Fortinet FortiGate Review
I'm a senior network engineer with over 25 years of experience and an MSc in network security and in the last 8 years or so I've worked on …
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What is FortiGate?
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.
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Popular Features
- VPN (38)9.898%
- Firewall Management Console (38)9.797%
- Policy-based Controls (38)9.696%
- Reporting and Logging (38)8.282%
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What is FortiGate?
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.
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What is FortiGate?
Fortinet’s FortiGate is a firewall product with high integrability. It can be deployed on-premises or as a Virtual Machine in a variety of modules. The granularity of the product enables buyers to tailor their purchase to their business needs. FortiGate integrates into multivendor environments, including IaaS cloud platforms and public cloud environments.
FortiGate’s functionality includes the core firewall features, such as intrusion prevention, anti-malware, and web filtering. It also includes SSL inspection, threat protection, and scalable segmentation, all within low-latency standards.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Reviewers rate VPN highest, with a score of 9.8.
The most common users of FortiGate are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
FortiGate is a versatile product that has been widely used by various organizations to address their network security needs. Users have reported that FortiGate serves as a reliable firewall solution, providing advanced security features and protecting the infrastructure from known and unknown attack types. It is not just a firewall but a full Unified Threat Management solution, offering security checks for risks like SPAM, infected attachments, and spyware.
FortiGate has proven to be suitable for different use cases, such as small office connections, enterprise proxy, threats management solution, and routing and layer 3 management. It offers excellent routing and VPN performance, making it an ideal choice as the core of a company network's layer 3 and routing infrastructure. Additionally, FortiGate is highly regarded for its ease of setup and management, delivering intuitive visibility into multiple network activities that aid in troubleshooting network and security issues.
Virtualized FortiGates are also available, making it a suitable option for companies with strong virtualization infrastructures. The product line includes devices that can withstand environmental extremes, making it viable for industrial environments. Organizations have utilized FortiGate for securing external services, inter VLAN routing, protecting users' internet access, segmenting internal networks, and creating a security fabric using Fortinet switches and APs.
FortiGate provides robust VPN capabilities for remote workers, including site-to-site VPNs for larger sites. Users have praised its user-friendly interface for policy creation and selection of security profiles. The solution is also utilized as the primary internet-facing firewall, protecting networks from outside threats while allowing secure remote access through SSL VPN.
Customers have recommended FortiGate as an alternative to more expensive solutions due to its cost-efficiency without compromising on performance or functionality. With its powerful technologies and extensive support ecosystem provided by Fortinet, FortiGate has enhanced security and resolved issues across organizations of all sizes.
In summary, FortiGate has proven to be a reliable and versatile network security solution, addressing a wide range of use cases such as firewall protection, VPN establishment, threat management, routing infrastructure, and secure remote access. It provides advanced security features, intuitive management interfaces, and cost-efficient solutions for organizations of all sizes.
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Reviews
(51-65 of 65)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
February 28, 2019
Fortinet FortiGate Review
We use Fortinet FortiGate as our firewall at all three of our offices. We use the Fortiguard service on the firewalls, which includes anti-malware, intrusion protection and the Next Generation Firewall. Before we added the Fortiguard services we were unprotected against bad actors from around the world trying to brute force our RDP servers. Now I am confident that all of those actors are being blocked/banned at the firewall.
- The Fortinet FortiGate firewall software includes a full function graphical user interface that makes firewall administration easy without having to know the command line interface commands.
- The FortiGate does an excellent job of protecting devices behind the firewall, its integrated Spam, anti-malware and IPS services all work very well.
- FortiGate licensing costs are reasonable and much more affordable that Cisco's offerings.
- The only complaint I have about the FortiGate is the fact that the advanced services like IPS, anti-malware and spam filtering are add-on services. It would be great if they were a part of the firewall offering.
February 15, 2019
Fortinet and Fortigate: A force to be reckoned with!
Our company decided to switch from Checkpoint to Fortinet as a corporate standard. I've used Fortinet products for the last 10 years, and have been incredibly happy with the ease of use, and support resources are not as hard to find as they are for Checkpoint. Additionally, the integrated SD-WAN in more recent versions made us start running out of reasons why we SHOULDN'T use Fortinet FortiGate firewalls.
- Integrated SD-WAN functionality
- Best in class threat protection
- Single pane of glass (Instead of three in checkpoint)
- Breakout switch still required to share ethernet connectivity with redundant pair.
- CLI could use some improvement but is overall good.
August 27, 2018
High quality experience of network security and traffic control in a single appliance
We use it as our internal and external firewall. It is also used with all security options, including DDOS protection, in our branches.
- Web filtering, which protects the users browsing to non-secure websites
- Network security between different networks
- Traffic shaping control for users and applications
- Traffic shaping options based more on layer 7, so you could have a more detailed control over the exact sites users are browsing
- The transition between different major updates
- More option in fast reports and dashboards
- A more exact measure of bandwidth to show in dashboard and FortiView
April 24, 2018
Fortinet Fortigate 110C General Review
We're currently working with amaze with a FortiGate 110C, that is our front end Firewall for ISP routing and as a first layer to declare web access policies, anti-spam filtering, IPS, application inventory and to implement fail over policies to warranty the Internet connection to all departments. The UTM Solution from Fortinet brings a bundle package of features that is allowing the company to establish a MAN and an extreme secure VPN layer to deliver to our branch offices the WAN access with incredible ease. I do strongly recommend this quite remarkable Security Solution.
- An accurate Web Filtering module that will allow to your IT Staff, leverage the administration of the web access from the end point users. Also will allow to customize the policies through a broad presentation of options, where you can customize or schedule the access to specific web sites.
- AD & LDAP integration will allow you to sync your DC with the Firewall and set the traffic rules and packages with ease.
- VPN through SSL Web Portals will simplify the scale of adaptation for final user, allowing a customization of the front end portal, with corporate image.
- Improve time for releasing bug fixing.
- Integrate graphical troubleshoot tools for policies based on devices or user identities, will help IT Sec Admins to answer faster to security breaches.
- Using CLI reference guides and a better sort options.
March 16, 2018
Great product, at a great price point
The FortiGate in our environment provides protection across the entire organization. We are using SSL VPN, web filter, antivirus, and application monitoring. I can attest that these functions all work really well, and our FortiGate has had high reliability and configuring it is not a laborious task. The few interactions I have had with support have been great.
- Web Filter - with the supplied FSSO utility filtering users by groups or department is simple.
- Application Filtering - insight into what applications are running have been great
- SSL VPN - SSL VPN is simple to set up
- AV - has done a great job catching viruses before ever hitting the internal network
- Logging can be a somewhat difficult to dig into
- Occasionally usernames aren't attached to the computers being filtered
December 19, 2017
Fortigates are good options for Firewalls
We use Fortigate as our main firewall to protect the network and to establish VPN between 2 sites. We make use of most Fortigate modules and subscription such as anti-spam, anti-virus and Intrusion detection systems. The Fortigates protect our Internal network and the public Wifi we provide to the public. We also take advantage of the Web filtering functionality.
- Unified Protection: Having firewall, IDS, Anti-virus and Anti-spam on the same appliance is very handy as you don't need to deploy multiple appliances/solutions
- User Access Control: Setup Firewall rules based on Active Directory User and Groups help with the constant need for firewall changes, saving the network folks a lot of time.
- GUI Interface: Very intuitive Management interface, makes the need for CLI changes very seldom
- Non-disruptive upgrades on standalone boxes. Not sure if the technology would allow it but it would be great to have.
- Subscription signatures auto-deployment could affect production traffic. In some circumstances letting Fortigate accept subscription signatures may cause the device to drop traffic
November 21, 2017
FortiGate, a trustworthy UTM and NGFW
FortiGate is a gateway firewall in our organization. It is utilized as a UTM. Our network is monitored, analyzed, secured and enhanced by the FortiGate device. Its is utilized across the whole organization. We can secure our network from threats, antivirus, intrusion using the G/W firewall. Cloud based reporting is really a decent feature of FortiGate. QoS, web filtering, AD synchronization, control over applications, SSL/IPSec VPN, and site-to-site IPSec VPN features are utilized by us.
- Inbuilt wireless controller, which helps to create wireless VLAN. Its an amazing feature provided by FortiGate. There is no need to pay more for this feature. It is an inbuilt controller. I truly appreciate Fortinet to avail this feature avail within the NGFW and strong managing capabilities.
- The VPN throughput. Hats' off commitment by Fortinet. The words in data-sheet of FortiGate device means it and proved it. We are using the site-to-site VPN, site-to-client VPN, and my clients are happy with the level of connectivity and responsiveness.
- Security Fabric. Another legitimate feature proves FortiGate out of the box. All the devices installed in end-point or in network , are well synchronized for playing vital roles to provide security. And they are worthy.
- Post Sale Support, I think. It could be improved. The product has amazing features and commitment towards its dedicated performance. The post-sale service might attract more end customers.
- The user login client application. Currently it is browser based.
November 21, 2017
Fortigate, the best
We use and recommend Fortinet Fortigate to all our customers as the main firewall at the internet access point of the organization. We use it mainly as a firewall but we also make use of its anti-virus capabilities and as a web filter. The VPN is an additional plus.
- fire wall
- antivirus
- VPN
- GUI
- wizards
- price
November 21, 2017
Forti-UTM
We use Fortigate across the whole organization. It is used for firewall/IPS/Web filtering.
- UTM provides comprehensive security, which is great
- Easy to use GUI
- Great support
- Site-to-site vpn - would like to configure using wizard. currently, I use manual configuration.
- Additional reports on web site usage statistics
- Failover / redundancy
June 08, 2017
A FortiGate firewall and UTM appliances review
- FortiGate is a label that Fortinet applies to a really large number of products having a part of shared features.
- Possible usage scenarios include:
- VPN Gateway
- Small offices connection endpoints
- Enterprise proxy, firewall and threats management with UTM (Unified Threat Management)
- Routing and layer 3 management
- High availability
- Virtualized FortiGates are also an option, and it is something that is interesting for companies with a good virtualization infrastructure.
- FortiGate is not just a firewall but a full Unified Threat Management (UTM) solution. So, a FortiGate can be used as the single security point to check on security risks like SPAM, infected attachments, spyware and so on).
- Smaller devices (series 90 and 30) have a limited subset of the above features.
- The routing and VPN performances are really good too, so a company network could easily use a correctly dimensioned appliance as the core of the layer 3 and routing infrastructure.
- FortiOS (Fortinet's network security operating system) is used on all the appliances, so security people are able to move from a smaller device to really large deployments with (relative) ease.
- Having a single solution used to manage security risks (using the UTM) is really something that reduces complexity of the network administration and deployment.
- The NAT and routing management that a FortiGate is able to deliver is one of the best I have seen so far. I had to configure really peculiar addressing requests and the FortiOS gave me a range of solutions that made it doable.
- The graphical interface of the FortiOS makes it look like an easy to use tool. This perception is true if you are going to do a really limited use of the appliance. However, it could create a false sense of confidence in using something that is really complex.
- In the past months I know that a few customers were not happy about the quality of the support they received, especially from sales people. If it is true (I have no first hand evidence) it could be an important point to fix.
- Some of the services and upgrades are costly. I am not saying they are not worth the money, but in a market that is really crowded, cost is a decision factor that could push companies to different platforms.
For customers with 50-200 users we are using FortiGate as the central firewall. That is, internal users are surfing the Internet (URL filtering, antivirus), servers in the DMZ are reached from the Internet, partners are connected via static site-to-site VPNs, and home office users are able to log into the company network via a VPN with two-factor authentication.
- Good summary GUI: The basic steps such as adding new policies or users can be done through the GUI. The GUI is fast and has a couple of options. There is a CLI-widget on the dashboard which enables the usage of CLI commands through the GUI - nice.
- Counters and bars for policies and VPNs: Within the GUI you have several counters of packets/bytes/sessions that make it easy to understand whether some policies of VPNs are functional and in use.
- Built-In two-factor authentication possibility: You can use a two-factor auth via SMS out of the box. You simply need an email-to-SMS provider and you're done.
- Though the GUI is fast, it lacks many options. In many cases, you can only configure the first 20% of options while the other 80% must be done through the CLI. This won't be a problem for experienced (Cisco) admins but it's a challenge for normal IT workers that are not working with FortiGate every day.
- Separate security policy for IPv4 and IPv6: This is a really bad design because you need to manage two independent security policies! Other firewall vendors have a single policy which can be used for both Internet protocols.
- No configuration revisions: There is no store for old configuration snapshots. Don't forget to backup the config manually before doing an upgrade!
- No dedicated out-of-band management plane: FortiGate can only be managed in-line. You must connect to some data ports. (That is: You don't have the possibility to configure a management-only interface with its own default route.)
March 20, 2017
Fortigate Firewalls
We use the Fortigates as our primary firewalls at our primary and DR locations. We also use them for creating VPN tunnels between outlying branches for secure communication over the internet. They are also used as another layer of anti-virus, DDOS, etc., for our organization.
- Very easy to create VPN tunnels between Fortigate devices.
- Easy set up and configuration.
- Firewall rules are straight forward to setup.
- The logs can be troublesome to work through to try and find why information is not being passed through.
- Creating a VPN tunnel to a non-Fortigate can be difficult.
- Reporting function and GUI interface takes up a very large amount of CPU. Many times I have seen the CPU usage hit 100% with very little traffic being processed.
We deploy multiple clusters of FortiGate 1500Ds nation-wide for our customers' centralized firewall as well as VPN concentrators. We also installed remote office class Fortigate to customer's locations to set up a VPN from the locations into the VPN concentrators.
- FortiGuard (cloud-base AV/IPS/Webfiltering database) services regarless of the type of FortiGate on site are their main sell.
- They cover most aspects of network needs with Forti-xxxx products integrated with FortiGate, such as FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiAP, FortiSwitch, and so on.
- They have top class support services like Cisco and Juniper [do].
- Their business model relies on recurring revenue sources; service/support contract for bigger/more expensive hardware. It's not cheap to keep them for years unless yours are small enough to feel ease of annual cost.
- Although they add some key routing/switching features from time to time, FortiGate has never been a "router" or "switch", or "L2/L3 router/switch". It's a "firewall". You can't expect the same level of routing/switching feature sets like Cisco or Juniper L2/L3 router/switch provide.
- The level of support you can get may vary depending on how busy the support teams are. You might need to escalate if you don't think you're getting proper support.
- They're very successful with enterprise customers/users. Mean Network Provider customers, like us, often take a back seat especially for new feature development.
July 15, 2016
Fortinet Fortigate
Firewalls were deployed at HQ, remote offices, and used as our primary gateway, UTM/NGFW for 2 production datacenters. Only firewall, UTM modules, and basic routing were used, no dynamic routing, wireless, vpn client or endpoint protection software.
- Very fast and effective at overall UTM functionality
- Best management UI I've seen across comparable vendors
- Overall value, lower cost than competitors with similar features.
- Support is downright horrid. Level 1 support will ask you (or even do it themselves) to *reboot* appliances. In a production datacenter. Level 2 will only do very basic support and will generally refuse bugs exist, in an overwhelming flood of proof.
- Reliability isn't quite up to par. Although it's still a stable device, there are nuances you don't see in simpler deprecated devices like an ASA. But this comes with the territory of UTM/NGFW appliances.
December 28, 2015
Fortigate -great product, great price
We use a variety of Fortigate models across our and our customer organizations. We use it as a firewall/security/VPN appliance and also as a high availability gateway at several locations. We needed to find a product that was quick to setup, easy to manage, and provided advanced security features. Netflow/S-flow are built into Foritgate, which met another one of our requirements for traffic monitoring. We also needed a company that had a product line that could tolerate environmental extremes in an industrial environment. Fortigate has such a product line.
The Fortigate GUI is intuitive and provides easy visibility into multiple network activities. When we are trouble-shooting for our customers, this interface has often proven invaluable in quickly getting to the heart of network or security issues.
The Fortigate GUI is intuitive and provides easy visibility into multiple network activities. When we are trouble-shooting for our customers, this interface has often proven invaluable in quickly getting to the heart of network or security issues.
- Forigate's FortiOS is feature rich, giving good value for the money spent. The GUI is intuitive and makes configuration easy and fast.
- Documentation is well written and easy to read. Diagrams and illustrations clearly illustrate principles and concepts, making it easier to make configuration decisions
- The consistency of features and GUI across the product line has made Fortigate implementation very easy.
- The form factor on the industrial units such as the 60D is not idea for DIN Rails, taking up more space than is needed. There needs to be an option for 24V power in the industrial units.