TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Catalyst Switches

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/ACisco's Catalyst is one of that company's brand of network switches.N/A

    FortiGate

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AFortiNet 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 Catalyst SwitchesFortiGate
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesFortiGate
    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 Catalyst SwitchesFortiGate
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    I think Cisco Catalyst Switches works really well when they are implemented singularly to enhance connectivity. When designing an architecture from the ground up, I like to recommend FortiGate because their product is easier to use and when going all in on the Fortinet …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Easier configuration and stack ready switches
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    They are both Cisco but I prefer stacking over vpc
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Cisco tends to be solid and reliable and great for longer term projects where ROI can spread over longer periods. They tend to be less competitive when extended featuresets are needed, much more difficult and painful to manage service and feature licensing (especially in …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Cisco reliability and ease of management is next to none. Cisco is a leading company in technology.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Cisco Catalyst Switches seems to be a better solution, but the cost can sometimes be the deciding factor.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Catalyst switches were already in place
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    We had about 15 different brands of network switches before adopting Cisco, and were not satisfied with any of them. Percentage of breakage on these units was very high.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Far and above better. More features and speed
    Incentivized
    Fortinet
    Chose FortiGate
    Feature to feature comparisons, Cisco and Fortinet are on par with each other. Both have great service and support. Both have robust security features that protect your network from various threats and exploits. Both have great logging and reporting capabilities. Both are high …
    Incentivized
    Chose FortiGate
    The cost was comparable to the SonicWall we were looking at but feature wise, they are in a different league. The Fortigate offered far more next generation firewall features and they were bundled in with the license we chose. The interface is much easier to use and we spend …
    Incentivized
    Chose FortiGate
    The solution that Fortinet provides is very good because it gives you the power to manage limited resources such as bandwidth; and at the same time, it lets you filter web content that might harm your network or computers. It is a very easy tool to understand when using the …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    98%
    Would buy again
    600 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    49 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    531 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    48 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    600 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    49 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    490 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    44 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    568 Answers
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    47 Answers
    Features
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesFortiGate
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Cisco Catalyst Switches and Fortinet FortiGate
    Feature
    Cisco Catalyst Switches
    -
    Ratings
    Fortinet FortiGate
    8.7
    53 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Identification Technologies00 Ratings8.951 Ratings
    Visualization Tools00 Ratings8.351 Ratings
    Content Inspection00 Ratings8.852 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls00 Ratings8.953 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings8.750 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console00 Ratings7.752 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging00 Ratings8.353 Ratings
    VPN00 Ratings9.152 Ratings
    High Availability00 Ratings9.348 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection00 Ratings9.251 Ratings
    Proxy Server00 Ratings8.539 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesFortiGate
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    RUCKUS Ethernet Switches
    Score1 out of 10
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Ethernet Switches
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesFortiGate
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (774 ratings)
    8.7
    (79 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.9
    (40 ratings)
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    Usability
    8.6
    (46 ratings)
    8.7
    (21 ratings)
    Availability
    8.8
    (14 ratings)
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    9.3
    (14 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.5
    (38 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (12 ratings)
    5.0
    (5 ratings)
    Configurability
    8.8
    (10 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.1
    (9 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.2
    (14 ratings)
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    7.9
    (36 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (37 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesFortiGate
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Well-suited for big companies like mine, where we have a lot of users that we have to connect together. Getting all the switches into one big stack that you can just manage all at one time is fantastic for ease of use. Not suited for maybe smaller mom and pop shops or smaller companies that don’t have as many. They could probably go with something much easier to manage.
    Incentivized
    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'.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • Easy-to-use management interfaces. The CLI commands go across the whole Cisco Catalyst Switches 9000 series, so it makes it easy, the code being the same on the 9000 series. Just being able to do port channels, trunks, and connecting up edge switches to it with the Cisco Catalyst Switches 9000 Series.
    Incentivized
    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
    • One thing is that these, every time Cisco gets a new switch, they just make an amendment to the power supply, so they'll just put a knob on it. So let's say if you lose any power supply unit, you'll have to purchase another one, which costs a lot of extra money because we have a lot of another power supply units from the redundant, which we can use, but we can't now because they have just tweaked the modeling of that. Which makes no sense, particularly to me because it's an extra money making machine kind of a thing. But that's fine.
    • Another thing is these ports, I believe they are a bit less of, if I can say the quality of the oldest switches, they were quite sturdy. As I said earlier, the new switches, they're very light and when you lift them you feel it. So that's one thing, which I think the quality or the material which we are using has gone down.
    Incentivized
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    They are consistently reliable and this switch in particular is a very affordable solution. We can place the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches gear in areas that we normally would not place a switch because it is affordable enough to make it justifiable. And because it is a reliable solution, we are confident it will continue to provide service over the long haul.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cisco
    Cisco by and far does a great job with the Catalyst line. From a layer 2 dumb switch all the way up to ISP carrier grade switching within the Catalyst portfolio. The best part about it is command parity among the various tiers of product. The only differences are going to lie in what features are available per switch.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    We have very few is any outages due to a Cisco hardware failure. Some of our gear is exposed to some pretty harsh environments, and they keep on ticking!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Cisco
    No, the packets flow. Sometimes you will see collisions and broadcast storms can happen which will slow performance but that can be fixed and the packets will flow.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    We rarely have issues with the product. I have only had to contact support one time since we put it in and that was to see if another vendor was giving me accurate information on an issue I was having.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Cisco
    Cisco Networking Academy partners with many local Colleges and High Schools to provide great hands-on training. You do need to drive to learn the topic. The in-class session only go so far. You really need to apply this to the real world. Cisco makes it easy for business to connect via CLC or Cisco Learning Credits.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    I received it a couple years afters use it and it was just to confirm my knowledge about the tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Cisco
    My own personal research to get the information I want is very handy and helped me many times
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    The implementation of the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches is fairly seamless, especially if you are familiar with Cisco products. We have had Brocade switch gear in place too, and the differences between the manufacturers [are] not a major issue.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    Make sure that you have the most current version of FortiOS. Make sure all Fortigates are on the same version
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    2960s, 9200s, 9400s, 3650s, 3800s. I think that this product is a lot better. I know I just complained about the noise, but it’s still much quieter than our other ones. So we do have a couple of public deployments, and once we swap these out, they complained less. Sometimes we have small offices that get the gear in with them, and these sound less like a jet engine. And yeah, these are a lot easier to manage as well. Everything in the same family. It’s a lot.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Fortinet
    No changes needed to terms and conditions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cisco
    We are exclusive Cisco at our organization. In truth part of the reason is, with one type of switch and one manufacturer, it is easier to support. It is also easier to give consistent training to our staff in our tech department
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    My environments are pretty small (less than 100 users per location) so no issues here.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • energy costs dropped by around 11 per cent on the access layer
    • management has become easier with DNA Center
    • ISSU software upgrades and fabric deployments have significantly reduced "planned" down times
    • network speed has increased, latency is at an all-time best within our own LAN
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Cisco Catalyst Switches Screenshots

    Product screenshotScreenshot of Catalyst 9200 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9300 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9400 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9400 Series Additional ViewScreenshot of Catalyst 9500 Series