FortiGate Next Generation Firewall's design is good. Technically, I haven't used many of its features. The primary purpose we use the solution in our organization is for its SNAT and DNAT functionalities. The solution is also used for its vulnerability patching mechanism.

The solution's GUI is not very appealing. When using a tool from another vendor, we found the GUI of that tool to be quite appealing. FortiGate Next Generation Firewall uses a very old type of GUI, which is not very appealing. The GUI can be improved.

I have been using FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) for six months. My company is just a customer of the product.

I am very impressed with the product's stability. Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight and a half out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

My company has 2,000 users of the product.

I didn't need any support. The support is good. I wouldn't say the support is bad. I rate the support a seven and a half out of ten.

Neutral

My company seeks the help of vendors to do the initial setup of the product. After that, we just work on policies, SNAT, DNAT, and virtual IPs.

The setup phase was neither difficult nor easy. I rate the setup phase as three or four out of ten on a scale where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

The solution's deployment took two to three weeks.

Two people were required for the deployment of the product.

The solution's vendor executed the setup phase.

The solution's pricing is quite high when compared to other vendors. I rate the pricing an eight and a half on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high.

I highly recommend the solution to those planning to use it.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I work for an integrator in Nigeria, and we implement all these solutions for our clients. I've done a lot of deployments on Fortinet, deploying all from FortiAP to FortiSwitch. I integrated it with FortiGate, FortiManager, SD-WAN, deployment, security, and the like.

I found the upgrades valuable. Normally, when you want to upgrade an enterprise firewall, the customer always requests a box swap, whereby we look at the new firmware and compare it to know if there will be any configuration changes. These are the parts where we have to bring in the OEM to do it. But with the new FortiGate firmware, it helps do that by providing reporting and helps you to give the customer the comfort of saying you can upgrade the firewall and describe what changes and issues you would expect. Basically, out-of-the-box management.

One area for improvement is the IPS engine, which is something that needs to be improved on. I've had so many issues whereby I have high CPU usage, and when I check, I see it's being consumed by the IPS engine. I have to upgrade the IPS engine firmware and all that. That has been the main pain point with FortiGate. Likewise, customer support could improve.

I've been working on FortiGate for about five years now, and I'm working with the latest version.

The solution is stable apart from the IPS engine issue, so I rate stability a seven out of ten. Stability depends on the operational team. If you have a good operational team that knows what you are doing, you always gain stability with most of your solutions. But if you have an operational team that is not so strong, you will always have issues with that solution because they will keep making human errors that will keep disrupting the services you offer. For example, in 2021, I was working as the cyber delivery manager for MTN, and I was managing the FortiGate infrastructure. In that one year, I never had any incident on FortiGate. But after I left, they started having frequent issues because of human errors. From a management perspective, if I were the CTO during that period, I would assume that FortiGate Firewall is not a good firewall. But that is not the case. It is the person who handles it that determines the stability. If you know how to do your health check properly and how to output the firewall properly, I'm sure FortiGate will be stable. I'm rating the stability as seven just to be in the middle. If it's being handled by a less experienced operational team, I'm sure you will have issues because they always perform changes, they don't know when to perform the kind of change they are performing, and that might disrupt the services. But if I rate FortiGate based on myself, I give it a nine out of ten.

I rate FortiGate's scalability a nine out of ten. Out of every ten enterprises in Africa, six currently use FortiGate. MTN is one of our major customers, and we helped them migrate from Cisco and Juniper to FortiGate.

The ease with the initial setup depends on the deployment. I've deployed FortiGate for different use cases. I've deployed it using internal segmentation. I've deployed it using it as a data center firewall, doing east and west. I've deployed FortiGate on the perimeter edge, whereby we have the SSL VPN and site-to-site VPN. But overall, I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten because it's always been very easy.

There are timelines with projects, so the time taken to deploy the solution depends on the scale of the project. If it's just a perimeter firewall where I have to migrate from one firewall, like the Cisco firewall, to the Fortinet firewall, it takes me nothing less than a week. It takes a day using the FortiConverter to convert the configuration from Cisco to Fortinet and maybe another two days to look at the configuration properly on my FortiGate before I'm confident enough to tell the customer to schedule maintenance for us to migrate the services. It depends on the customer, so in a nutshell, from kickoff to the close date is not always an exact amount, but generally no more than a month.

The deployment time taken depends on the customer's availability and their response because it's not totally dependent on me being the technical engineer. It depends on how fast they provide me with all the information I need to complete the deployments and determines how fast I can close the project. If the customer is very responsive, it takes us about three weeks to close the project.

FortiGate is much cheaper than other OEMs such as Cisco, Palo Alto, and Check Point. I'll rate FortiGate's pricing a five out of ten since it is moderately priced.

Currently, we are pushing all our clients to adopt the Fortinet cloud firewall instead of using the native solutions found on the different cloud environments they use, like Azure and Google, because they are not really effective.

FortiGate is a very good firewall that has a lot of features, and it's a firewall that gives the same stability as enterprise ones, and it gives you scalability in terms of deployment and operational management. I rate FortiGate NGFW a nine out of ten.

Customers require Next Generation Firewall features, UTM, URL filtering, and application filtering.

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall has a simple configuration.

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall's performance and threat intelligence could be improved.

I have been working with FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) for the last six years.

I rate FortiGate Next Generation Firewall a seven out of ten for stability.

The solution’s scalability needs to be improved. I rate FortiGate Next Generation Firewall an eight out of ten for scalability.

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall has a good technical support team that responds fast.

The solution has a straightforward initial setup.

It takes three to four days to deploy FortiGate Next Generation Firewall. Only one engineer is required for the solution’s deployment and maintenance.

Users need to pay for one-year, three-year, and five years licenses. FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is a very cheap solution.

We recommend FortiGate Next Generation Firewall to people from the SMB segment looking for a cost-effective and single-box solution.

Overall, I rate FortiGate Next Generation Firewall an eight out of ten.

We use the solution as an internal gateway to protect some of our data center solutions.

The solution has the best group filtering features.

The solution's technical support could be better. Also, its hardware features need improvement as well.

We have been using the solution for five years.

It is a stable solution.

The solution is scalable. We have medium and small businesses as our clients.

The solution's technical support team's response could be faster.

The solution's initial setup process is easy. A new environment takes two to three days, while an existing one takes more time to implement. Also, it requires ten executives to deploy it and three to six executives to maintain it.

The solution's price is average. We have its yearly license. There are additional costs for support and license renewal.

It is a good solution. I rate it a seven out of ten.

The solution is used in my company since its management is very comfortable. If we compare Fortinet and Cisco, Fortinet's web interface is more user-friendly and offers speed.

We use the solution's URL filtering, IPS, SSL, and, specifically, SSL encryption. In general, the tool offers a user-friendly interface and pleasant management.

I cannot say anything about the product's price, and the tool does not need any customizations.

A firewall has different levels of productivity that its customers can use in their official branches, which can be small offices, big offices, or enterprise-sized organizations. The vendors offer models with different levels of productivity of the product to its users, which is not possible in FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW). It lacks integration options. I would like the tool to offer its users more integration options. Most of the vendors of NGFW offer integrations open with different solutions. FortiGate is able to integrate with Cisco or Microsoft. FortiGate has a lot of possibilities in terms of integration with other vendors, so the integration capabilities of the tool need improvement. FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) has OpenAPI, which gives customers an option to integrate the tool into their custom software.

I have been using FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) for seven to nine months. I use the solution's latest version. My company has a partnership with Fortinet.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Around 3,000 or more use the solution in our company. We have three appliances in total, each having a thousand users.

I rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

The support does open a case when an issue is raised, but since it is the USA, despite the support hearing our problems, they do get late to respond. We only have issues with the support of low priority. I never open high-priority cases with the support team.

Neutral

On a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the initial setup an eight or nine. It is easy to install since it can be done with small configuration steps.

The solution is deployed on the cloud. Most of the firewall devices are deployed on the cloud, especially since NGFW of different vendors work on the cloud.

The deployment can be done in just a week since we need to find answers to some questions from our management and our security department. We need to get certain approvals in terms of the security policies before proceeding with the deployment phase.

One or two people are enough for the deployment process.

To those planning to use it, I would suggest that they opt for a pilot offering from FortiGate and try to use it to understand and figure out its advantages and disadvantages.

I like FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) more than Cisco, even though I have worked more with the latter tool than the former.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use the solution to protect our services published on the internet.

The solution is more reliable and easy to manage than Cisco Firewall Solutions. It provides a flexible interface for configuration.

The solution's load balancing feature could be easy to configure in terms of interface.

We have been using the solution for 15 years.

The solution is stable compared to other vendors.

The solution is scalable for our medium enterprise.

The solution is easy to access and configure in terms of GUI.

The reseller for the solution helped us implement it.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

As for us, the IPS and the application control feature are the most valuable.

Maybe the room for improvement is to have more flexibility on the virtual machines of their next-generation platforms. 

So far, FortiGate is really pricey and comes with some restrictions. FortiGate NGFW can enhances that to make it easier to be deployed.

I have been using the latest version of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) for eight to ten years.

As for the stability of the FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), I would rate it a nine out of ten.

The scalability of the FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is good. In our organization, we have our data centers having FortiGate, and our customers are selling FortiGate. So the number of users, you can say 100 in my organization.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

I don't have premium support or something from their side, but I would like basic support.

Neutral

The deployment depends on the architecture, but simple deployment can take up to five to ten minutes, and you are done. It's an easy deployment when you know what you need, actually. It requires one person to deploy it.

I would rate the initial setup an eight out of ten.

I would rate the pricing of appliances. So, outside appliances are maybe four, but the virtual machine is, like, eight. It is too expensive for virtual licenses.

We evaluated Sophos and WatchGuard in the past. Fortunately, definitely and technically, for the supposed deployments using the platform is much easier and much more efficient.

My advice would be just go for it. It is a really nice solution, scalable and stable, most importantly. It is easy to use, and all the security features are available. Also, it is very flexible for all sorts of deployments. I would recommend it certainly compared to any other firewall providers.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

Organizations with about 50 to 100 employees use the solution for VPN, ZTNA, and remote connectivity between branch offices and site-to-site VPN. The solution acts as a gateway-level firewall that secures the office infrastructure against threats in mid-size enterprise organizations.

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is a good solution because it has a range of options and a clear ecosystem. It has good availability of solutions that complement the next-generation firewall. For example, it has a good range of switches and access points. The solution also has a good ecosystem where cloud services like FortiMail complement the whole solution. The solution has a better ecosystem for community support.

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall could be made a little less expensive.

I have been working with FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) for around three years.

Bugs appear whenever a new firmware or operating system is uploaded into the device for certain modules. These bugs might cause certain services not to work, which has been the case in the past. There have been certain things that were resolved with the new firmware update. FortiGate Next Generation Firewall comes with a six version or a seven version.

The 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 versions would have bugs, but the 6.4 version would be pretty stable and precise without any issues. Hence, I generally prefer to go ahead with the later version of a particular generation. For example, instead of going with the first version of the sixth generation, I would go in for a third or a fourth version. These things are there in most vendors, but I've noticed these, particularly in FortiGate Next Generation Firewall.

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is a pretty scalable solution, and mostly, small and medium companies use the solution.

Although FortiGate Next Generation Firewall's customer support is spontaneous in responding, their actual responses are a little slow. They take time. When I say spontaneous, I mean the case ticket gets logged immediately, but the response from Fortinet doesn't come so fast. You have to follow up and then get things done.

Neutral

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall’s initial setup is straightforward.

The solution’s deployment takes one hour. Two to three engineers are required for the deployment of the solution. One or two people maintain the solution by monitoring and fixing breakdowns, which rarely happens.

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is an expensive solution. I rate FortiGate Next Generation Firewall an eight out of ten for pricing. The solution has a yearly license, and you have to pay additionally for the deployment and partner-led services.

FortiGate Next Generation Firewall charges additionally for migration. Suppose you're upgrading from an older appliance to a newer appliance. In that case, the partner has to buy a FortiConverter Service or a FortiConverter tool on a per-incident basis, which is charged. On the other hand, partners can use the tools available in SonicWall. Compared to FortiGate Next Generation Firewall, SonicWall is better in terms of support and pricing.

We work with the latest version of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall.

Overall, I rate FortiGate Next Generation Firewall a nine and a half or ten out of ten.

We are a distributor of Fortinet products. My role primarily involves importing these products and delivering them to our partners and resellers, who in turn sell them to the end customers.

FortiGate is a rapidly growing vendor with a wide range of ready-to-use products. Their delivery time is remarkably quick, usually between two to four weeks. They provide excellent support, especially when it comes to helping resellers who may encounter implementation issues with Fortinet. The technical presales and support teams are readily available to assist them. So, there are definitely several benefits to working with Fortinet.

The interface, pricing, and support are good. FortiGate release new patches and offers regularly. In the integration file, they don't have anything to add because they have a very wide portfolio and models in the next-generation firewalls. FortiGate has a variety of add-on license tools that can be applied to the firewall.

FortiGate should continue to push them to continue to grow up as they've been growing for the last eight years.

FortiGate NGFW can improve technical support. The engineer who answers the technical support call, email, or phone call, whatever the medium may be. The response time is very bad.

I have been working with FortiGate Next Generation Firewall for eight years. 

We don't have broken devices to be repaired or replaced with new ones, so they are very stable while working.

I rate the solution’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten.

We have all types of business models and customers in our portfolio, such as the midsized business, enterprise, entry-level, and small businesses. We are working with all of that with all of the Fortinet solutions.

The customer support is very slow. The engineer who answers the technical support call, email, or phone call, whatever the medium may be. The response time is very bad. 

On the other hand, Cisco takes one or two hours to respond, while Fortinet takes a few days. This is an area that they could improve on a global scale.

Neutral

The initial setup of the solution is easy, which is the most important feature for in-domain-wide resellers, partners, and customers. In the end, if you want to use Fortinet as a firewall administrator in your network, it is highly recommended because it is extremely easy to set up, especially for first-time users.  

Even if you have previous experience with Cisco or Check Point, setting up Fortinet is easy. It is a very user-friendly configuration.

I rate the solution setup a ten out of ten. It is very user-friendly.

FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall is cheaper than Cisco or CheckPoint or Palo Alto and more expensive than Barracuda or Sophos or any smaller brands. The prices fit right where they are on the global market.

I advise you to buy it ASAP because it's a very good product.

From my experience as a distributor, some customers don't buy technical support on the devices. They buy only devices. I will advise them to buy the technical support of FortiCare service. In that case, they will have technical support by phone call, or by mail. They will have a replacement if anything is broken 24/7.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

There are numerous features and benefits depending on the specific use case. Fortinet offers comprehensive security solutions for various purposes. I can deploy different solutions and more. 

There is room for improvement in pricing. 

I have almost five years of experience with FortiGate NGFW. I work with the firewall for small businesses and enterprises. Currently, I'm using the enterprise version.

As for the models, I mainly use FortiGate 6800, T, 100C, 200S, and 200P.

I haven't experienced any stability issues with this product so far. It handles everything it needs to, including server requirements, client services, and computing, without any problems. I have deployed numerous firewalls, and until now, they have been incredibly stable. There haven't been any issues related to version compatibility either. So, I would say it's stable for me.

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. 

Customer service and support are good. Every time I have reached out to them, they have been responsive and helpful. In fact, I have even shared news and deployment information on my LinkedIn to showcase their excellent support.

The initial setup was easy. There were no issues during the setup.

The time taken for deployment depends on various factors. For example, if I deploy it today, I might install it the following day. However, if there are any issues with the network architecture provided by the IT vendor, it may take more time to resolve those issues before completing the deployment. But in terms of deployment alone, without considering logistics, it can be done in a day or a few hours.

In our market, the pricing is a little expensive. While we can acquire a smaller package of Fortinet, it still comes at a high cost. So, I would say the pricing is on the higher side. However, when comparing it with other vendors, it's still more reasonable.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. A rating of ten would require even more efficient reporting and swift resolution of any breakout or resilience attack. If they can provide faster fixes and proactive responses, it would be perfect.