Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) & Radware (NASDAQ:RDWR) Head to Head Review

Radware (NASDAQ:RDWR) and Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) are both technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, risk, earnings, dividends, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

73.1% of Radware shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.7% of Fortinet shares are owned by institutional investors. 21.6% of Radware shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 17.6% of Fortinet shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Radware and Fortinet, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Radware	1	1	0	0	1.50
Fortinet	5	19	10	2	2.25

Radware presently has a consensus price target of $25.00, indicating a potential downside of 14.18%. Fortinet has a consensus price target of $152.79, indicating a potential downside of 10.04%. Given Fortinet’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Fortinet is more favorable than Radware.

Profitability

This table compares Radware and Fortinet’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Radware	5.34%	7.47%	4.26%
Fortinet	28.17%	191.54%	21.35%

Risk & Volatility

Radware has a beta of 0.85, suggesting that its share price is 15% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Fortinet has a beta of 1.06, suggesting that its share price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Radware and Fortinet”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Radware	$301.85 million	4.06	$20.26 million	$0.38	76.66
Fortinet	$7.53 billion	16.55	$1.85 billion	$2.84	59.80

Fortinet has higher revenue and earnings than Radware. Fortinet is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Radware, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Fortinet beats Radware on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Radware

Radware Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and markets cyber security and application delivery solutions for cloud, on-premises, and software defined data centers worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Radware’s Core Business and The Hawks’ Business. It offers DefensePro provides automated DDoS protection; Radware Kubernetes, a web application firewall solution; and Cyber Controller, a unified solution for management, configuration, and attack lifecycle. The company also provides Alteon, an application delivery and security solution that manages application traffic across cloud and data center locations for optimizing availability and performance; and LinkProof NG, a multi-homing and enterprise gateway solution. In addition, it offers ERT Security Updates Subscription that provides protection from network elements, hosts, and applications; ERT Active Attackers Feed, a threat intelligence feed to protect against DDoS threats; ERT Protection Packages; Alteon Global Elastic License, a purchasing and deployment subscription; MSSP Portal, a DDoS detection and mitigation service portal; Location-based Mitigation that enables network traffic based on the geolocation mapping of IP subnets; and Cloud DDoS Protection Service, which offers a range of enterprise-grade DDoS protection services in the cloud. Further, the company provides Cloud Web DDoS Protection, Cloud WAF Service, Bot Manager, Cloud-Native Protector, and Cloud Application Protection Services, as well as technical support, professional, managed, and training and certification services. It sells its products primarily to independent distributors, including value added resellers, original equipment manufacturers, and system integrators. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc. provides cybersecurity and convergence of networking and security solutions worldwide. It offers secure networking solutions focus on the convergence of networking and security; network firewall solutions that consist of FortiGate data centers, hyperscale, and distributed firewalls, as well as encrypted applications; wireless LAN solutions; and secure connectivity solutions, including FortiSwitch secure ethernet switches, FortiAP wireless local area network access points, FortiExtender 5G connectivity gateways, and other products. The company also provides the Fortinet Unified SASE solutions that include firewall, SD-WAN, Secure web gateway, cloud access services broker, data loss prevention, zero trust network access, and cloud security, including web application firewalls, virtualized firewalls, and cloud-native firewalls. In addition, it offers security operations solutions comprising FortiAI generative AI assistant, FortiSIEM security information and event management, FortiSOAR security orchestration, automation and response, FortiEDR endpoint detection and response, FortiXDR extended detection and response, FortiMDR managed detection and response service, FortiNDR network detection and response, FortiRecon digital risk protection, FortiDeceptor deception technology, FortiGuard SoCaaS, FortiSandbox sandboxing, FortiGuard incident response, and other products. Further, the company offers FortiGuard security services consisting of FortiGuard application security, content security, device security, NOC/SOC security, and web security services; FortiCare technical support services; and training services to customers and channel partners, as well as operates a FortiGuard Lab, a cybersecurity threat intelligence and research organization. It serves enterprise, communication and security service providers, government organizations, and small and medium-sized businesses. The company was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.