Item: Fortinet FortiGate
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use our FortiGate as the primary firewall for our centralized district-wide Internet as well as a secure VPN for the few users that use this within our organization. It addresses the need we had for a Next Generation Firewall that was easy to transition to, very secure, full featured, well supported and at a reasonable price.

Pros and Cons

Very effective firewall. If set up correctly, creates a very secure environment.
Amazing price when compared to same feature set as other prominent firewalls.

Updates. I have an HA pair but I always lose connection for a minute or two when upgrading.
Interface display. I have a bug where I have to refresh several times to view policies and objects.

Return on Investment

FortiGate gave us the security we needed for a 10Gb Circuit at an affordable price.
Management of policies is much easier.

Alternatives Considered

Cost-wise there is no comparison. Palo Alto looked like a solid option but they were just incredibly expensive without any major differences and were not very helpful when it came to making a decision. In the firewall shoot out the FortiGate came out on top with Palo Alto behind it. From what I understand PA people were involved in FortiGate development. The Cisco option was not even an option. To set up a comparable solution required 3 different pieces of hardware at the time we were looking. Nothing else was close.

Support Rating

The few times I needed assistance, they were excellent. Very professional and well trained. I have been very happy with support assistance as well as the initial assistance switching from a Cisco firewall and the FortiGate. We transferred policies and objects and they provided guidance on cleaning up our existing configuration.

Key Insights

Do you think Fortinet FortiGate delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Fortinet FortiGate's feature set?

Yes

Did Fortinet FortiGate live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Fortinet FortiGate go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Fortinet FortiGate again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

We started with a new Palo Alto because it was so well recommended but when we moved the circuit from 2GB to 10GB the price rose to astronomical heights. We heard about FortiGate being very comparable if not better. I attended a Firewall Shootout and the FortiGate clearly came out on top. The price savings for such a high quality product made this an easy choice. It's great that it also has built in features such as VPN, web filtering and access point controller. Because we are a school district, we really need a dedicated web filter but it's likely a great option for a non-educational company.

A full-featured highly effective next-generation firewall at a palatable price.

Overall Satisfaction with Fortinet FortiGate