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F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. Fortinet FortiGate

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AF5 Networks provides BIG-IP Access Policy Manager as an identity and access solution which can be deployed as a standalone solution or as an add-on to F5 Networks' flagship BIG-IP TLM or F5 Advanced WAF applications.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
    F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)FortiGate
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)FortiGate
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—FortiGate 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
    F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)FortiGate
    Considered Both Products
    F5
    Chose F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)
    APM's SAML implementation was easier to understand and customize for our users.
    Incentivized
    Chose F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)
    It is open platform so support is not good and than F5 and features visibility as not good as F5.
    F5 Set up and easy to use to admin console.
    Also have more feature visibility for load balancing, web server accelerator, application server ddos protection and WAF.
    Incentivized
    Fortinet
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    24 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    49 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    24 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    48 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    25 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    49 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    95%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    18 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    44 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    20 Answers
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    47 Answers
    Features
    F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)FortiGate
    Virtual Private Network
    Comparison of Virtual Private Network features of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) and Fortinet FortiGate
    Feature
    F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)
    7.4
    13 Ratings
    18% below category average
    Fortinet FortiGate
    -
    Ratings
    AES 256-bit Encryption8.29 Ratings00 Ratings
    Kill Switch8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-Platform Support7.59 Ratings00 Ratings
    Split Tunneling7.85 Ratings00 Ratings
    IP Address Masking6.97 Ratings00 Ratings
    No-Logs Policy5.77 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple Server Locations7.28 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automatic Wi-Fi Protection7.42 Ratings00 Ratings
    Simultaneous Connections7.211 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customer Support Services7.710 Ratings00 Ratings
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) and Fortinet FortiGate
    Feature
    F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)
    -
    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 Ratings7.852 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
    F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)FortiGate
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)FortiGate
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (25 ratings)
    8.7
    (79 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    Usability
    8.2
    (14 ratings)
    8.7
    (21 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (5 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)FortiGate
    Likelihood to Recommend
    F5
    I think that the platform is well suited to many Remote Access VPN solutions, but I also think there is a lot of room for improvement on the backend. If you are hoping to deploy your APM solution across many different datacenters or colos, it may not be the best choice for the final solution.
    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
    F5
    • SAML 2.0 identity federation support.
    • Integrates with third-party SSO solutions.
    • Bridging modern authentication and authorization (SAML, OAuth/OIDC) and classic authentication and authorization methods.
    • Policy routing
    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
    F5
    • There's some more advanced configurations within OAuth that I think could be fleshed out and easier to approach.
    • There's a lot of things in F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager policies that I find myself recreating every policy. An easier way to copy objects from one to policy to another.
    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
    F5
    Integration with F5 BIG-IP systems that we plan to keep using for a while.
    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
    F5
    Once things are set up, it is nice and easy to get the Edge Client running on user's PCs. However, that setup process can be a bit daunting at first using the Policy Manager, and reviewing session logs can be difficult at first if you aren't 100% sure of what you're looking for.
    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
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    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
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    Fortinet
    Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    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
    F5
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    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
    F5
    It is open platform so support is not good and than F5 and features visibility as not good as F5. F5 Set up and easy to use to admin console. Also have more feature visibility for load balancing, web server accelerator, application server ddos protection and WAF. F5 more efficient to handle concurrent request.
    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
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    Fortinet
    No changes needed to terms and conditions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    Fortinet
    My environments are pretty small (less than 100 users per location) so no issues here.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    F5
    • Single sign on is great for students and faculty and staff
    • Users don't have to log in multiple times
    • Users don't need to remember multiple login IDs and passwords
    • Multi Domain SSO support bridges many internal and external facing products with single sign on
    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