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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    Microsoft System Center

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft System Center is an enterprise-grade IT Operations Management (ITOM) suite designed for the centralized administration of data center infrastructure, virtualized environments, and hybrid cloud workloads. The platform provides unified management across heterogeneous environments, including support for Windows Server, Linux, and Azure Stack HCI. System Center is Microsoft's ITOM stack for organizations that maintain a significant on-premise footprint, vs the company's Azure-based…

    $1,323

    per month

    Pricing
    FortiGateMicrosoft System Center
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Standard Edition
    $1323
    Datacenter Edition
    $3607
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FortiGateMicrosoft System Center
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    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
    FortiGateMicrosoft System Center
    Considered Both Products
    Fortinet
    Chose FortiGate
    The UI is great, the features are great, it is reliable, Fortigate awesome for the price.
    Incentivized
    Chose FortiGate
    I know I am repeating myself but Fortigate, for the price, is the most complete and customizable product there is. It might not be the best but we always were able to fix or workaround the problems we encountered with the help of their support.
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    49 Answers
    91%
    Would buy again
    31 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    48 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    33 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    49 Answers
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    31 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    44 Answers
    95%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    21 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    47 Answers
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    28 Answers
    Features
    FortiGateMicrosoft System Center
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Fortinet FortiGate and Microsoft System Center
    Feature
    Fortinet FortiGate
    8.7
    53 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Microsoft System Center
    -
    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 Logging8.353 Ratings00 Ratings
    VPN9.152 Ratings00 Ratings
    High Availability9.348 Ratings00 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection9.251 Ratings00 Ratings
    Proxy Server8.539 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    FortiGateMicrosoft System Center
    Small Businesses
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.3 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.6 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    FortiGateMicrosoft System Center
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (79 ratings)
    9.3
    (58 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.7
    (21 ratings)
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    9.0
    (14 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    5.0
    (5 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 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)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    FortiGateMicrosoft System Center
    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'.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    For companies with more than 10 Windows devices and needing to standardize the OS, AV, access, share resources, and install software. SCCM is the way to go. This software is unnecessary if the business is all remote users and not in an office-type setting. There are cloud offerings or none to accomplish what a business needs.
    Incentivized
    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
    • Allows the grouping of devices by user.
    • Allows controlling updates being deployed to user devices.
    • Allows for the repurposing of machines by being able to load new or updated software on machines that already are in the system.
    • Allows us the ability to wipe a machine clean and restore it back to the configuration that was assigned the machine.
    Incentivized
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The product could improve in the area of having better mechanisms in place with how the SCEP client is deployed/installed from the server on the management side. We have run into this firsthand with the client not installing on an endpoint, and then having to take the time to investigate why it was not installing.
    • A second improvement that can be made is to keep trying to improve the products detection rate for finding malware/viruses. The case can be made that there are some products out there that do a better job at this and have a higher detection rate.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Microsoft System Center Operations Manager is tightly integrated to Microsoft Windows servers os monitoring with great product support.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    It is not user-friendly for the most part. With IT infrastructure, sometimes it cannot handle excess requests. Every few months, you will need an upgrade in terms of server resources to keep up with incoming alerts and requests. This does not happen all of the time, but it does happen when there are too many requests.
    Incentivized
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Fortinet
    Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    There is a fair amount of documentation out there to help you when you have questions or run into issues with this product as well as tutorials on some of the more common tasks. Between the documentation and the overall ease of use we haven't had to deal with direct Microsoft support for this product.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Easy to install with intuitive interactive interface during the installation process a and integration to MS SQL was smooth
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We previously used a mix of FOG and Clonezilla to image machines. The biggest issues with these products is that changing one piece of the image required you to rebuild the entire image itself. These pieces of software also did not allow you to manage applications and Windows Updates, causing IT to have to constantly touch machines after they were imaged and update or manage them with a much more hands on approach.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Fortinet
    No changes needed to terms and conditions.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • It has allowed the enterprise to standardize on a single platform for monitoring.
    • Easier troubleshooting of issues with Microsoft platforms.
    • Greater visibility of issues across platforms when applications are hosted in a mixed environment.
    • Additional costs for monitoring systems that are not directly supported with additional packs (iSeries, Linux on Power).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots