I'm using Fortinet FortiGate for consultancy, implementation, and troubleshooting after device implementation. We serve as both reseller and consultant, providing search support and consultancy support. I usually recommend Fortinet FortiGate for small and small-sized businesses.
FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall (ARM64/Graviton)
Fortinet Inc.External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Comprehensive traffic management and explore improve initial setup processes
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
I have experience with Fortinet FortiGate SD-WAN, as it is a method for routing traffic. We can assign profiles with specific conditions to create best practices or optimal experiences for customers. These profiles can manage traffic balance or link balancing. We can detect users or specific links for particular services, including load balancing.
What is most valuable?
Fortinet FortiGate provides superior protection compared to other firewalls, with high processing capabilities. In comparison to Sophos devices, Fortinet FortiGate offers enhanced protection through network protection, IPS, and application protection.
What needs improvement?
They could simplify their deployment process, especially when customers have existing devices. The configuration approach depends on whether customers need to start from scratch or can utilize existing backups and rules.
I would seek to improve Fortinet FortiGate by exploring additional features, such as SASE solutions that we are currently studying and implementing. The configuration could be made easier, particularly during initial setup. We need to ensure comprehensive utilization of all device features and learn best practices from other cases.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate for approximately one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Fortinet FortiGate is overall stable. When compared with Sophos, particularly regarding remote access and SSL VPN, Fortinet FortiGate proves much easier to use. While Sophos presented port-related challenges in Egypt, Fortinet FortiGate operates more smoothly.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Fortinet FortiGate is scalable, with capacity depending on firewall sizing. We determine sizing based on multiple factors: number of users, available links, traffic types, server count, services in use, and whether services will be published. We consider parameters such as VPN requirements, remote access needs, side-to-side VPN configuration, and overall traffic volume to determine device capacity.
How are customer service and support?
We tend to handle support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have experience with Fortinet products and limited experience with Cisco.
I provide other firewalls, such as Sophos, and I have worked with endpoint protection solutions. I have experience with backup solutions such as Veeam, and endpoint security solutions including Kaspersky and ESET.
How was the initial setup?
I have created many profiles for SD-WAN capabilities while integrating with Fortinet FortiGate. We assess customer needs and make recommendations accordingly. If customers aren't using SD-WAN, I suggest implementing it due to its effective load balancing capabilities and additional firewall features.
What was our ROI?
Regarding the evaluation of changes in return on investment after implementing the Fortinet solution for SD-WAN hybrid workforce, we work on a case-by-case basis. ROI is monitored by management, and we do not directly track ROI in the systems.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Fortinet FortiGate is among the best options in the market, though alternatives exist, including Sophos. Fortinet FortiGate demonstrates stronger performance and protection compared to Sophos, though its device and license costs are higher.
What other advice do I have?
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
A robust, secure, and reasonably priced firewall
What is our primary use case?
We use Fortinet FortiGate 100F, which is one of two firewalls that we have, one at the entrance of the DMZ and one just outside. One is facing the internet, and the other is at the entrance of the DMZ. We use the one outside to essentially work as a VPN.
How has it helped my organization?
As compared to our previous firewall, WatchGuard, which is a good firewall, the successful hacking attempts were far fewer and further with the Fortinet FortiGate, but at the same time, I don't know if the credit goes to only FortiGate, as we have two firewalls versus one in the second implementation. Overall, it is more secure. The VPN is also more stable than the offering from WatchGuard at that time.
What is most valuable?
Fortinet FortiGate is one of the most solid and secure firewalls as long as you keep it up to date. The price is right; it's not very expensive.
It's quite feature-rich. While we've mostly used the VPN, we've also utilized it to create high availability.
What needs improvement?
We are pretty happy with it. If anything, I believe the web interface could be simpler, especially for someone who has limited networking experience. I mostly do administration, and I found Cisco to be the hardest major firewall manufacturer to deal with, with Fortinet FortiGate being the second hardest for me. In comparison, there's a bit of an easier and more user-friendly interface with WatchGuard.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have about three years of experience with the Fortinet FortiGate firewall. We also use FortiClient VPN.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The VPN was more stable than the offering from WatchGuard at that time.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate the service and technical support of Fortinet FortiGate as pretty good. Whenever we needed them, they would be there for us. I would rate them a nine out of ten. We had no complaints, although they were sometimes extremely busy.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before using Fortinet FortiGate, we were using WatchGuard, which is another good firewall.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup process was efficient, as it took us less than an hour to set up both firewalls.
What about the implementation team?
I was involved in the deployment of the Fortinet FortiGate, handling the physical deployment myself while our vendor managed the initial setup.
We got the Fortinet FortiGate from Telus, which is a Canadian phone company. Our experience was excellent. They're a major phone company, so the services are never less than stellar.
The maintenance for Fortinet FortiGate involves just the occasional patch update. We have software that informs us whenever there's a new patch, and if it's critical, we run the patch update immediately; if not, we usually run it at the end of the month after it's released.
What was our ROI?
We had uninterrupted service. If one firewall failed, we still had a secure infrastructure. I believe we essentially had a great VPN compared to the alternative offerings, so that's a good return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's good. I would rate the price of the Fortinet FortiGate as an eight out of ten. It's not the cheapest, but it's value for money. Given everything we've got out of it: the DMZ port, the VPN, and the high availability, it's a pretty reasonable price.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise others considering or evaluating the Fortinet FortiGate to buy it. It's one of the best products for the price.
I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.
Deep inspection capabilities require improvement while good GUI and features enhance network performance
How has it helped my organization?
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
What other advice do I have?
Provides comprehensive security and time savings
What is our primary use case?
The typical use cases for Fortinet FortiGate revolve around its security capabilities, as it has a number of features that clients see as necessary for a security solution. This helps them protect various platforms on their networks and infrastructures.
I am involved in implementation as a partner.
What is most valuable?
It's a good solution. I've not interacted much with it. I know a few features, and it's a nice one.
It's comprehensive and time-saving. It covers several areas regarding security.
What needs improvement?
Improvements for Fortinet FortiGate could be made by making it easier to implement on networks and simpler to add users and accounts that utilize this solution. That's basically the only challenge that I see.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have one to two years of experience working with Fortinet FortiGate.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. While there are issues during implementation, once everything is properly configured, it remains stable. The implementation process can affect users, but those issues get sorted out.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I find the scalability of this solution to be very good because it allows for easy expansion. You can add more users as needed, which makes it flexible.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate the technical support from Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I normally apply the licensing as a partner, but I am not involved in procurement.
What other advice do I have?
It's a good product that significantly enhances security and protects organizational data. Therefore, I would recommend considering using it.
I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.
Enables seamless traffic handling and effective network protection
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
For how long have I used the solution?
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
How are customer service and support?
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
What about the implementation team?
What was our ROI?
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
What other advice do I have?
Our clients like its comprehensive protection and easy installation and management
What is our primary use case?
The typical use case for the Fortinet FortiGate firewall for my clients is its ease of use. My clients are using Fortinet FortiGate as SD-WAN.
How has it helped my organization?
The effectiveness of Fortinet's unified SASE in providing consistent security policies is notable because there is one security profile from either the head office or the branch office, allowing your profile to move seamlessly with you wherever you go. You have end-to-end visibility, and you can look at the analytics. To me, that moves towards SASE.
What is most valuable?
My clients appreciate it for its features. It is easy to install and manage, and it offers all-around protection, including web filtering, content filtering, IPS, and IDS.
My clients find the next-generation firewall feature of Fortinet FortiGate to be particularly valuable. It provides internet security, network security, cloud security, ZTNA, and SD-WAN security. There is a unified agent for FortiClient. There is centralized management.
What needs improvement?
Areas of improvement for Fortinet FortiGate include the need for more training and certification, especially when dealing with distributors globally, which presents challenges in product availability and delivery timelines.
There should also be more training and certification.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have about 10 years of experience with Fortinet FortiGate.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I find Fortinet FortiGate to be a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution, as you can start small, maybe with FortiGate 40F, and then move to FortiGate 60F or FortiGate 80F, depending on your needs.
How are customer service and support?
It depends on who your distributor is.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
It is not straightforward, but the implementation is pretty good overall. Every site is different for me. There is no standard site. We have a few different issues here and there, but overall, it's pretty good and straightforward to install. Its integration is not difficult.
It is a matter of learning and understanding the reasons why people need Fortinet FortiGate.
What was our ROI?
Fortinet FortiGate positively provides my clients' organizations with a high return on investment. There is visibility into network operations, allowing us to identify network issues. It has advanced security features. You can achieve about 200% ROI over three years, while enhancing IT teams' productivity by about 50%. It simplifies security across branches and enhances hybrid and cloud security. There is even a feature where you can predict the application performance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's very competitive.
What other advice do I have?
Many users nowadays prefer agentless installations over installing agents on their devices, which presents challenges for endpoint security, especially concerning ZTNA, VPN, and endpoint protection.
I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.
Does its job effectively and protects our environment
How has it helped my organization?
We don't have any issues regarding security, and our web server is running fine with protection from all threats.
What is most valuable?
The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are that it does the job effectively and protects our environment. It has a VPN and can create a virtual IP for a web server and functions as a standard firewall.
What needs improvement?
We faced difficulties with the configuration because there are many features we could optimize using Fortinet FortiGate, but our reseller didn't have a good understanding of it. So, we just use it on a basic level, not with the best practice for using FortiGate.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Fortinet FortiGate for around five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Overall, I find Fortinet FortiGate to be very stable. Fortinet FortiGate demonstrates consistent stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In my case, the 101F is not scalable. I faced problems with scalability related to memory. When we hit 100% memory usage, it stops the internet connection, so we need to control the traffic. We cannot increase the memory.
We have about 350 users and only one admin.
How are customer service and support?
My experience with Fortinet's technical support is good and helpful. The response time and overall competence meet our expectations. I would rate their support a seven out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Juniper before Fortinet FortiGate. We switched because it was an old one and reached the end of support. We had to change.
How was the initial setup?
We were supported by a third party and the reseller. During deployment, it was not a good experience because of the reseller. We had challenges with the optimized configuration.
The deployment took around three months.
What about the implementation team?
The reseller helped us with the implementation. It has been a long time since the implementation, so I don't remember the name of the company that helped us.
Our IT has six people for deployment, and we used two staff members.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investment with Fortinet FortiGate. The ROI calculation is based on potential loss prevention rather than traditional ROI metrics.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its pricing is good. The advantages of Fortinet FortiGate over its competitors include good pricing and meeting our requirements at a lower cost. Palo Alto's features are superior, but too expensive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I compared other brands, such as Palo Alto and Sophos, and chose Fortinet FortiGate. Palo Alto is the best, but it is significantly more expensive. Palo Alto has better capabilities than Fortinet FortiGate. Their protection is much more secure, and they excel in detecting intrusion and reading information.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.
Implementation improves efficiency and provides greater visibility over issues
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
For how long have I used the solution?
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
How are customer service and support?
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
What about the implementation team?
What was our ROI?
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
What other advice do I have?
Real-time updates strengthen our network edge security with effective threat detection
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
For how long have I used the solution?
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
How are customer service and support?
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
What about the implementation team?
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
What other advice do I have?
FSSO and Run Script are useful, and its price is also good
What is most valuable?
There is a tool called FSSO, which is a single sign-on user ID agent that works perfectly. You can configure anything on it, and it is better than Palo Alto's version.
The GUI is written in JavaScript, so when you move any object or policy to another one, it becomes easy to use. It is user-friendly and not complex for network configuration.
Run Script is the best tool to use in Fortinet FortiGate with multiple environments. You can perform multiple tasks at once with the script functionality. It is available through the GUI, whereas in Palo Alto, you need to run it in a separate tool, such as Python.
What needs improvement?
I prefer Palo Alto over Fortinet FortiGate. Its IPS engine is not better than the Palo Alto version. The monitoring tool needs improvement, and the syslog configuration needs enhancement.
The management plane and control plane are not separated as they are in the same hardware devices, whereas in Palo Alto, everything is separated. So, if the CPU and GPU usage gets higher in the data plane, the admin also becomes unreachable.
The web filter in Fortinet FortiGate is not very useful. While you can add web filters in security policies, it is difficult to understand and not flexible to use.
Fortinet FortiGate frequently experiences IPS engine problems.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with it for four to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In most cases, the IPS engine uses too many resources, which makes Fortinet FortiGate devices unstable. When clients encounter different issues, the IPS engine is usually the problem because it consumes excessive resources.
How are customer service and support?
I have not worked directly with technical support, but I am familiar with the distributor, partner, and vendor. People who work with Fortinet provide adequate service.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
I mostly migrate from Fortinet FortiGate, Check Point, and other solutions to Palo Alto. For migrations from various solutions to Fortinet FortiGate, it takes a few days, depending on the environment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Fortinet FortiGate is cheaper than Palo Alto. It is about 20% cheaper.
What other advice do I have?
I prefer Palo Alto over Fortinet FortiGate. Fortinet FortiGate is not the best firewall, but it is acceptable. If you have a budget to buy a firewall and Palo Alto is too expensive, then Fortinet FortiGate can be usable. As an instructor in Palo Alto Networks who knows all the techniques, I naturally prefer Palo Alto.
For a small company or branch, I would choose Fortinet FortiGate because it is cheaper and the features are sufficient. However, for more critical environments, such as government institutions or banks, where privacy and security are paramount, I would opt for Palo Alto.
In a hamburger topology setup with the internet side and internal side, I prefer using Palo Alto Networks on the internet side and Fortinet FortiGate on the internal side. This creates a multi-vendor environment, avoiding dependency on a single vendor. The internet side requires more security, hence I would go for Palo Alto, whereas the internal side would benefit from Fortinet FortiGate's flexibility and ease of use.
I would rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.