We compared Fortinet FortiGate and VMWare SD-WAN based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate is highly regarded for its ease of use, extensive features, and affordability. However, it could benefit from enhancements in SSL VPN, multi-factor authentication, and filtering. VMware SD-WAN is praised for its efficient multipath optimization and robust cloud web security, but it needs improvements in customization, Broadcom routing support, firewall capabilities, and inter-cloud connectivity. The customer service and support for both products have received varied feedback.
"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"Easy to implement, and it is also reliable."
"It's super reliable. I don't think I've ever had a reliability issue with it."
"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"I would absolutely recommend VeloCloud because it's user-friendly and because the integration is easier than with other solutions."
"One of the key use cases for VMware SD-WAN was assisting a customer in the industrial zone. They required virtualized servers and wanted to enable VMware SD-WAN to connect their sites in Japan or China. We assisted in building the system by integrating VMware servers and utilizing the Cisco suite."
"The setup is very straightforward."
"Some of the best features are the SD-WAN platform for VMware and the NSX network virtualization."
"It is fairly similar to other solutions. It has the capability for testing link connectivity, which is its unique feature from a control perspective."
"When extra capacity is needed, we can get it very quickly."
"This solution is as stable as most firewalls. VMware is a reputable vendor."
"I have found the dynamic multipoint protocol(DNPO) most useful because it can tell you which is the best circuit to use for different types of traffic."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"The support system could be improved."
"It could use better throughput on some of the smaller boxes for the branch offices."
"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license. There must be some of kind synergy between the license so we don't have to pay for every individual license that we would like to have."
"The UI could be improved."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."
"VMware SD-WAN could improve if the hardware could integrate the interface using ICP. Additionally, if VMware SD-WAN is used with SSE providers that use tunnels there are some issues prioritizing traffic because it cannot decrypt."
"The initial setup of VMware SD-WAN was simple. However, it took six days to complete."
"There is still room for improvement in support and security, especially in enhancing the SASE aspect of the platform."
"The solution is pricey. It could be cheaper."
"It needs better security."
"I would like for them to upgrade to 5G integration. Our customers have 4G now and the connectivity isn't good. It should be much faster."
"They should provide us with the flexibility to scale up."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 306 reviews while VMware SD-WAN is ranked 4th in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 51 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while VMware SD-WAN is rated 8.2. 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 VMware SD-WAN writes "To fully utilize cloud vendors' hardware networking, Microsoft and VMware support everything". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas VMware SD-WAN is most compared with Cisco SD-WAN, Meraki SD-WAN, Cato SASE Cloud Platform, Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform and Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. VMware SD-WAN report.
See our list of best Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions vendors and best WAN Edge vendors.
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One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. It is a very stable, reliable, and consistent solution. We like that we can manage the entire network from one interface; there is no going back and forth as some other solutions force you to do. Fortinet Fortigate firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system; there is no need for additional devices. This solution offers great built-in features for web filtering and the VPN is an extremely valuable feature.
The reporting with Fortinet Fortigate needs some degree of customization so that more usable reports can be created. If you want extra features, you need to buy extra licenses, which can get expensive quickly. We would have liked to get more features with the general license. We would also like to see better cloud management.
We like VMware SD-WAN for our clients that want a very easy-to-use solution. VMware SD-WAN offers simple troubleshooting and great cybersecurity. One amazing feature it has is DMPO (Dynamic MultiPath Optimization), which helps ensure data integrity. VMware SD-WAN comes loaded with several defined applications so that you don’t have to create them yourself - this is a huge time-saver.
Reporting and security with VMware SD-WAN could be improved, though. There really needs to be some failover capabilities, especially with their own devices. We would also like to see a mobile application. Many other solutions are already offering this as a basic feature. It would help make this solution easier to manage.
Conclusion
We felt the biggest difference between Fortinet Fortigate and VMware SD-WAN was the ease of use. The zero-touch provisioning offered with VMware SD-WAN makes it very easy to set up and the DMPO makes it easy to manage. We also felt the SD-WAN on VMware SD-WAN was better.