We compared Amazon CloudWatch and Fortinet FortiAnalyzer based on our users' reviews in five categories. We reviewed all of the data and you can find the conclusion below.
Features: Amazon CloudWatch users liked the solution’s simplicity, intuitive interface, and ability to handle large workloads. Users also praised CloudWatch’s comprehensive monitoring and alerts. Fortinet FortiAnalyzer features exceptional log collection capabilities and customizable reporting. FortiAnalyzer enables users to centrally manage and analyze logs in real time. Some reviews mentioned that Amazon CloudWatch could improve performance and dashboard visualization through. Others noted that the solution lacked compatibility with some databases. Fortinet FortiAnalyzer could simplify its reporting module and cloud storage capabilities.
Service and Support: Customers generally have positive opinions about Amazon's customer service. They commended the support team for its availability and timely issue resolution. Some Fortinet customers were dissatisfied with support, but others said it was helpful and responsive.
Ease of Deployment: Amazon CloudWatch is generally described as easy to set up. FortiAnalyzer's initial setup is uncomplicated and manageable, typically taking approximately 30 minutes to a few hours. Some IT knowledge may be required.
Pricing: Amazon CloudWatch offers a flexible pricing structure based on usage and processing, without any separate licensing cost. Some users said that scaling up can be costly due to the need for additional storage space. While FortiAnalyzer isn't the most expensive option, users say the pricing could be more competitive. FortiAnalyzer's cost depends on the storage requirements, and many customers consider it reasonable.
ROI: Amazon CloudWatch offers a return on investment by minimizing the need for manual monitoring. FortiAnalyzer helps customers by providing insight into network traffic and speeding up issue resolution.
"The most valuable features of Amazon CloudWatch are metrics, dashboards, alarms, logs, events, logs insight, and application insights."
"Scheduling is a valuable feature."
"The solution effectively monitors golden signals like CPU, page requests, and queues."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The product can be integrated with AWS very easily."
"The tool's UI is good. One can scroll through the logs very easily."
"You can enable alarms and metrics, and it has robust integration with AWS services. You can also trigger events. For example, if the CPU utilization is above 80%, it can launch a new instance for you."
"The monitoring features are valuable."
"The solution provides good standardized reports and is easy to troubleshoot."
"I like its simplicity. It is straightforward. We get reports and emails about the logs, and that's it."
"Log View is the most valuable part for us, as we can view logs from different Fortigates on a single GUI."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten since, in our company, we have never experienced the solution crashing or having any other issues."
"The interface is simple and easy to navigate."
"Based on the logs of Fortinet FortiAnalyzer you can have it trigger actions. For example, if the log has a word or a sentence you specified it can send an alert or Syslog to an email address."
"Technical reports clearly identify system checks, locations and areas, how many times things escape, which firewall is affected, and source IDs."
"The solution allows for a lot of customization."
"I do not know whether or not CloudWatch can be integrated with on-prem services."
"The graphical interface has room for improvement. CloudWatch only gives you a breakdown of what's wrong. However, it would be nice if it could automatically remedy the problems it identifies. You should be able to configure it so that when a specific condition arises, it will take a predefined action."
"I found several areas for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch. First is that it's tough to track issues and find out where it's going wrong. The process takes longer. For example, if I get an exception error, I read the logs, search, go to AWS Cloud, then to the groups to find the keyword to determine what's wrong. Another area for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch is that it's slow in terms of log streaming. It requires an entire twenty-four hours for scanning, rather than just one hour. This issue can be solved with Elasticsearch streaming with Kibana, but it requires a lot of development effort and integration with Kibana or Splunk, and this also means I need a separate developer and software technical stack to do the indexing and streaming to Kibana. It's a manual effort that you need to do properly, so log streaming should be improved in Amazon CloudWatch. The AWS support person should also have a better understanding of the logs in Amazon CloudWatch. What I'd like added to the solution is a more advanced search function, particularly one that can tell you more information or special information. Right now, the search function is difficult to use because it only gives you limited data. For example, I got an error message saying that the policy wasn't created. I only know the amount the customer paid for the policy, the mobile number, and the customer name, but if I use those details, the information won't show up on the logs. I need to enter more details, so that's the type of fuzzy matching Amazon CloudWatch won't provide. If this type of search functionality is provided, it will be very helpful for businesses and companies that provide professional services to customers, like ours."
"The drill-down aspect on the dashboard of the solution needs improvement. We get a very good high-level overview, but when we drill down, it becomes a little less clear. We have given this feedback to AWS as well and hope they will improve this in the future."
"The solution could benefit from a price decrease."
"Improvement of SSSD logs would be beneficial."
"The solution should provide human-readable metrics."
"There's a learning curve with Amazon CloudWatch since we have to learn to write the queries to extract the keys and logs."
"The technical support is not very reliable."
"The only issue that I can see is with the cost. For example, if you buy support for one year, you are messed up next year. It's better to buy another gateway."
"When using this solution, you need a high-level expert to make it work as it should."
"Fortinet FortiAnalyzer could improve by having better integration with other vendors."
"The solution could embed monitoring."
"They could always improve the interface and the user experience."
"The FortiAnalyzer is not good at managing multi-version environments. If all your FortiGate are at different versions in the field, that's difficult. The one thing we didn't like is the fact you have to have 100% of your environment at the same release, which is not pleasant, to have it fully functional. You can have a different release, but to have it fully functional 100% of your environment has to be the same release."
"Fortinet FortiAnalyzer could improve the user interface, and the experience of users receiving the reports and tracking could be better."
Amazon CloudWatch is ranked 12th in Log Management with 40 reviews while Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is ranked 7th in Log Management with 87 reviews. Amazon CloudWatch is rated 8.0, while Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Amazon CloudWatch writes "Instantaneous response when monitoring logs and KPIs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiAnalyzer writes "We can automate event-based handling solutions, is stable, and is great for heavy traffic". Amazon CloudWatch is most compared with Zabbix, Datadog, Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver), Dynatrace and SolarWinds NPM, whereas Fortinet FortiAnalyzer is most compared with Wazuh, Splunk Enterprise Security, Grafana Loki, Graylog and Datadog. See our Amazon CloudWatch vs. Fortinet FortiAnalyzer report.
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We monitor all Log Management 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.