Coming from Fortinet?
Fortinet won you with the fabric: one vendor from firewall to SD-WAN, one console, throughput that was hard to argue with on price. What stays on your budget is the appliance refresh cycle, and the console is still yours to drive. Open Systems Autonomous SASE keeps the consolidation and drops the hardware: cloud-native, AI-run, with senior engineers on operations.
What you have becomes what you get.
Every Fortinet building block has a direct equivalent on the platform. Nothing is lost in translation.
Side by side, row by row.
| Capability | Fortinet | Open Systems |
|---|---|---|
| Secure Access · SSE (ZTNA, SWG, CASB) | Full | Full |
| Secure Network · SD-WAN | Fullappliance-based | Full |
| Global private backbone | Partialvia gateways/POPs | Full |
| Converged single platform | Full | Full |
| AI-native autonomous operations | Partialassisted, not autonomous | Fullon 35 years of data |
| 24/7 human escalation | Tiered vendor supportL1 to L3 | Level-3 engineers, alwaysno L1, no L2 |
| Appliance-free, cloud-native | PartialFortiSASE cloud, SD-WAN on appliances | Full |
| Sovereign by design (EU/CH residency) | PartialUS HQ | FullSwiss Post backing |
| Years of operational data | Since 2000founding year | 35 yearssince 1990, end to end |
| Flexible operating model | Partial | FullProduct / AIOps / Managed |
Important notice, methodology & sources
Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiSASE and FortiGuard are trademarks of Fortinet, Inc. Fortinet is used for identification only.
Important Notice: References to third-party vendors, products and services are provided solely for informational and identification purposes. All comparisons on this page are based on Open Systems' assessment of publicly available information, including sources identified on this page, as available in August 2026, and reflect Open Systems' interpretation of product characteristics, operating models and service offerings at that time.
▸Read the full notice and see the sourcesHide the full notice and sources
Product capabilities, features and service models may change over time and may be described differently by the respective vendors. Readers should independently verify current information directly with the relevant vendor before making any purchasing or business decisions.
Unless expressly stated otherwise, no statement on this page is intended to imply that any third-party product is inferior, deficient or unsuitable for a particular purpose. All trademarks, product names and company names are the property of their respective owners.
The terms "Full", "Partial", "Not Available" and similar classifications represent Open Systems' own evaluation criteria and assessment methodology. Such classifications may incorporate both objective characteristics and qualitative assessments and are provided solely to facilitate a high-level comparison. Other organisations, analysts, vendors or users may reasonably reach different conclusions.
References to "sovereignty", "sovereign", or "sovereign by design" reflect Open Systems' interpretation of operational, jurisdictional, governance and data-residency considerations. These concepts are not uniformly defined across the industry, regulatory frameworks or jurisdictions, and alternative interpretations may exist.
Open Systems welcomes feedback regarding the accuracy or currency of any information presented. Where inaccuracies or material changes are identified, Open Systems will review and update the relevant content as appropriate.
Sources consulted for this comparison (Fortinet), as available in August 2026:
- FortiSASE (SSE, cloud-delivered) - product page
- Secure SD-WAN (appliance / VM) - data sheet (PDF)
- Global SASE PoPs on Google Cloud - press release
- Unified SASE (single platform) - solution page
- AI operations (FortiAI-Assist) - product page
- FortiCare support - support page
- Sovereign deployment (FortiSASE Sovereign) - product page
- Company facts (founded 2000, HQ) - About Us
Where Open Systems goes further.
Accountable humans
Every escalation goes straight to a Level-3 engineer. No L1, no L2.
Sovereign by design
EU and Swiss data residency with Swiss Post backing. Evidence, not a checkbox.
35 years of operational data
Three and a half decades of real operational decisions no competitor can replay.
No hardware refresh
Retire the appliance lifecycle. Cloud-native, delivered as software.
Keep the security. Lose the appliances.
Migration is a guided, de-risked path: assess and map, import policy, parallel run, phased cutover. Level-3 engineers own every step.