Ubiquiti UniFi Cloud Gateway Fiber vs Fortinet FortiGate 3500G: Specs & Price Comparison

Ubiquiti UniFi Cloud Gateway Fiber

★ 5.0 Value Score

Firewall Throughput: Not published by Ubiquiti; 5 Gbps IDS/IPS-secured routing throughput is the only headline figure (reviewer and retailer listings)
Threat Prevention Throughput: 5 Gbps IDS/IPS
IPsec VPN Throughput: Not published
Max Sessions: Not published; 500+ simultaneous users and 4,000-entry MAC address table
New Sessions/sec: Not published
Interfaces: 2x 10G SFP+; 1x 10GbE RJ45 (10G/2.5G/1G); 4x 2.5GbE RJ45 (2.5G/1G/100M/10M); 2 of the 6 WAN-capable ports are default WAN (1x 10G SFP+ and 1x 10GbE RJ45), with the other ports selectable as WAN
Form Factor: Compact desktop; 212.8 x 127.6 x 30 mm; 675 g without SSD
CPU / RAM: Quad-core ARM Cortex-A73 at 2.2 GHz / 3 GB RAM
Storage: Optional NVMe SSD up to 2 TB (NVR storage)
PoE Budget: 30W total from one PoE+ port (port 4)
Max Power Consumption: 29.4W excluding PoE output

✔ Pros: Lowest-cost Ubiquiti gateway with 5 Gbps IDS/IPS, rated above the UDM-SE's 3.5 Gbps at a lower launch price ($279 MSRP vs. $499); Multi-gig flexibility with 10GBASE-T, dual SFP+ and four 2.5GbE ports; Compact desktop design with optional NVMe storage for UniFi Protect/NVR use; Supports site-to-site VPN plus OpenVPN, WireGuard and L2TP server functions, with integrated PoE+ for one device; Managed through the UniFi Network controller with 500+ simultaneous user capacity
✘ Cons: No official routing, IPsec or WireGuard throughput figures published by Ubiquiti; community WireGuard numbers (around 400-500 Mbps) are unverified; Only one PoE+ output port (30W total) versus eight PoE ports on the UDM-SE; Lower device and user capacity and less storage expansion than the UDM-SE; No published IPsec tunnel or concurrent session limits; Reseller prices now often run above the launch MSRP (about $320-$346 USD at US resellers)
Est. Price: $279 - $346

Fortinet FortiGate 3500G

★ 3.3 Value Score

Firewall Throughput: 595 Gbps (Fortinet-claimed, May 2026 launch; no independent test found)
Threat Prevention Throughput: 105 Gbps (NGFW); 125 Gbps IPS
IPsec VPN Throughput: 163 Gbps (512-byte packets)
Max Sessions: 179 million concurrent TCP sessions
New Sessions/sec: 1.1 million (single reseller source)
Interfaces: 2x 400GE QSFP-DD; 30x 25GE SFP28
Form Factor: 2RU rackmount
Processors: NP7 and CP10 (SP5 on the 400G model)
Power Efficiency: ~1.6 W per Gbps of firewall throughput (vendor claim)
Price Note: Single reseller hardware quote of CAD 288,732.99 (datacenter360.ca), converted at an assumed ~0.72 USD/CAD. No official USD list price was found. The catalog's existing 8,500-14,500 USD range and 3.5 Gbps / 1U entries do not match Fortinet's published figures and should be corrected.

✔ Pros: Vendor-claimed 595 Gbps firewall throughput, far above typical enterprise 1U-class appliances; 179 million concurrent sessions suits large data center and AI traffic loads; 400GE QSFP-DD uplinks plus 25GE SFP28 density; NP7/CP10 custom ASIC architecture for inspection offload; claimed power efficiency of about 1.6 W per Gbps; full Fortinet Security Fabric and FortiGuard integration
✘ Cons: Price is very high (hardware alone about CAD 289k per one reseller quote) and not justified for SMB or branch use; throughput figures are vendor-reported with no independent verification found; 2RU footprint versus the 1U shown in the catalog; threat-prevention throughput (105 Gbps) is far below the headline firewall figure, so real-world security performance is lower than the headline suggests; licensing and support add substantial recurring cost; overkill for most networks, where a mid-range FortiGate would be a better fit
Est. Price: $208,000

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