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IPFire vs Untangle NG Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
580
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
IPFire
Ranking in Firewalls
36th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Untangle NG Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
30th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 18.7%, down from 20.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IPFire is 1.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Untangle NG Firewall is 0.9%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate18.7%
Untangle NG Firewall0.9%
IPFire1.7%
Other78.7%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
DS
Head Competence Team IT at Duktig Brand
Blocking access from specific countries and ensuring robust security have been effortlessly achieved
I use IPFire to protect my home The best feature of IPFire is the location block functionality. It allows me to block certain countries from accessing my site. Additionally, it is a solution that is available for free, which is perfect. The graphical interface could be much better. I have…
Gary-Downey - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Has provided built-in VPN tools and reporting features that streamline remote access and monitoring tasks
We do an outside-sourced threat prevention regarding the Threat Prevention features. I haven't run into areas that could be improved or cons versus pros for Untangle NG Firewall. I haven't done anything too advanced when it comes to the filtering, so I'm not sure what can be improved or added. I haven't dug into the advanced features, but I think some of the advanced capabilities are probably where it lacks a little bit, with the filtering and firewall rules. These areas could be improved to make it a nine out of 10 or a 10 out of 10 for overall rating.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FortiGate is a great solution, although initially, it faced challenges in the Brazilian market due to lower brand recognition than Cisco. However, explaining and demonstrating its product format and offerings has proven easy. The cost-effectiveness and better features of FortiGate have made some clients skeptical. We set up a trial period, and they eventually opted for it. Many clients were convinced it was great after experiencing the solution's capabilities firsthand."
"We are a visual effects company, and there have been a number of high profile security issues in our industry. This has brought us to a higher standard of security, which our clients are very keen on these days."
"There is an easy process for configuring it, and it is straightforward to implement the device from scratch."
"FortiAnalyzer's capability to provide detailed reporting based on various criteria is highly valuable."
"The most helpful features of FortiGate include its firewall policy, specifically the user-based policy, which I find to be quite beneficial in managing our network security effectively."
"The SD-WAN feature of Fortinet FortiGate has been most impactful in maintaining our network's integrity."
"The license management is very valuable. You can get a new license each year, or you can enroll every two to four years. You can get the logs, and you will get the information on the risk in your network and the entire organization. With this information, you can take action on your actives, computers, or devices. You can bring your own device as an SSE."
"The product has an inbuilt IPS software. We can configure it to block specific anonymous attacks that are happening."
"I would rate the stability as ten out of ten for IPFire."
"IPFire has prevented any kind of hacking and enables us to comply with customer requirements."
"They have a command center that makes it easy to log into and see all of your appliances nationwide."
"It is not attached to an appliance, meaning if you get a good PC/server, then you can already run a firewall."
"The product helps small and medium enterprises secure their networks from intrusions. It also has features like DNS blocking."
"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."
"The product’s most valuable features are endpoint protection management, load balancing, and connectivity with Active Directory."
"The interface is very good."
"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."
"Easy to set up and easy to integrate."
 

Cons

"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall could be made a little less expensive."
"In the past six months, they took quite a long time to respond to the support tickets. I don't know if they are overwhelmed with too much activity, but for the last six months, the support has not been very good."
"There's always something new that can be added or fixed."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"The only challenge with Fortinet FortiGate is the pricing model."
"Vulnerabilities owing to viruses in the OS need to be reduced in FortiGate Next Generation Firewall from an improvement perspective."
"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."
"In my opinion, Fortinet FortiGate could be improved by making the appliance smaller than what we have here, as it is pretty big."
"Accessing the internet was a bit complicated."
"The graphical interface could be much better."
"The web content filtering needs improvement."
"The hardware can be improved."
"The management console for partners is a bit tricky (buggy)."
"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."
"They don't have any feature that allows you to drop the session."
"For the web filter, I think they can do better especially on the free model."
"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."
"The biggest challenge that we have with this solution is local support. The local support is a problem in our area."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cheap."
"There is a need to pay for a license for the product."
"The product is expensive. I rate its pricing a six out of ten."
"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."
"It is not a very costly product if you compare it with other products. The return on investment is also good. If you compare the return of investment and money that you are spending on this product with Palo Alto, Cisco, Check Point, and other solutions, the investment is very less. We are happy with this solution. The optional licenses are there, and you can choose which one you want and which one to avoid."
"It cost us around $73,000 for three years."
"The Fortinet FortiGate security features cost approximately $1,500 a year. The firewall itself doesn't have a recurring cost. It's the security features on top of that that you pay for."
"It is a good product from a price perspective versus functionality."
Information not available
"The solution is fairly priced."
"We pay $350 USD per year for the solution. There are no additional costs. As long as you're not using a physical appliance, that's all you need."
"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."
"The setup cost is about $2000 to $3000 per year."
"Untangle is open-source software. So, you can get it for free. That has been a benefit, especially for the residential users because it is free. The license costs start at $25 a month for some additional features, including higher tiers of security intrusion prevention. The free version comes with intrusion detection, and then the license version has intrusion prevention. It also has some additional things for active directory connectors, etc. It starts at $25 a month to cover 12 devices. Then it goes up from $25 to $50 a month for 12 to 25 devices. That's where it really doesn't scale out per site. If you have a site that has more than 50 devices on it, then Untangle quickly becomes cost prohibitive in comparison to several other competitors."
"The tool's pricing is moderate, and licensing costs are yearly."
"For the home use, it's cheap."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Comms Service Provider
21%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business357
Midsize Enterprise133
Large Enterprise188
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise1
 

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...
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...
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 ...
What needs improvement with IPFire?
The graphical interface could be much better.
What is your primary use case for IPFire?
I use IPFire ( /products/ipfire-reviews ) to protect my home.
What advice do you have for others considering IPFire?
Sometimes configuring IPFire is challenging. Overall, I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Untangle NG Firewall?
Based on my experience, the pricing for Untangle NG Firewall is pretty comparable. I haven't bought a new one in a wh...
What needs improvement with Untangle NG Firewall?
We do an outside-sourced threat prevention regarding the Threat Prevention features. I haven't run into areas that co...
What is your primary use case for Untangle NG Firewall?
I just get on and monitor the interfaces, the networking, and the basics of it for this product.
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
1. Siemens 2. IBM 3. Cisco 4. Dell 5. HP 6. Intel 7. Oracle 8. Google 9. Microsoft 10. Amazon 11. Apple 12. Facebook 13. Twitter 14. Netflix 15. Adobe 16. SAP 17. VMware 18. Juniper Networks 19. Ericsson 20. Nokia 21. AT&T 22. Verizon 23. T-Mobile 24. Vodafone 25. Orange 26. Deutsche Telekom 27. British Telecom 28. Comcast 29. Time Warner 30. Sony 31. Samsung 32. LG
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,
Find out what your peers are saying about IPFire vs. Untangle NG Firewall and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,360 professionals have used our research since 2012.