Looking for a Fortinet alternative for OT? You may only need a complement.
FortiGate is a great IT tool. It is hard for OT teams and operators to manage, and forcing OT onto it leads to gaps in firewall rules and shadow remote access. Replacing it with another IT firewall keeps that problem. Access Gate is designed for OT operators and connects to your FortiGate, so you get two layers of protection and no more shadow access.
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Trusted by leading companies
- InternetVendors, remote staff
- FortiGateIT perimeter, run by IT
- Access GateOT layer, run by the plant floor
- MachinesPLCs, HMIs, CNCs, production cells
Why plants look for a Fortinet alternative
FortiGate policies are powerful and dense. A rule nobody on the floor can read is a rule nobody on the floor maintains. So exceptions pile up, and vendors find their own way in.
What are the Fortinet alternatives for OT?
Most searches for a Fortinet alternative come from IT, and the answer is another firewall. On the plant floor the question is different: who runs access to the machines, and who sees each vendor session. These are the six options plants weigh.
| Option | Examples | Run by | What it changes for OT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Replace the FortiGate with another firewall | Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Cisco, Sophos, SonicWall | IT | A new perimeter and a firewall cutover. OT rules are still written and maintained by IT. |
| Stay with Fortinet and add its OT products | FortiGate Rugged, FortiPAM, FortiGuard OT signatures | The FortiGate team | More OT coverage in the Fortinet stack, configured by the same team. |
| Add OT visibility | Claroty, Nozomi Networks, Dragos | Security team | An inventory and alerts. Blocking still happens on the firewall. |
| Add a remote access box | Secomea, Tosibox, Ewon, IXON | Machine builders, maintenance | A tunnel from the vendor to the machine, next to the firewall rather than through it. |
| Add a privileged access or ZTNA broker | BeyondTrust, Cyolo, Xage | IT or security | Named, recorded sessions for people. Machine-to-machine traffic stays on the firewall. |
| Keep the FortiGate, add Access Gate | Trout Access Gate | The plant floor | An OT layer in front of the machines: access, MFA, session recording and segmentation. One rule on the FortiGate. |
Should I replace my FortiGate or add an OT layer?
Replace the FortiGate when
- The perimeter itself is the problem: throughput, licensing or end of support.
- IT has already chosen another firewall vendor for every site.
- You are rebuilding the network anyway.
Keep it and add an OT layer when
- The perimeter works, but OT exception requests keep piling up.
- Vendors reach machines through standing VPNs or remote access boxes nobody tracks.
- An auditor or a customer asks who reached which machine, and when.
- Your team is small and cannot maintain a policy per machine and per vendor.
IT keeps the perimeter. The plant floor gets its own gate.
Access Gate does not replace your FortiGate. It adds a second layer in front of the machines, run by the people who run the machines.
- 01
IT keeps the perimeter firewall
The FortiGate keeps its policies, its VPN and its owner. IT stops fielding one-off OT exception requests.
- 02
Operators manage their own assets
The OT team grants and revokes access to its own machines in Access Gate, without an IT ticket.
- 03
Every vendor session is named and logged
Each vendor session goes through Access Gate, tied to a named user, limited to approved machines and recorded.
- 04
No VLAN redesign, no re-IP
Machines keep their addresses and their wiring. Nothing is installed on a PLC, an HMI or a CNC.
A few lines on the FortiGate, written once.
About 20 minutes on the FortiGate, then under a minute to switch. Removing one rule undoes it.
- 01
Connect two ports.
Access Gate gets two interfaces on the FortiGate, one for administration and one for the traffic it protects.
- 02
Add one route and one policy.
One route sends the machines' protected addresses to the gate, and one firewall policy lets that traffic through.
- 03
Switch with one rule.
One policy route sends the machine subnet through Access Gate. Delete it and traffic goes back to how it was.
Read the FortiGate setup guide
How do I control vendor remote access to OT behind a FortiGate?
Vendors keep the VPN or 4G link they already use, and that link ends at Access Gate. They sign in through the browser with MFA and reach one approved machine over one protocol, inside a time window. The session is recorded and closes on time, and an operator can cut it at any moment. Vendors install nothing, and they never get an address on your network.
See secure OT remote accessIs Access Gate a FortiPAM alternative?
For the plant floor, it can be. FortiPAM and FortiGate Rugged are Fortinet's products for privileged access and harsh sites, configured and run by the team that runs the FortiGate. Access Gate is the layer the plant floor runs itself, in front of the machines, with sign-in, MFA, session recording and protocol-aware filtering for machines that cannot run an agent or ask for a second factor. Many plants run both: Fortinet at the network, Access Gate at the machines.
Elna Magnetics kept its Fortinet firewall.
Elna Magnetics makes precision magnetics for Department of Defense programs. One Access Gate connected to their existing Fortinet firewall secured 100% of their CUI data flows in a single afternoon, across engineering workstations, file servers and the production floor. Production never stopped.
Read the Elna Magnetics story“CUI was flowing around... engineering, shop floor, file servers, with no access control and no audit trail. The Access Gate gave us enclave isolation and full logging.”
One plant, one FortiGate, one Access Gate.
$399 per month
$780 for the appliance, then $399 per month for license and support. The first 30 days of license are free. One plant, up to 200 machines, with vendor remote access, MFA and session recording included. Installed, configured and operating in a day.
More plants, more machines, or enterprise support. Tell us how your FortiGates are laid out and which vendors reach your machines today. We show where Access Gate sits next to each one.
Fortinet alternatives for OT, answered
It depends on what you are fixing. To change the perimeter, the alternatives are other firewalls such as Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Cisco, Sophos or SonicWall. To fix OT access, the options are OT visibility (Claroty, Nozomi Networks, Dragos), remote access boxes (Secomea, Tosibox, Ewon, IXON), access brokers (BeyondTrust, Cyolo, Xage), or keeping the FortiGate and adding Access Gate as an OT layer the plant floor runs.
On the firewall, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco and Check Point. On OT visibility, Claroty, Nozomi Networks and Dragos. On OT remote access, Secomea, Tosibox, Ewon, IXON, BeyondTrust, Cyolo and Xage. Trout Access Gate works with the FortiGate rather than replacing it.
Replace it when the perimeter itself is the problem. Add an OT layer when the perimeter works but OT exceptions, vendor access and the audit trail do not. Replacing one IT firewall with another keeps OT rules in IT's hands.
FortiGate protects the network perimeter and is managed by IT. Access Gate adds a second layer in front of the machines that OT operators manage themselves. The two work together.
Yes, after a one-time setup. The FortiGate gets one route, one firewall policy and one policy route, written once. From then on, operators grant and revoke access to their own assets in Access Gate, and the FortiGate does not change. See the FortiGate setup guide.
Yes. Access Gate gives each vendor a named, MFA-protected session to one approved machine over one protocol, recorded and closed on time, and it is run by the plant floor. It works next to FortiPAM or on its own.
Running OT access on the FortiGate means writing and maintaining a policy for every machine and every vendor, which is hard for a small team. With Access Gate Starter, one plant of up to 200 machines gets its own OT layer for $399 per month after the $780 appliance. It is installed, configured and operating in a day.
Delete the one policy route on the FortiGate and traffic goes back to how it was. Nothing was changed on the machines.
See it on your network
Keep your FortiGate. Add the gate the floor can run.
In a demo, we show where Access Gate connects to your FortiGate and how a vendor session looks from the plant floor.