Cisco AnyConnect vs. Fortinet FortiGate

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco AnyConnect
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Cisco offers an SSL VPN solution via AnyConnect.N/A
FortiGate
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
FortiNet FortiGate is a firewall option with high integrability. It offers a variety of deployment options and next-gen firewall capabilities, including integration with IaaS cloud platforms and public cloud environments.N/A
Pricing
Cisco AnyConnectFortinet FortiGate
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco AnyConnectFortiGate
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFortiGate pricing starts at $250 for home office use, up to $300,000 for large enterprise appliances. Must contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco AnyConnectFortinet FortiGate
Considered Both Products
Cisco AnyConnect
Chose Cisco AnyConnect
Even though we have a FortiGate firewall on our network, we prefer Cisco AnyConnect as it is one tool for multiple solutions. We are using ISE which by default needs Cisco AnyConnect to be installed on the user's side, so we can use it also to connect through our VPN.
Chose Cisco AnyConnect
After the events of update failure from CrowdStrike on July 19th, 2024, it will likely have a significant falling out in the trust of that product. Fortinet has a formidle solution and outstanding reviews, however, Cisco AnyConnect has been the most reliable solution that I …
FortiGate

No answer on this topic

Features
Cisco AnyConnectFortinet FortiGate
Virtual Private Network
Comparison of Virtual Private Network features of Product A and Product B
Cisco AnyConnect
9.0
13 Ratings
0% below category average
Fortinet FortiGate
-
Ratings
AES 256-bit Encryption9.513 Ratings00 Ratings
Kill Switch8.89 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Platform Support9.313 Ratings00 Ratings
Split Tunneling9.511 Ratings00 Ratings
IP Address Masking9.012 Ratings00 Ratings
No-Logs Policy8.39 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Server Locations8.611 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic Wi-Fi Protection9.210 Ratings00 Ratings
Simultaneous Connections9.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer Support Services8.512 Ratings00 Ratings
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco AnyConnect
-
Ratings
Fortinet FortiGate
8.6
52 Ratings
0% below category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings8.850 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings8.250 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings8.851 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings8.852 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings8.649 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings7.751 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings8.152 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings9.051 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings9.347 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings9.250 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings8.438 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco AnyConnectFortinet FortiGate
Small Businesses
Norton 360
Norton 360
Score 6.7 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
Cisco AnyConnectFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(103 ratings)
8.7
(79 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(12 ratings)
7.0
(5 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(81 ratings)
8.6
(20 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(9 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(3 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(86 ratings)
9.0
(27 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(7 ratings)
5.0
(5 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(7 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.7
(3 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco AnyConnectFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Cisco AnyConnect has allowed me to connect to the network when I am not at the office. For example, in an international digital campaign, it was possible to access readily important files and work on other collaborative working spaces without any violation of security measures. I noticed that there was a slight lag whenever several members of the team logged in at the same time during the weekend.
Read full review
Fortinet
Fortinet FortiGate addressed an immediate security issue we had a few years ago. The device gave us a much clearer picture of the activities on our network and also more importantly, increased our awareness of threats from the internet as a whole. Fortinet FortiGate helps us to mitigate these threats with regular signature updates from Fortiguard labs, identifying certain characteristics which, once recognised by Fortinet FortiGate, can be harnessed to deploy powerful 'playbooks'.
Read full review
Pros
Cisco
  • It provides you an exceptional hybrid work experience. It enables your employees to work seamlessly from home, office, and other branches.
  • It enables your employees to access corporate applications anytime, even after office hours.
  • It helps your team to maintain a healthy work-life balance and boosts your productivity.
Read full review
Fortinet
  • SD-WAN - Load balancing of Internet traffic is a USP of Fortigate and makes it stand tall in the competition. Be it 3 or more Internet Links, multiple Subnets/segments of users to distribute and bandwidth load balancing for links and users. SLA based monitoring of Internet Links / MPLS links, makes it even better to choose the links on the basis of performance (Latency, packet loss, Jitter etc).
  • SSL VPN configuration - As we all have WFH force (to some extend or all employee) during Covid-19, it is impossible to plan BCP without having a SSL VPN. In Fortigate, the SSL VPN configuration is very easy with the help of wizard. The deep CLI-level debugging is also very helpful in troubleshooting. Type of tunnel can be easily configured - Full Tunnel or Split Tunnel for SSL.
  • Explicit Proxy - This is also a great feature to shape and re-route the traffic, configuring the Proxy on the Firewall itself. We are using this feature in Pilot for now, and planned to rollout in few weeks looking at the success rate of the POC.
Read full review
Cons
Cisco
  • Cisco AnyConnect can use the system resources as long as the program is being run.
  • Account activation may be very difficult when connecting from areas requiring captive portal login, if certain settings are not allowed.
  • By default, it is possible to request the user to authenticate again at specific intervals.
Read full review
Fortinet
  • Documentation is missing a great deal of detail and assumes the customer and just guess and fill in the blanks themselves
  • Fortinet has lots and lots of video guides on topics that only a small percentage of customers would ever need
  • The documentation and video guides do not get updated so most is only relevant to older software versions
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
It is perhaps the second most functional tool we have, it will definitely be renewed every year. Our network is stable, which ensures that there is less for our technicians to troubleshoot, which frees them up to ensure other parts of the company are maintained. This keeps our costs low and our downtime at a minimum.
Read full review
Fortinet
Fortinet's products have kept improving with new software releases and they continue to deliver great value. Their support is also very good. I believe that as a small enterprise, their products have given us competitive advantage delivering features and functionality that enable us to innovate and do things better. They also continue to be a leader in the markets they serve.
Read full review
Usability
Cisco
It has many advantages and uses other than other common VPNs but it's very important to understand the problems and issues which till not solved yet. The major issue is there is no support system or no body is doing hypercare for clients or client organizations. Speed is good, but making a connection is worse, and nobody cares about it.
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Fortinet
The firewall runs very well, firmware updates are fairly quick but you must follow the upgrade path. Neglecting this step will cause a lot of pain. If you decide to go with Fortinet FortiGate switches and/or access points, they can be managed within the firewall which is great. We're also using the FortiAnalyzer which easily plugs into the firewall for any reporting you may require.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
I have been using Cisco AnyConnect for past two years and thus I can say very firmly that I have never seen the outage from the Cisco AnyConnect services either It is VPN, System Scans or the Network Connectivity. Talking about the errors likewise major errors I have faced throughout my period of use.
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Fortinet
We had didn't any hardware failures at our two main office locations and upgraded our units last year after using them for about 5-6 years
Read full review
Performance
Cisco
Absolutely no speed issues, and I see no evidence of slowdowns across any of the multiple platforms I use daily. It's operation is completely invisible most of the time, except where there is a loss of connection due to server issues or a loss of power. Everything loads quickly and accurately.
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Fortinet
Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
Read full review
Support Rating
Cisco
Because whenever I log the case with Cisco support, yes they have come back with valid technical data. So this is what has happened and we could fix it in this way. That support will detail what happened and how to get it overcome very quickly. That's what I like. The support level we get is really good for the product
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Fortinet
The Support team at Fortinet is excellent. They can not only help you configure the device for what you are trying to do, they offer suggestions on improving rules, and troubleshooting issues. Their response time is fast, ensuring you are up and running immediately with no questions asked. We had a hard drive failure in one of our Fortinet Fortigate appliances. The tech answered immediately, and started rebuilding the drive after some preliminary investigations. After rebuilding, there were still errors and issues, so they dispatched a brand new Fortinet Fortigate appliance. The tech then backed up the configurations for when the new device came in, which showed up in a few hours. A restore of the configuration took less than a minute, and there were no more errors or issues.
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In-Person Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fortinet
I received it a couple years afters use it and it was just to confirm my knowledge about the tool.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Cisco
Our Managed Services vendor helped us with the implementation. When we initially setup our AnyConnect using MFA for remote connectivity, the setup was easy and straight forward and worked just fine. After a year, we decided to change to an "always on" feature and use machine and user based security certificates instead of MFA. We had to open a ticket with Cisco support and have their assistance getting this feature to work. Turned out they had a small bug in the code for that version of AnyConnect and it has since been corrected. We have had no issues with the upgrades since that time. The deployment of the software to the user machines was done with SCCM and was straight forward. The user machine upgrades are easy - when the user machine connects and sees a new version available, it upgrades itself! What could be easier?
Read full review
Fortinet
Make sure that you have the most current version of FortiOS. Make sure all Fortigates are on the same version
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco is one of our core partners besides Microsoft and SAP. And so yes, we are utilizing very many projects from Cisco. I would mention the whole networking equipment, the routing equipment, the wireless LAN, and also when it comes to infrastructure to compute infrastructure, we are utilizing Cisco servers within our converged infrastructure Flex spot. So we have been running a flex bot from Cisco, NetApp, and VMware for 12 years, and we are still very satisfied with the product. We are looking forward to upgrading to the newest blades and fabric interconnect to continue this journey.
Read full review
Fortinet
[Fortinet] FortiGate is not only cost effective but it gives the comprehensive security against the APT attacks and gives the complete traffic visibility and granular control. You can easily create the VDOMs (Virtual firewall) within a Fortigate firewall and customize the dashboard as per your requirement if you have multiple VDOMs within a single firewall.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fortinet
No changes needed to terms and conditions.
Read full review
Scalability
Cisco
Cisco AnyConnect has been a speedy, reliable, and efficient tool for the creation of your own VPN whatever location that you've brought your laptop. Customer support is consistently top-notch, coming up with quick fixes to whatever difficulties are thrown your way. I would not hesitate to reccommend Cisco AnyConnect to any business that needs connected employees throught the world.
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Fortinet
My environments are pretty small (less than 100 users per location) so no issues here.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • We are able to seamlessly work on multiple clients daily, and it allows us to quickly handle more projects at the same time.
  • Cisco AnyConnect has allowed our own company's coworkers to remotely connect back to the corporate network, easily assisting work schedules and processes, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being forced to work remotely, meant our processes still happened quickly and efficiently, by being able to leverage and use Cisco AnyConnect VPN.
  • Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have worked 100% remotely for a few years now. This was always due to the reliable connectivity and ease of use with Cisco AnyConnect VPN. I live 2+ hours from our nearest corporate office, and even further from some of my client locations, and I have always been able to connect to any of my multiple Cisco AnyConnect VPN connections, within seconds.
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Fortinet
  • The pricing given to us for our firewall was well within what we were already spending for other vendors solutions and had the added value of eliminating a separate expense for a dedicated web filtering appliance.
  • We have also adopted Fortinet's security fabric approach and thus changed vendors for our switch and AP devices. These devices have come at reduced prices as compared to another previous vendor we were using, particularly in relation to ongoing annual maintenance costs.
Read full review
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