We performed a comparison between pfSense and Untangle NG Firewall based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products received high marks from reviewers, but Untangle NG Firewall ultimately won out in this comparison. It is easy to set up, user-friendly and secure. In addition it has excellent customer support and is fairly priced.
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."
"Fortinet FortiGate's reliability is valuable."
"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."
"The VPN is the most valuable feature."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"The pipe filter application is an outstanding feature."
"The SD-WAN feature is the most valuable. This feature evolved from link load balancing. It has helped us in terms of our uptime and privatizing applications whenever we experience an outage. The SD-WAN feature has been a plus for us. Two-factor authentication has allowed us to add more users in terms of remote working. We have two-factor authentication for remote workers to authenticate them before they get on the network."
"I had some outages in the network and we provide services for our company. We sell mobile credits. The terminal gets access to our own server inside the network and if one internet fails, then the other one is still up and we have a back-up link on the devices."
"It is a stable solution."
"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"The VPN is my favorite feature."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"The product helps small and medium enterprises secure their networks from intrusions. It also has features like DNS blocking."
"Web Filter is effective, Web Cache offers bandwidth savings, and the VPN setup is easy."
"What I like about this product, which is the reason that we continue to use it, is that you can install the software version on your own hardware. In case there is a problem with the hardware, we can just install the firewall in another machine and restore the configuration."
"NG Firewalls allow us to permit or deny applications we don't want to run. We also use content filtering, SSL inspection, and all the other things we run on the firewall to keep our clients protected and ensure they're not going where they shouldn't. It's a great firewall that works as intended."
"The product’s most valuable features are endpoint protection management, load balancing, and connectivity with Active Directory."
"None of my clients has had a ransom or breach using Untangle."
"They have a command center that makes it easy to log into and see all of your appliances nationwide."
"The features I have found the most useful are the web filter, the captive portal, the SSL inspector, and the ad-blocker. They're awesome."
"A lack of integration between our data centers."
"Some of the software stability could improve."
"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"The support costs and licensing are sometimes so expensive."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great."
"The hotspot and the portal feature in this solution are not stable for WiFi access. We use it at least once or twice every day and it crashes. Some modules can be better by improving detection and having new updates. Additionally, we have some issues with clustering and load balancing that could improve."
"pfSense has some limitations in detecting site sessions. We want to control internet usage based on sites and their content, and pfSense doesn't perform this function."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"Other solutions provide more scope for growth. For instance, we can have only 10 to 20 employees on VPN, but other solutions can support more users. We also have more capabilities to increase the performance of the solution."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"We are at the moment looking to use it as a proxy service so that we can limit what websites people go and view and that sort of thing. That's an area I've struggled with a little bit at the moment and it could be a bit easier to set up."
"The common center facility that Untangle provides should be available on-premises. There are great corporations here in Mexico that like the Untangle solution, but they don't like the fact that the monitoring and access to the appliance are in the cloud. They request for the common center facility to be available and installed on-premises."
"The product needs to improve its mobile application."
"There is room for improvement in the logs. Like with Cisco, I can do almost everything and know almost anything about what's running. Untangle works very much out of the box. It's very user-friendly, but it's not engineer-friendly. So, it's good for a home user. For something fairly easy, but at the same time, with good technology to have at home, because at home, I'm not a millionaire or anything like that. So it's not like I'm worried to get hacked. I didn't want something like a Cisco firewall; it would be a bit overkill to have at home. So that's why I went for Untangle. But it lacks a few features. It's just a tick-box kind of thing. So they have apps and turn on and off the apps. The VPN's configuration is all very ticked. They have a few custom configurations, but it's not that much."
"The product should improve reporting."
"We have a minor issue when assigning IP addresses in the ARP tables. You should be able to go into the ARP tables, look at the IP address and say, "Nope, they need to be on this side on this IP address." The ability to set a DHP reservation from the ARP tables would be great. It's no big deal, but it would be nice to have."
"The product needs to have a better support group for its online support, specifically for its help desk."
"The web content filtering needs improvement."
"The hardware can be improved."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Untangle NG Firewall is ranked 24th in Firewalls with 22 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Untangle NG Firewall is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Untangle NG Firewall writes "Its simplicity, variety of features, and low pricing have enabled us to improve the security for our small business clients at a price that they are happy to pay for". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Untangle NG Firewall is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, SonicWall TZ and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Untangle NG Firewall report.
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