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Appgate SDP vs Fortinet FortiGate comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Appgate SDP
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA as a Service (15th), ZTNA (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (16th), Microsegmentation Software (7th)
Fortinet FortiGate
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
595
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (2nd), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
Joseph Koomson - PeerSpot reviewer
Ip Network Security Specialist at MTN Ghana
Zero trust access has strengthened remote connectivity and secures diverse office devices
Appgate SDP support is always available to assist, which is the primary strength. However, there are areas for improvement. When a user is unable to connect, the platform should display detailed information such as the user's IP address, MAC address, and specific reasons for connection failure. Currently, aside from invalid username and password errors, Appgate SDP provides generic errors related to policy, such as a policy admin error. The system should provide deeper diagnostics to explain why a user cannot connect. The dashboard could also be enhanced with additional features and logins to provide better visibility. Sometimes there is no immediate clarity about what is happening. After using Appgate SDP for a long time and experiencing various errors, we have learned where to investigate, but this would be problematic for new users trying to resolve issues. The dashboard could display user connection times, failure reasons, and other relevant information. The user activity logs and accounting features should be improved in particular.
reviewer2859012 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Unified security platform has simplified daily network protection and accelerated troubleshooting
Fortinet FortiGate is generally easy to manage, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. The interface can become complex when managing a large number of firewall policies, and better policy search organization and reporting would be helpful. Firmware upgrades can also require careful planning and testing, especially in production environments. Troubleshooting some advanced issues may require deeper CLI knowledge or assistance from Fortinet support, and more advanced automation and AI-assisted troubleshooting within the management interface would be beneficial, such as clear recommendations for policy optimization, configuration issues, and security events. These improvements could make day-to-day administration even more efficient. More AI-driven capabilities for day-to-day administration would be valuable, especially for troubleshooting, policy optimization, and identifying potential configuration issues. More intelligent recommendations based on traffic patterns and security events could help administrators respond faster. More advanced reporting and dashboards that can be easily customized for different teams and management requirements would also be helpful, while better automation for routine tasks, firmware planning, and configuration validation would further reduce manual effort.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"I recommend iboss for organizations looking for strong cloud-based web security and centralized access control."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"Appgate SDP has positively impacted my organization, as we are using it to securely access the internet after the cyber attack."
"Appgate SDP is the best solution for micro-segmentation and supplying VPN solutions."
"The flexibility of the tool is valuable; it is very robust, has a very robust configuration capability, is pretty well documented, and is also good interface-wise."
"One of the most important features is stopping lateral movement across our network."
"The simplicity of the SDP platform is a standout feature; instead of navigating through intricate details, users can seamlessly connect to the company's network or switch to the internet with minimal effort."
"The interface is really friendly. It's simple to understand."
"It is pretty stable."
"It is a scalable solution...The support answers your questions very fast."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"The solution effectively controls browsing traffic."
"I previously used Meraki but I prefer Fortinet for its value and software capabilities, and it's better than any of the other products in this field."
"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."
"FortiGate is easier to deploy than Juniper."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a simple solution, and the integration with other solutions in the Fortinet portfolio, such as the Security Fabric integration, is competitive."
"Fortinet FortiGate brings numerous benefits to my company."
 

Cons

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"When a user is unable to connect, the platform should display detailed information such as the user's IP address, MAC address, and specific reasons for connection failure."
"One limitation is that it's harder to provide access to multiple applications in the company with Appgate, but that's probably because of poor management."
"One thing that kind of sticks out to me is the ability to do a proper non-split tunnel."
"If I could change or improve anything about Appgate SDP, it would be to enhance the user experience by improving the UI so that it is more explanatory."
"The user interface should be improved as it is not very easy to work with the updates."
"It would be better to connect to an application portal from any device. Documentation and support could be better."
"On the cloud, when you make some changes, it may be difficult."
"They could provide a single-box solution to manage tools for 4000 users. Additionally, they could add extra features to enhance remote micro connection."
"Customer support needs improvement. I have had to take the direct internal sources, such as sales contacts, and after that I rarely see support response."
"The initial setup is medium complex and takes between five days and a week."
"The FortiGate series does not have that much troubleshooting and network testing features in its GUI, hence we’ll definitely be looking for some add-on features in near future."
"We have to worry about debugging, and it would be ideal if they had some sort of GUI interface for troubleshooting and diagnostics, as FortiGate has only CLI-based diagnostic capabilities and sometimes it becomes very difficult to do all this troubleshooting."
"I would like to be able to generate reports about the protections that we have. I would like a report feature."
"Fortinet's support team consists of a huge networking team, because of which there is a delay in response at times."
"FortiGate's reporting features could provide a better picture of what is happening in the box."
"I would say 8 out of 10 regarding the stability of Fortinet FortiGate. It requires a lot of bug fixing and what I understand, Fortinet is fast enough to provide bug fixes and patches, but usually I suggest Fortinet should do thorough testing of their releases and software releases and once probably they can reduce the frequency of new releases but make it stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is a pretty expensive tool. It is maybe about $20,000 per year for a hundred users or so."
"The pricing is according to the market price. It is not a very cheap solution. They have some very aggressive promotions to sell the product in the market."
"We pay $100 per user per month. One license for the site is around $17."
"Licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is on a yearly basis. Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"The price is okay, so far so good."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten"
"Before choosing a piece of equipment you have to take into account the cost-benefit offered by each one. Sometimes it is not worth paying a very cheap price to have a minimum level of security."
"We are on an annual license to use Fortinet FortiGate."
"The price range is quite acceptable and normal."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"Fortinet FortiGate's price can be reduced."
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant with 51-200 employees
Jan 3, 2016
Sophos UTM vs. Fortinet FortiGate
I have used both Sophos and Fortinet products in production and I have found the Sophos UTM appliances (hardware and virtual) to be a better fit most of the time -- with a few caveats which I will touch on below. In both instances, the transition from TMG will be mostly straightforward. The main…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business374
Midsize Enterprise138
Large Enterprise195
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by emphasizing the modular function even more during sales presentations and demonstr...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
iboss is primarily used for content filtering within school districts and public K-12 school districts, and it can al...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appgate SDP?
Regarding pricing and setup cost, everything is already pre-installed in my organization, so I am not sure about pric...
What needs improvement with Appgate SDP?
Appgate SDP support is always available to assist, which is the primary strength. However, there are areas for improv...
What is your primary use case for Appgate SDP?
Appgate SDP is used for user connectivity both in the office and outside the office for remote connectivity. When out...
Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.
United States Air Force  FINRA Weight Watchers Rackspace  DataDog SageNet  Verdant Norwegian Cruise Line  VoiceBase  The Third Floor 
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Find out what your peers are saying about Appgate SDP vs. Fortinet FortiGate and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.