FortiGate 80F

FortiGate 80F is a desktop next-generation firewall designed to secure branch offices of 50-100 users with a single device. According to the official data sheet its IPv4 firewall throughput is 10 / 10 / 7 Gbps with 1518 / 512 / 64 byte UDP packets, its IPS throughput is 1.4 Gbps and its Threat Protection throughput is 900 Mbps. These three figures belong to separate tests; the most common mistake in the field is to take the IPS number for the threat prevention capacity.

In a branch the bottleneck is usually not raw packet rate but the inspection of encrypted traffic. CyberRatings.org reports that more than 95% of global web traffic is encrypted and that some products lose noticeable performance when TLS inspection is switched on (CyberRatings.org, 2025). The 80F's SSL inspection throughput on average HTTPS sessions is 715 Mbps and its concurrent inspected session capacity is 100,000; on a 100 Mbit/s class branch line, full inspection is applied comfortably.

What size of organization is the FortiGate 80F suited to?

The device holds 1.5 million concurrent TCP sessions, opens 45,000 new sessions per second, and supports 5,000 firewall policies and 10 VDOMs. The built-in controller scales to 96 FortiAP units (48 of them in tunnel mode) and 24 FortiSwitch units; the branch's wired and wireless access layer is managed from the same interface with no additional hardware. For local logging, the 81F and 81F-PoE variants come with a 128 GB SSD, while for the long-term retention required under Law No. 5651 (Turkey's internet log retention law) a central FortiAnalyzer archive should be positioned.

Which devices can the 80F's 96 W PoE budget power?

The 80F-PoE and 81F-PoE variants offer eight PoE/+ ports (six internal, two FortiLink) and a total 96 W budget; the data sheet gives the maximum load per port as 30 W (802.3at). That corresponds to three fully loaded 802.3at devices, or a larger number of 802.3af class IP phones. The non-PoE models are fanless, produce 0 dBA and draw 12.69 W on average. If the access layer exceeds the budget, the right approach is to add a separate FortiSwitch PoE model.

Where does the FortiGate 80F stand compared with the 70G and the 90G?

The table makes two things clear: the 1518 byte firewall figure is the same for the 80F and the 70G, and the 70G's advantage is in small-packet performance and session establishment rate. The real distinction is made by threat prevention. Against that, PoE exists only in the 70G and 80F families; no PoE ports are listed in the 90G's data sheet.

When is it time to move up to a higher model?

There are three concrete thresholds. If the branch line has risen to 1 Gbit/s and antivirus, IPS and application control are enabled at the same time, the 900 Mbps ceiling becomes tight; the FortiGate 90G offers 2.2 Gbps in the same form factor. Guest Wi-Fi traffic approaching the limit of 45,000 new sessions per second calls for the 90G's figure of 124,000. If a 10 Gigabit uplink is needed, you move up to the FortiGate 100F class in 1U rack form. Downwards, in branches of 20-30 users the FortiGate 70G is a more balanced choice.

Which FortiOS release and support calendar apply?

With bulletin CSB-260330-1, Fortinet extended the end of support for FortiOS 7.4 to 11 November 2028 and that of FortiOS 7.6 to 25 January 2030 (Fortinet Community, 2026); for long-lived branch deployments we recommend the 7.6 branch. The data sheet does not state which FortiOS release the performance figures were measured on and qualifies all values as "up to"; for that reason an upgrade decision should rest on a measurement taken on real traffic.

As a Fortinet authorized channel partner, Sora Yazılım provides licensing, deployment, migration and managed services across the whole FortiGate firewall family. We can assess together whether the FortiGate 80F or the 80F-PoE variant is the right size for your branch; get in touch through our contact page for a configuration recommendation and a price quotation.