We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Fortinet Fortigate VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet Fortigate is the winner in this comparison. According to reviews, it has better support than Fortinet Fortigate VM.
"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."
"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"It is easy to use and performs very well."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."
"FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all of these features on one device because it can cause performance issues."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"Technical support is very helpful."
"I like the visibility and monitoring features because they're easy to use to monitor traffic. Features like geo-blocking and more have AI, and we're currently using all of it. But for now, we're only using geo-blocking, and we're able to block traffic from different countries. I also like that it's highly responsive. VM04 is also very powerful."
"It handles our current load with ease, and I think it can handle a bit more. It definitely can handle a lot more capacity than we currently use."
"FortiGate is a nice and very good product."
"The VM it's very quick for deployment. If we need to have a POC for a customer, if we don't have any hardware physically at our premises, at our store, in our office, we can download the VM from Fortinet and install all the VM to their environment in order to run it. If we have a customer that says "let's start tomorrow" we are able to do that in a way that's not possible with a hardware version."
"It's very easy to set up, even for more junior developers."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are the servers, analyzer, and track protection."
"It has allowed us to centralize every network service into one appliance."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"It would be good if they had fewer updates."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"The tool does not have a good name in the market, consisting of enterprise-class businesses, making it an area where the product lacks and needs to improve."
"Compatibility and integration with other products or vendors such as Cisco SD-WAN products need improvement."
"We are experiencing a failed login issue. There should also be improvements in functionalities we store to enhance our services."
"There should be a bit more automation."
"Sizing can be challenging for customers interested in using Fortinet FortiGate-VM."
"The scalability feature of the solution has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Technical support could be better."
"The solution can improve by adding separate interfaces for proxy and flow-based usage."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and SonicWall NSa, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
Purpose-built appliances offer tested performance measures and provide proven results for the specified traffic and service configuration.
VM can only provide vCPUs, RAM, and hard disk resources. However, in some cloud environments, you only have the VM option, no appliances accepted.
We have several Fortigate VM firewalls operating for 3 years now in the cloud and appliances in our centers that handle the traffic just fine. We have not had to increase the resources above the recommendations and they work just fine.
FortiGate VM
Virtual machines are less efficient than real machines because they access the hardware indirectly.
FortiGate Hardware
Fortigate appliance is purpose built with NPU and SPUs designed to increase throughput while maximizing the ability to decrypt packets in search of malware.
VM deployments are software only and do not include the NPU and SPUs.