and it is user-friendly. To do the whole process of transferring the firewall configurations and updates took approximately one day.

We have seen a return on investment because a lot of the features are effective. We do not need to train our engineers to use the solution, it is very easy to use.

The price of Fortinet FortiOS is comparable to other similar solutions on the market. We are on an annual license to use the solution.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS an eight 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.

We primarily use the solution as a co-firewall.

For my organization, it has become much easier to scan the firewalls because the solution is more user-friendly than its competitors. 

We've found the threat detection very valuable. The entire platform is user-friendly. It's easier compared to Check Point or Juniper firewalls.

The signature discs, compared to Palo Alto, aren't as good. It takes more time to get the signature updates.

The solution should be on the cloud a bit more. 

There should be a cookie eater. 

The stability of the solution is very good.

The solution is scalable.

Technical support for the solution is very good.

We ended up choosing the solution because of its ease of use and it troubleshooting steps were easy to control.

The initial setup is straightforward. You need about two to three people for deployment and maintenance.

Licensing is renewed on a yearly basis.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I would recommend the solution. As a co-firewall, it does a good job.

I would rate the solution seven out of ten.

We are still using it in our company. We use FortiOS primarily for perimeter security and network segmentation.

In terms of benefits, it’s a standard solution used by many, and our customers and partners widely utilize the VPN features. It’s elementary to work with and implement because it is familiar across different infrastructures.

Sometimes, Fortinet FortiOS changes its CLI (command line interface) with new versions, which leads to internal incompatibility. When this happens, you need to update the configuration to match the new format, as the commands aren’t always the same. This can create some confusion and extra work because, unlike other vendors where the CLI commands remain primarily consistent with updates, Fortinet often changes the syntax between versions.

We have been using Fortinet FortiOS for more than six years.

Fortinet FortiOS is very scalable and can handle many users, depending on your hardware. Expanding it when needed is straightforward.

It’s generally good, but there’s always room for improvement.

Positive

The complexity of implementing and setting up Fortinet FortiOS depends on the customer'srequirements. With a network map of a hundred nodes, it could be either very complex or straightforward. There isn't a standard rule for this; it varies based on the specific design and planning needed. It would be best to have a straightforward design and a good plan before implementing. If the design isn't well done, you might need to make changes during the project, which isn't ideal.The time required for a full implementation of FortiOS can vary
significantly. It might be small but complex or large but straightforward—tthere'sno one-size-fits-
all pattern.

For maintenance, FortiOS requires attention to patches because it handles many functions and can be complex. It's crucial to stay updated on your running version and check for any reported vulnerabilities to avoid potential issues.

The return on investment for FortiOS is good but not exceptional. It’s close to breaking even; not every case justifies the renewal cost.

Regarding the cost, the initial purchase is relatively cheap because it comes bundled. However, the subscription renewals can be quite expensive. The renewal costs are high, even though the initial purchase might include discounts.

Overall, I would rate Fortinet FortiOS an 8 out of 10. It’s a solid product but could improve in areas like update management. Currently, it’s up to the user to check for updates, and Fortinet doesn’t proactively notify you about necessary updates. If they know your version, they should inform you directly about any needed upgrades instead of relying on you to check.

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. 

I use Fortinet FortiOS for firewalls.

The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are user-friendliness, ease of use, and threat prevention.

I have been using Fortinet FortiOS for approximately two years.

Fortinet FortiOS is stable.

We have approximately 100 users using Fortinet FortiOS. All levels of employees are using the solution.

The support from Fortinet FortiOS has been good. They had the knowledge and professionalism.

We were using Juniper before we choose Fortinet FortiOS.

The initial setup of Fortinet FortiOS was very easy. The configuration was simple to do. The whole implementation took approximately two weeks.

We had assistance from one person from our local vendor for the implementation.

Fortinet FortiOS is very effective and easy to use to configure. I would recommend it to others.

I rate Fortinet FortiOS a ten out of ten.