Fortinet FortiGate vs. Microsoft Sentinel

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Microsoft Sentinel
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Sentinel (formerly Azure Sentinel) is designed as a birds-eye view across the enterprise. It is presented as a security information and event management (SIEM) solution for proactive threat detection, investigation, and response.
$2.46
per GB ingested
Pricing
Fortinet FortiGateMicrosoft Sentinel
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Azure Sentinel
$2.46
per GB ingested
100 GB per day
$123.00
per day
200 GB per day
$221.40
per day
300 GB per day
$319.80
per day
400 GB per day
$410.00
per day
500 GB per day
$492.00
per day
More than 500 GB per day
$492.00 + $98.40
per day/plus each additional 100 GB increment
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FortiGateMicrosoft Sentinel
Free Trial
YesYes
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
Fortinet FortiGateMicrosoft Sentinel
Features
Fortinet FortiGateMicrosoft Sentinel
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Fortinet FortiGate
8.7
53 Ratings
1% above category average
Microsoft Sentinel
-
Ratings
Identification Technologies8.951 Ratings00 Ratings
Visualization Tools8.351 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Inspection8.852 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.953 Ratings00 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.750 Ratings00 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.752 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting and Logging8.253 Ratings00 Ratings
VPN9.052 Ratings00 Ratings
High Availability9.348 Ratings00 Ratings
Stateful Inspection9.251 Ratings00 Ratings
Proxy Server8.539 Ratings00 Ratings
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of Product A and Product B
Fortinet FortiGate
-
Ratings
Microsoft Sentinel
7.9
26 Ratings
0% below category average
Centralized event and log data collection00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
Correlation00 Ratings7.926 Ratings
Event and log normalization/management00 Ratings7.726 Ratings
Deployment flexibility00 Ratings7.124 Ratings
Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools00 Ratings7.824 Ratings
Custom dashboards and workspaces00 Ratings7.926 Ratings
Host and network-based intrusion detection00 Ratings7.622 Ratings
Data integration/API management00 Ratings7.224 Ratings
Behavioral analytics and baselining00 Ratings7.622 Ratings
Rules-based and algorithmic detection thresholds00 Ratings8.224 Ratings
Response orchestration and automation00 Ratings8.123 Ratings
Reporting and compliance management00 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Incident indexing/searching00 Ratings8.524 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Fortinet FortiGateMicrosoft Sentinel
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 8.8 out of 10
LevelBlue USM Anywhere
LevelBlue USM Anywhere
Score 7.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
Sumo Logic
Sumo Logic
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.2 out of 10
Sumo Logic
Sumo Logic
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Fortinet FortiGateMicrosoft Sentinel
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(79 ratings)
8.6
(53 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(5 ratings)
7.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(21 ratings)
6.5
(7 ratings)
Availability
8.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(27 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Fortinet FortiGateMicrosoft Sentinel
Likelihood to Recommend
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
Microsoft
Microsoft Sentinel excels in centralized monitoring, AI-driven threat detection, and automation, but improvements in cost transparency, user experience, third-party integrations, and support for emerging technologies could make it even more effective. Addressing these areas would enhance its appeal for small-to-medium businesses, large enterprises, and organizations with complex or specialized IT environments.
Read full review
Pros
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
Microsoft
  • I appreciate that it keeps the data within our, what we call our, authorization boundary. The fact that the data remains within Microsoft's, I guess, walled garden if you will, is very helpful for certain compliance needs in particular.
  • The large library of ingestion: ability to ingest is basically as easy as I can basically get it to be most of the time. There's occasionally some vendors that it's a little bit more challenging for, but given the ease of integration for a lot of things, basically it's become one of my requirements when I am looking at other tools is how easily do they integrate with Sentinel.
Read full review
Cons
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
Microsoft
  • I think it should include more third party integration with non microsoft products as well as with other cloud providers. These integrations should be native.
  • It should improve ML and AI capabilities.
  • I find its documentation a little bit difficult to understand at the start. So the words should be simple.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
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
Microsoft
it does the job reasonably well
Read full review
Usability
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
The Microsoft Azure Sentinel solution is very good and even better if you use Azure. It's easy to implement and learn how to use the tool with an intuitive and simple interface. New updates are happening to always bring new news and improve the experience and usability. The solution brings reliability as it is from a very reliable manufacturer.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
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
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Performance
Fortinet
Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
Azure Sentinel is very easy to use and configure. If you are stuck somewhere, Microsoft support is excellent in assisting and solving your issue.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Fortinet
I received it a couple years afters use it and it was just to confirm my knowledge about the tool.
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Fortinet
Make sure that you have the most current version of FortiOS. Make sure all Fortigates are on the same version
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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
Microsoft
We decided to go with Microsoft Sentinel because it works really well with Microsoft tools we are already using. Microsoft Sentinel's intelligent features detect and resolve problems more quickly than Sumo Logic. It also allows us to pay for what we use and grow as we need. While Sumo Logic is good at analyzing data, Microsoft Sentinel fits our needs.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Fortinet
No changes needed to terms and conditions.
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Fortinet
My environments are pretty small (less than 100 users per location) so no issues here.
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Fortinet
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Did not use professional services
Read full review
Return on Investment
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
Microsoft
  • As any cybersecurity product, this has to be more with risk to avoid loss in case of a ransomware that more than relate to a productivity increase. Maybe the impact could be that instead of having people that are checking 24/7 the dashboard, you could implement Sentinel and have less people checking that or people with less expertise. So the saving will be a minor but will be a saving in the cost of your team.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Microsoft Sentinel Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Microsoft Sentinel Capabilities