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.
"The product offers very good security."
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"The most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"Technical support is perfect, excellent."
"It is a good firewall with good performance."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"I use pfSense because it gives me the flexibility to greatly expand basic firewall features."
"The plugins or add-ons are most valuable. Sometimes, they are free of charge, and sometimes, you have to pay for them, but you can purchase or download very valuable plugins or add-ons to perform internal testing of your network and simulate a denial-of-service attack or whichever attack you want to simulate. You can also remote and monitor your network and see where the gap is. Did you forget a printer port? Most attacks at the moment are happening through printers, and they can tell you immediately that you forgot to close the port of the printer. There are more than one million printers that are in danger, and everybody knows that hackers are using them to enter the network. So, you can download plugins to protect your network."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"The majority of our clients are very small businesses, and Untangle devices have been fantastic for these small clients. We've basically standardized our stack to just simply use Untangle. We include the hardware and the service option, which makes it very easy and affordable for us to just simply push that into the monthly per-user costing that we provide as a managed services provider. It's really a no-brainer. They're easy to use, and they're easy to set up and configure. Support is generally good about resolving any issues that we have. We haven't had any real complaints."
"Application Control and filtering features are valuable."
"They have a command center that makes it easy to log into and see all of your appliances nationwide."
"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."
"The interface is very good."
"The web blocking for my clients and the application control are valuable."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"Easy to set up and easy to integrate."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"They need to improve their technical support."
"The room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."
"Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"There can be more security in hybrid implementations. When a customer has a hybrid environment where some parts are in the cloud, we need a consistent security solution for such scenarios."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"I would like to see SD1 integration into the software. That would be fantastic."
"When I checked other packages, it seems they use different tools that are installed on the PSS for functionality. They rely on third-party tools, unlike Fortinet, for example, which has its own tools. In comparison, we also use third-party tools on pfSense. For example, we had a situation where we needed a tool to identify authorized users, and when I searched for a solution, I found a third-party tool. However, using such tools may come with additional costs."
"The main problem with pfSense is that we have to use proxy solutions."
"We have not had any problems with it, and we also do not have a need for any new features. If anything, its reporting can be better. Sophos has better reporting than pfSense. Sophos has more detailed information. pfSense is not as detailed. It is summarized."
"It is not centrally managed, where you log into the website and can see all your services there. We would like to be able to see is all the configurations from a central interface on all our pfSenses."
"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."
"In an upcoming release, the reporting could be more user-friendly. For example, the reporting in graphs and charts for the host can be cumbersome."
"The pricing should be reduced because it is expensive."
"The hardware can be improved."
"The storage is minimal, so we have to set the system to delete data after seven days."
"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 management console for partners is a bit tricky (buggy)."
"Web-filtering policies could be improved."
"The product needs to improve its mobile application."
"The product needs to have a better support group for its online support, specifically for its help desk."
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.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.