Cisco IOS Security vs Untangle NG Firewall comparison

Cisco and Untangle are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Cisco is ranked #21 with an average rating of 8.2, while Untangle is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.0. Cisco holds a 0.2% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Untangle’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Untangle users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Cisco IOS Security and Untangle NG Firewall compete in network security solutions. Based on comparative data, Untangle NG Firewall holds the upper hand due to its flexibility and user-friendly features despite challenges with support.

Features: Cisco IOS Security is recognized for robust security protocols, seamless integration with other Cisco products, and comprehensive network protection. Untangle NG Firewall is valued for its ease of configuration, extensive application control, and efficient web filtering, offering user-friendly and comprehensive features.

Room for Improvement: Cisco IOS Security users seek enhancements in reducing complexity, simplifying the learning curve, and improving documentation. Untangle NG Firewall users point out deficiencies in support responsiveness, occasional performance issues, and refining external integrations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco IOS Security is known for complexity and time-intensive deployment, often requiring specialized knowledge. Customer service feedback is mixed. Untangle NG Firewall offers quicker, more intuitive deployment but faces criticism for its support responsiveness. Users lean towards Untangle for easier deployment.

Pricing and ROI: Users find Cisco IOS Security's setup costs higher, though ROI is satisfactory for large environments. Untangle NG Firewall receives favorable feedback on cost-efficiency and quicker ROI. The distinction is Cisco's higher initial costs compared to Untangle's cost-effectiveness.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco IOS Security vs. Untangle NG Firewall Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco IOS Security vs. Untangle NG Firewall

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.5%, up from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco IOS Security is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Untangle NG Firewall is 1.2%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

DineshKumar28

Senior Manager at Cognizant

Effective threat prevention with responsive customer support

We are using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall Fortinet FortiGate has been invaluable. It has helped save costs due to its various features, reliable performance, very good UI, low latency, and stability. The Threat Intel engine in Fortinet FortiGate is highly rated for its effectiveness in…

Read full review

Karthik Venkataraman

Senior Consultant at Velocis Systems

User-friendly and excels in documentation, making it easier to resolve issues

Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It offers good network visibility, which helps in rapid response through the Rapid Threat Containment feature. Its deployment and configuration are straightforward. From a networking perspective, for instance, Cisco IOS incorporates time-tested security features. The zone-based firewall feature has significantly influenced our network security management. For instance, when managing multiple geolocations, it's essential to apply geographically appropriate policies. If a customer operates within the UK zone, I need to implement UK-specific policies. This approach is also applicable to customers in the Asia Pacific and UK regions. It enables me to tailor security policies based on the geographical location of my customers, such as adjusting policies for customers in China or Japan. This flexibility helps in creating a comprehensive zone list. Additionally, this feature allows for seamless service agreements between all zones from headquarters, providing access to all zones within the firewall we create. Essentially, it facilitates the creation of zones within the firewall.

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Josh Evans

CEO at DragonTech IT Services, Inc

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

I've heard other people saying that other firewalls have better detection rates, so better security. If they can improve the security of the device, I'm always for that, but at the moment, we've been happy with the service that we're getting out of them. It does have multi-factor authentication in some areas, but I would love to see a more widely implemented version of that on the devices themselves. It could use some improvement for Azure Active Directory Connections. It does exist, and it is available, but it needs work to be able to fully authenticate. I know there are some advanced features that other firewalls have that aren't present in Untangle, but we've never noticed any feature that we need but isn't there. I also know a lot of people have complained about the cost per device because they license by device counts. So, once you get over a certain number of devices, it is not really a cost-effective solution.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."

"We purchased Fortinet because of the pricing, its functionality, because it met our requirements, and the total cost of ownership over five years was quite reasonable. In the market, Fortinet is rated quite well."

"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."

"Fortinet FortiGate is a security device. It can optimize security on the networks of a company. It actually protects the company from attacks from outside. With FortiGate, you can categorize the users. You can create a group of users that can access all of the websites for their work. You can limit other users' access."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."

"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."

"In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable."

"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"I'm able to transfer data over internet network security. With the GRE I'm able to transfer data within one bunch to another bunch in a public way, like the internet. The communication is encrypted and is private. It gives me added privacy."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco IOS Security is posturing."

"The capabilities for scalability with this product are huge"

"The most valuable feature is endpoint protection."

"The solution is stable."

"Cisco IOS Security increases the overall security of our network, performs authentication, and provides level 15 access and privileges."

"The product's stability is good."

"Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."

More Cisco IOS Security pros

"All features are useful. We are using premium features such as bandwidth sharing, failover, web filters, SSL controls, antivirus, and VPN. We use these features to the fullest. These features are available in the paid firewall license, not the free one."

"Its detection, antivirus, and filtering features are the most valuable. The facility to connect by using the VPN connection is also a very valuable feature. It is very strong, secure, and reliable. We have implemented the Untangle solution in all hardware. It is also a user-friendly solution. It is easy to learn and easy to configure."

"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 features I have found the most useful are the web filter, the captive portal, the SSL inspector, and the ad-blocker. They're awesome."

"It is not attached to an appliance, meaning if you get a good PC/server, then you can already run a firewall."

"The Untangle firewall is a software firewall, so it runs on generic hardware. We found that was probably the best feature, and it's why we chose it when we started using it three years ago."

"The product is easy to implement."

"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."

More Untangle NG Firewall pros

Cons

"The firmware updates are sometimes not stable. The stability issues can vary, sometimes happening once a month or quarterly. New firmware updates can occasionally introduce bugs, causing some policies to fail. We then have to raise a ticket, and Fortinet usually provides a fix within a few days."

"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."

"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license. There must be some of kind synergy between the license so we don't have to pay for every individual license that we would like to have."

"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."

"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."

"The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI."

"I think there could be more QoS features"

"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The company needs to make its solution more affordable to make it more accessible to larger markets. Otherwise, it's seen as an enterprise-level solution that small or medium-sized organizations can't afford and therefore they won't even look at it."

"There could be a bit more functions on offer that could make it easier to use."

"Cisco is an expensive firewall, so the pricing can be improved."

"The solution’s setup process could be better."

"The configuration and reporting interfaces need a lot of improvement. It needs to be more accessible forsolide without a strong technical background. If you had a simplified dashboard, the lower-level techs could manage the solution and provide services. Cisco IOS Security requires someone who is highly trained to operate it."

"It takes too much time to deploy a policy to FMC. It takes around eight minutes. You can't afford any downtime when you're changing policies."

"An area for improvement in Cisco IOS Security is the performance because it's not as stable sometimes. There's also some latency in the solution, which could be improved. Cisco IOS Security integrates with other solutions, but you'll encounter many errors after integration, so this is another area for improvement. I'd like to see enhanced performance and a simplified setup in the next version of Cisco IOS Security."

"In the security portfolio from Cisco, the issue is marketing. Cisco is still seen primarily as an enterprise network player rather than being acknowledged as a security vendor."

More Cisco IOS Security cons

"The biggest challenge that we have with this solution is local support. The local support is a problem in our area."

"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."

"The web content filtering needs improvement."

"The solution's licensing count could be improved."

"The pricing is not as good as it was some time ago. They've since skipped offering a lot of individual features."

"They don't have any feature that allows you to drop the session."

"It would be much easier if there was a mobile app."

More Untangle NG Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is good. They offer a lot of things, the most important is the support. Every time you upgrade your license, you also get insurance for the equipment. If you have any problem with equipment, they send in new equipment."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"As far as I'm aware, in our case, it's just a yearly pricing arrangement with no additional licensing costs."

"The price is fair for what we get with FortiGate."

"Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."

"The licensing scheme of Fortinet is better than Cisco. It is more logical."

"We find the most valuable aspect of this solution is the price. It is affordable, and cheaper than other firewalls."

"It is affordable. Palo Alto is much more expensive than Fortinet."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"Cisco IOS Security is not very expensive, and pricing depends on where you live. It's affordable for both individuals and institutions. On a scale from one to five, I would give Cisco's pricing a four."

"We can purchase its licenses as per specific business requirements."

"It is an expensive solution."

"The pricing is okay. It is competitive. It costs more when you need get more features."

"The solution's pricing is very good."

"The tool could be priced lower. If you want advanced services, then you need to purchase them."

"The pricing is average and includes all features with support."

"The price of the solution should be cheaper, and the license is purchase annually."

More Cisco IOS Security pricing and cost advice

"For the home use, it's cheap."

"The solution is fairly priced."

"It is the most cost-effective to use."

"It is not expensive. The best part is that it is based on the pay-per-use kind of scenario. An increase or decrease in the number of people doesn't make any difference. We are really happy about using this particular scenario."

"Usually, it's about $350 a year for 12 users, and it's about $600 for 50 users. It's very reasonable as compared to the others. One of the reasons is that they're all open-source. You just buy their appliance and put it in until it dies. Because it's run under open platforms, mine seems to always work on older equipment. I've taken old equipment and put a new hard disk in it. I have taken about nine-year-old computers and put their operating system on them, and ran them like a champ. The only thing that changed was the hard drive because I don't trust a hard drive that's more than three to four years old."

"It is not expensive. It is cheaper than Fortinet."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The pricing model is better than with SonicWall."

More Untangle NG Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

30%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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What do you like most about Cisco IOS Security?

Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It off...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco IOS Security?

The challenge often comes down to pricing for SMB customers or those below enterprise level. It's tough for them to i...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco IOS Security?

In the security portfolio from Cisco, the issue is marketing. Cisco is still seen primarily as an enterprise network ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Untangle NG Firewall?

The product helps small and medium enterprises secure their networks from intrusions. It also has features like DNS b...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Untangle NG Firewall?

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Untangle NG Firewall?

I would recommend getting 2FA with an SSL VPN type of setup without having to go through a lot of hoops. The solution...

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 32% of the time

OPNsense vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 18% of the time

Fortinet FortiOS vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 12% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 12% of the time

Meraki MX vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 10% of the time

More Cisco IOS Security Competitors

OPNsense vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 38% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 15% of the time

Sophos XG vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

Sophos UTM vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

IPFire vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

More Untangle NG Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

December 2024

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco IOS Security

December 2024

Download Cisco IOS Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall

November 2024

Download Untangle NG Firewall product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

IOS Security

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Fortinet

Cisco

Untangle

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Cisco IOS Software delivers a sophisticated set of security capabilities for a comprehensive, layered security approach throughout your network infrastructure. Cisco IOS security technologies help to defend critical business processes against attack and disruption, protect privacy, and support policy and regulatory compliance controls.

Untangle NG Firewall is an open-source firewall and gateway security platform that helps keep networks safe while accessing the internet. It offers a free core firewall platform with paid add-ons, and a cloud-based management platform with a variety of deployment options for smaller teams. The solution also has a cloud-based management console for remote management that can either be deployed on premises or as SaaS, and virtualized or cloud-based. It also has flexible deployment options, including third-party hardware, as a virtual machine, or as a turnkey appliance. Untangle NG Firewall is ideal for small IT teams with limited budgets.

Untangle NG Firewall Features

Untangle NG Firewall has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Intrusion protection
Threat prevention
Virus blocker
Virus scanner
App control
SSL inspection
Bandwidth control
Reporting
Logs
VPN
Web filter
IDS/IPS
Access controls
Location control
Proxy
Active Directory/LDAP connections

Untangle NG Firewall Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Untangle NG Firewall. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Simplified network security: Untangle NG Firewall has a single, modular, software platform which simplifies security for all networks and ensures every device is adequately protected.

Visibility: The solution provides a browser-based, responsive, and intuitive interface enabling users to gain visibility quickly into the traffic on the network.

Deep analysis and insights: With the solution, users can see a network’s status at a glance on the dashboard, ensure compliance with full event logs, and get notifications of network anomalies or unusual user behavior with alert rules. In addition, users can gain insights in real time from database-driven reports.

Next-generation filtering: Untangle NG Firewall makes it easy to manage every rogue application, encrypted web request, malware distribution point, and drive-by malvertising attempt.

Connectivity and performance: The solution helps your organization maintain visibility and control over remote workers, branch offices, and guest Wi-Fi to keep users connected and data safe regardless of location or level of access.

Policy creation: Users can create policies by user, group, device, and time in order to control access.

Additional apps: Untangle NG Firewall offers additional apps, allowing organizations to create complete configuration backups to protect against network disruptions.

Reviews from Real Users

Untangle NG Firewall is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are that it is easy to use, has good features, including VPN, reporting, alerting, and filtering, and can be installed on existing hardware.

“It is very easy to use. The user interface is very straightforward. It may not be as fancy as some of the ones I've seen, but it's very straightforward. It's very easy to find what you need, and it's very easy to get things done,” says Josh E., CEO at DragonTech IT Services, Inc.

Barry A., Owner at ThinkEzIT, says, “It has good VPN features, helpful reporting and alerting, built-in content filtering, and excellent support.”

PeerSpot user Victor O., Director at Kisii County Government, explains, “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.”

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Arup Group, Brunel University London, City of Biel, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, K&L Gates , New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Offshore Northern Seas, Transplace

North American Stamping Group, Cerebral Palsy of North Jersey (CPNJ), Brown County Schools, IN, City of Bridgeton, MO, Lancaster County, SC, Vision Charter School, Clay County Sheriff’s Department, NC, Breakwater School, Boys & Girls Club of Manchester, NH, Admiral Farragut Academy, Flow Companies, No Ordinary Hotel, KECdesign,

Buyer's Guide

Cisco IOS Security vs. Untangle NG Firewall

December 2024

Free Report: Cisco IOS Security vs. Untangle NG Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco IOS Security vs. Untangle NG Firewall and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

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