We compared Fortinet FortiGate and Fortinet FortiOS based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
Overall, based on user reviews, it is evident that both Fortinet FortiGate and Fortinet FortiOS offer strong security measures, reliable performance, and comprehensive reporting functionalities. While Fortinet FortiGate stands out for its effective firewall capabilities, intuitive interface, and excellent customer service, Fortinet FortiOS excels in areas such as efficient VPN capabilities, robust authentication options, and ease of use. The user feedback also indicates that both products provide good value for money and deliver a positive return on investment. However, there are areas for improvement with each product, such as the complexity of the user interface for Fortinet FortiGate and the need for enhancements in certain aspects of Fortinet FortiOS.
Features: The valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate include strong security measures, effective firewall capabilities, intuitive interface, reliable performance, and comprehensive reporting functionalities. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS offers reliable security measures, ease of use, comprehensive reporting capabilities, efficient VPN capabilities, and robust authentication options.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Fortinet FortiGate is described as minimal and straightforward, allowing for easy deployment. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS has received positive remarks for its affordable pricing and hassle-free setup cost. Users find the licensing process seamless for both products., Users praised Fortinet FortiGate for its effectiveness in enhancing network security and protecting against cyber threats. They commended its robust features, ease of use, reliability, and cost savings. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS received feedback on significant improvements in network security and reliability, comprehensive features, ease of use, deployment, and long-term cost savings. Overall, both products offer a positive ROI.
Room for Improvement: The Fortinet FortiGate product needs improvement in areas such as user interface complexity, challenging setup process, performance issues, and occasional downtime. On the other hand, users have identified certain aspects of Fortinet FortiOS that need to be enhanced for effectiveness.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews indicate that the deployment, setup, and implementation phases for Fortinet FortiGate are generally considered as one timeframe. The reviews mention varying timeframes for these phases. On the other hand, for Fortinet FortiOS, the duration required for establishing a new tech solution varies among users, with some requiring three months for deployment and an additional week for setup, while others needing only a week for both. However, it's essential to consider the context in which these terms are used, as they may refer to the same period of time., Fortinet FortiGate is known for its strong customer service, with prompt and effective support. Technical issues are resolved efficiently, demonstrating reliability. On the other hand, Fortinet FortiOS has excellent customer service, praised for its promptness, efficiency, knowledge, and helpfulness in addressing needs and resolving issues.
The summary above is based on 154 interviews we conducted recently with Fortinet FortiGate and Fortinet FortiOS users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The ability to set up remote systems is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"Consolidated our network environment at all locations, but mainly at our datacenter."
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."
"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."
"It is easy to use and performs very well."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive."
"I personally think the site-to-site VPN is the most useful feature. A lot of firewalls have that, but to me, that's one of the features that's essential."
"The technical support is very good and the assistance they gave was very good."
"The solution constantly adds features that are useful and user-friendly such as the ability to tweak firewalls through the CLI."
"I like its configuration and the various functions it offers."
"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."
"The user experience is great. The graphical user interface is also good."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the ease of use and user-friendly interface."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"It would be nice if backups could more easily migrate between different models."
"For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"Fortinet FortiOS need to manage its memory and CPU utilization better. It peaks at times, which sometimes can be challenging."
"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."
"It could more scalable for the lower end users."
"FortiOS's interface and monitoring could be improved."
"You can enable and disable certain modules in it. However, with disabling, nobody can really tell us if that module is disabled."
"It should also manage the local DSCP network."
"Fortinet FortiOS can improve the GUI and remove the command line interface. All the functionality should be available from the GUI. Day-to-day management can be tough for IT administrators. Additionally, the reporting is not very good."
"The additional features I would like to see included in the next release is better troubleshooting and reporting."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Fortinet FortiOS 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 FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Cisco SD-WAN, whereas Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiWeb, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Darktrace. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Fortinet FortiOS report.
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In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it kind of depends what you value most.
PA is good at app control, web filtering and such like, they have always been top of the pile there. The GUI is very good, and their product is very user-focused.
Fortinet is good for scalability and predictable high throughput (ASICs in the hardware), and useful things like authentication flexibility, CLI config (if you have any networking/Cisco people, they always seem to prefer CLI over GUI) and have better OT features, maybe relevant to your manufacturing use?
Fortinet seem to have a broader integration offering with their security fabric than PA do, plus they can do Fortinet-based wifi, switching, etc. Depends if you are prepared to go all-in with a single vendor.
Hi,
Both FT and PA have compelling features for large Enterprises. I would like to add a few good points about Fortinetwhich might be helpful ( from my 13 years of engagement with them as Distributor and Partner)
Fortinet:
Have higher throughput; which comes with competitive rates
Wide range of models to select to meet your requirement, without spending heavliy
Outstanding customer support and very active customer care team
Easly available skilled resources from the channel for deployment and post-implementation support
Regards
Abhilash
Hello. The question is what you are going to have as a result of application