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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

    Ubuntu

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/AUbuntu Linux is a Linux-based operating system for personal computers, tablets and smartphones. There is also a Server version which is used on physical or virtual servers in the data center.N/A
    Pricing
    FortiGateUbuntu
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FortiGateUbuntu
    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
    Features
    FortiGateUbuntu
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Fortinet FortiGate and Ubuntu
    Feature
    Fortinet FortiGate
    8.7
    53 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Ubuntu
    -
    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
    FortiGateUbuntu
    Small Businesses
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.3 out of 10
    CentOS Linux
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.6 out of 10
    IBM AIX
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    FortiGateUbuntu
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (79 ratings)
    7.7
    (47 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    8.7
    (21 ratings)
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    8.6
    (6 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    5.0
    (5 ratings)
    9.0
    (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
    FortiGateUbuntu
    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
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    Canonical Ltd
    If somebody whishes to be an IT professional, learning the basics of Linux is amust. Ubuntu [Linux] is one of the most beginner-friendly, widely supported, easy-to-use-relative-to-the-fact-that-its-still-linux OS on the market. As somebody who learned the basics of UNIX/LINUX on Ubuntu, it was a very good experience. It is customizable, has a lot of improvements over the years, and live up to be a viable alternative to any modern OS in 2021 as well.
    Incentivized
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    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.
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    Canonical Ltd
    • PACKAGE MANAGEMENT. You can update everything - OS installed software, you name it with either a few clicks in a GUI or a single command.
    • No bloatware.
    • No need for antivirus software.
    • Certainly the price is right.
    • My 83 year old grandmother has been using it - and because of this I rarely need to provide tech support. But I still visit my grandmother.
    • You can choose from a variety of user interfaces or rock it in the terminal.
    • Generally speaking, Ubuntu is as polished an OS as any you might pay for.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Canonical Ltd
    • The repository system could be a little better, as some of the software needed is not easily available there.
    • Ubuntu sometimes does not play nicely or easily with some modern firmwares.
    • Some people report slow responses with newer versions of Ubuntu, although we have not experienced any.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Canonical Ltd
    While it works, we're finding that SNAP is getting more and more annoying, so we're probably going to migrate to Debian.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Canonical Ltd
    I gave it 10 out of 10 because it allows me to do the work I need on a server, such as running a website and database, and making developments. In addition, thanks to its easy and useful interface during installation, it can be easily installed. In addition, thanks to its easily accessible documents, when a problem occurs, it can be solved easily and quickly.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Canonical Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Fortinet
    Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
    Incentivized
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    Canonical Ltd
    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
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    Canonical Ltd
    We did not use the managed commercial support, but instead relied on community forums and official documentation. Ubuntu is very well documented across both instructional documentation from the developers themselves as well as informal support forums [ServerFault, YCombinator, Reddit]. It's easy enough to find an answer to any question you may have
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Canonical Ltd
    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
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    Canonical Ltd
    It was all pretty much automatic for our use cases. It integrates nicely with Laravel Forge, which is our primary use case.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Canonical Ltd
    Windows 10: Expensive, with more security problems, more difficult to keep updated and less variety of free / open source applications. Its use encourages bad information security practices. OpenSuse Linux: A different distribution at source (Suse Linux), use of rpm packages (with fewer repositories and incompatible with Ubuntu Linux dpkg packages), and whose main objective is to be a "testing ground" for its paid version / professional, SUSE enterprise Linux.
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Fortinet
    No changes needed to terms and conditions.
    Incentivized
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    Canonical Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Fortinet
    My environments are pretty small (less than 100 users per location) so no issues here.
    Incentivized
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    Canonical Ltd
    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
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    Canonical Ltd
    • Systems administration with Ubuntu is easy with little deep knowledge about it. Docs and community publications are great resources for any task you need to perform on any Ubuntu server and the organization can save several salaries of specialized sys admins in favor of more active roles.
    • Having been an Ubuntu user for many years personally, setting up new Ubuntu servers on my organization came with zero cost for me. I just deployed one instance from my hosting/cloud provider and started working right after it was running, no need to ask support or hire new staff for these tasks.
    • Replacing paid options with Ubuntu have also saved thousands of dollars on Windows Server licenses. I've migrated Windows/SQL Server based systems to Ubuntu/MySQL/PostgreSQL several times during my career and saved about USD 5000/year in licenses to many of them.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots