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Cybersecurity · head to head

Fortinet FortiGate vs Garden

Fortinet FortiGate logo

Fortinet FortiGate

Cybersecurity

Next-generation firewall with AI-powered threat protection

From
$500/year
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

Kubernetes development and testing automation with shared caching, now owned by Incredibuild

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Garden has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Fortinet FortiGate security services are sold as separate FortiGuard subscription bundles, so ATP, UTP and ENT determine which protections are actually active; Garden incredibuild acquired Garden in November 2024 and the pricing page now redirects to documentation, so there is no public commercial offer and no published roadmap for a team betting a platform on it.
  • They diverge on capability: Fortinet FortiGate covers Next-generation firewall, Garden covers Action graph.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Fortinet FortiGate and Garden actually diverge.

Attributes where Fortinet FortiGate and Garden differ
AttributeFortinet FortiGateGarden
Starting price$500/yearFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsHardware, Virtual, CloudLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools
Founded2000Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Fortinet FortiGate

  • Next-generation firewall
  • Intrusion prevention
  • SSL/TLS inspection
  • Application control
  • Web filtering
  • SD-WAN
  • Zero-trust network access
  • AI-powered threat detection

Only in Garden

  • Action graph
  • Shared result caching
  • Remote Kubernetes environments
  • In-cluster builds
  • Same config everywhere
  • Hot reload sync
  • Helm and Kustomize support
  • Templating

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Fortinet FortiGate

  • Next-generation firewalling at data centre, campus and branch scalenot Garden
  • Secure SD-WAN across distributed sitesnot Garden
  • Zero trust network access to internal applicationsnot Garden
  • Virtual firewalls in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Oraclenot Garden
  • Ruggedised deployments in industrial environmentsnot Garden

Garden

  • A platform team whose integration test suite takes longer than the coffee break and needs caching to cut the loopnot Fortinet FortiGate
  • An organisation with thirty or more services on Kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates productionnot Fortinet FortiGate
  • Giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environmentnot Fortinet FortiGate
  • Running the identical build and test definition locally and in CI so failures reproduce on a laptopnot Fortinet FortiGate

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Fortinet FortiGate

  • Security services are sold as separate FortiGuard subscription bundles, so ATP, UTP and ENT determine which protections are actually active
  • Throughput is tied to the appliance model, from 500 Mbps on the FortiGate 30G to 520 Gbps on the 7121F, so capacity planning is a hardware purchase
  • Pricing is not published and goes through partners

Garden

  • Incredibuild acquired Garden in November 2024 and the pricing page now redirects to documentation, so there is no public commercial offer and no published roadmap for a team betting a platform on it.
  • It is tightly bound to Kubernetes, so teams running on ECS, Nomad, plain VMs or serverless get little from it and would need a different tool entirely.
  • The YAML action graph is a real configuration surface: a large monorepo needs someone to own and maintain Garden config as a first-class artefact, which is a standing platform-engineering cost.
  • Shared remote environments mean every developer needs cluster access and a cost allocation model, so cloud spend rises and namespace sprawl becomes a thing you have to police.
  • Caching correctness depends on declaring dependencies accurately; an under-declared action will serve a stale cached pass and hide a genuine test failure, which is a hard class of bug to notice.

Pricing, plan by plan

Fortinet FortiGate

$500/year
  • FortiGate Entry$500/year
    • Basic firewall
    • VPN support
    • Threat protection
  • FortiGate Enterprise$2500/year
    • Advanced threat protection
    • SSL inspection
    • Application control
  • FortiGate Ultimate$10000/year
    • All Enterprise features
    • Zero-trust access
    • AI-powered analytics

Garden

Free
  • Garden open sourceFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed CLI
    • Full action graph and caching
    • Self-managed clusters
  • Commercial tier$undefined/year
    • Hosted caching and team features
    • Support and onboarding
    • Pricing no longer published since the Incredibuild acquisition

Which should you pick?

Choose Fortinet FortiGate if

  • You need next-generation firewall.
  • You work on Hardware, Virtual, Cloud.
  • You also want intrusion prevention.
Fortinet FortiGate review

Choose Garden if

  • You need action graph.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
  • You also want shared result caching.
Garden review

Questions people ask

Is Fortinet FortiGate or Garden better?
Neither clearly leads. Fortinet FortiGate starts at $500/year and Garden at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Fortinet FortiGate or Garden?
Garden has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $500/year for Fortinet FortiGate and Free for Garden.
Does Fortinet FortiGate or Garden run on more platforms?
Fortinet FortiGate runs on Hardware, Virtual, Cloud. Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
Can I use Garden for free?
Yes. Garden has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Fortinet FortiGate starts at $500/year.
What is Fortinet FortiGate best used for?
Fortinet FortiGate is most often used for next-generation firewalling at data centre, campus and branch scale, secure sd-wan across distributed sites, zero trust network access to internal applications, virtual firewalls in aws, azure, google cloud and oracle. Of those, next-generation firewalling at data centre, campus and branch scale and secure sd-wan across distributed sites are not what Garden is typically brought in for.
What can Fortinet FortiGate do that Garden cannot?
Fortinet FortiGate covers Next-generation firewall, Intrusion prevention, SSL/TLS inspection, Application control. Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Fortinet FortiGate: What are the FortiGate security bundle options?

Fortinet offers three FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services bundles: ENT Bundle (ultimate security for networks, web, file, SaaS, data, and devices), UTP Bundle (advanced web and network protection), and ATP Bundle (protection against network intrusions and malware with IPS, antivirus, and application control).

Source
Garden: Is Garden still maintained?

The open source project remains on GitHub under Incredibuild ownership, but the commercial pricing page redirects to the docs and there is no public paid offer.

Fortinet FortiGate: How do I get pricing for FortiGate?

Pricing is not published on the product page. To obtain a quote, you can request a free product demo or connect with a security expert through the contact options on the site.

Source
Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

Effectively yes. Garden is built around Kubernetes environments and offers little to teams on other runtimes.

Fortinet FortiGate: Is there a free trial for FortiGate?

The product page does not mention a free trial. However, Fortinet offers a free product demo that allows you to evaluate the solution before committing to a purchase.

Source
Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

No. It runs inside GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or similar and speeds up what those pipelines execute.

Garden: What is the actual saving?

It comes from skipping builds and tests whose inputs have not changed, so the benefit scales with how many services you have and how often only a few change.

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