Sophos Cyberoam UTM vs Untangle NG Firewall comparison

Sophos and Untangle are both solutions in the Unified Threat Management (UTM) category. Sophos is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.3, while Untangle is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0. Additionally, 84% of Sophos 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 Nov 7, 2024

Sophos Cyberoam UTM and Untangle NG Firewall compete in the enterprise firewall and UTM market. Sophos Cyberoam UTM offers significant identity-based security and bandwidth management, giving it an edge in security features. Conversely, Untangle NG Firewall's open-source platform and affordability are particularly attractive to small businesses.

Features: Sophos Cyberoam UTM offers identity-based security, enabling personalized policies and ensuring user accountability. Its extensive bandwidth management helps optimize network performance, and the device caters to a diverse range of networks with VPN support. Untangle NG Firewall boasts configurable application filtering, useful for tailoring network control, along with solid web filtering capabilities and reliable antivirus protection.

Room for Improvement: Sophos Cyberoam UTM shows room for improvement in pricing, as users find it high, and its performance under high traffic can be lacking. Concerns about its software architecture's flexibility and scalability under strain are noted. Untangle NG Firewall could improve its mobile application capabilities and address challenges with local support in various regions. Its licensing model, particularly device-based, has also faced criticism.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both products offer on-premises deployment options, with Sophos Cyberoam expanding to hybrid and cloud environments. Sophos Cyberoam's customer service is generally well-rated though sometimes slow. Untangle's customer service can differ based on distributors, praised for clear technical support.

Pricing and ROI: Sophos Cyberoam UTM is seen as mid-range priced, appreciated for its return on investment due to enhanced security, despite licensing costs increasing overall expenses. Untangle NG Firewall is perceived as cost-effective for smaller setups, although costs can rise with additional features. Its ROI is positively regarded, particularly for cutting down administrative and bandwidth costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Sophos Cyberoam UTM vs. Untangle NG Firewall Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Sophos Cyberoam UTM vs. Untangle NG Firewall

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Featured Reviews

DineshKumar28

Senior Manager at Cognizant

Sep 25, 2024

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…

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Kiarash Heydari

Information security manager at asa com

Jan 26, 2023

Stable and has a straightforward setup; reporting is fast and easy

Sophos Cyberoam UTM has room for improvement in specific rules-based objects and redesign. The solution also needs to improve in adding rules and policies, including renewing and finding policies. The Sophos team should make Sophos Cyberoam UTM policies and rules better and more useful than the old ones because that can be difficult and confusing sometimes. For example, adding policies or rules can be confusing, and that can be risky. To improve Sophos Cyberoam UTM, Sophos should add an IPS or IDS signature feature in the current plans offered to customers. Upgrading or patching the solution can be slow, so that's another area for improvement. In the next version of Sophos Cyberoam UTM, I want it to have an appliance management feature, similar to what's in FortiManager, where you can connect all appliances and manage the devices because that would be easier in terms of reporting.

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Josh Evans

CEO at DragonTech IT Services, Inc

Mar 21, 2022

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."

"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."

"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls."

"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."

"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."

"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."

"I only deal with it from a security analyst's point of view. I don't really get into the features of the actual FortiGate. From the security point of view, it works, and it does its job."

"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Sophos Cyberoam UTM is used for perimeter security, web filtering, intrusion prevention and as a VPN."

"The tool's robust features allow for the customization of policies, objects, and firewall settings."

"Web application filtering eases internet access control."

"The tool is stable."

"The firewall feature has different branches, such as extended firewalls."

"It has been working fine. You just turn it on, and it works."

"The product has helped control bandwidth utilization, as well as enhanced connectivity and security to remote locations."

"The reporting features are very good."

More Sophos Cyberoam UTM pros

"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 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."

"None of my clients has had a ransom or breach using Untangle."

"The product is easy to implement."

"The product’s most valuable features are endpoint protection management, load balancing, and connectivity with Active Directory."

"The interface is very good."

"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 helps small and medium enterprises secure their networks from intrusions. It also has features like DNS blocking."

More Untangle NG Firewall pros

Cons

"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."

"The firmware needs improvement because there are bugs when a new release comes through. Sometimes, the configuration changes, and it's a bit harder to see where the fail is. The first time that you have the firmware, it tends to have some issues, and it's better to wait a bit to update the equipment."

"Fortinet FortiGate can improve the integration with Active Directory. Additionally, I would like to have a Cloud Controller, such as they do in the Cisco Meraki solution."

"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."

"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."

"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."

"It does not have key authentication for admin access."

"I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"I would say there's room for improvement in terms of the GUI. Because it is better than some of the other standard firewalls. They have the drag and drop features."

"The technical support response time could be faster."

"Smaller CR15 units don’t have a hard disc or built in IView software. These units could do with that feature."

"Sophos Cyberoam UTM has room for improvement in specific rules-based objects and redesign. The solution also needs to improve in adding rules and policies, including renewing and finding policies."

"Sophos Cyberoam UTM could improve by adding VPN site-to-site capabilities. The correct version does not work with Microsoft Azure Cloud."

"The solution's pricing could be a problem for some small businesses."

"The following could be improved: Web Filtering using wildcards; clarity regarding the firewall rules; granular reporting features."

"It is not a scalable product. This is because if you want to increase the capacity of the solution, then you have to change the device."

More Sophos Cyberoam UTM cons

"The pricing should be reduced because it is expensive."

"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."

"On their low-end appliance, they could have more memory and the largest storage space. The low-end appliance comes with a too-small hard drive, and it could use a little extra room. It only comes with about 4 gigs or 8 gigs of memory, and the hardware space is only 40 gigs, which is really small."

"The product must improve its reporting features."

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

"Whenever there are a large number of endpoint VPN clients, connectivity becomes slow."

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

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

More Untangle NG Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is fair compared to the other competitors."

"The initial setup is super straight forward and as far as the licensing goes for the small product that we have, the pricing was pretty competitive. It wasn't as simple and as cheap as a SonicWall but for the service we would get it was a good price."

"The price for the device and software is high. However, the solution is of good quality and has a lot of features."

"Compared to other firewall products, it's a little cheaper in terms of pricing."

"Licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is on a yearly basis. Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."

"Setup costs and pricing depends on many variables, but it's mostly affordable."

"It's expensive, but compared to the competition it's okay."

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

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"We pay for licensing the solution. It's my understanding that it is not overly expensive. It may be somewhere around $2,000 for a license."

"Sophos Cyberoam UTM has many price schemes."

"The prices of the product can be considered quite steep...My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing cost attached to the product to our ISP."

"The pricing for this product is good. Its pricing is very low, enticing small businesses to purchase it over its competitors."

"Cyberoam's pricing depends on the services you subscribe for. Most firewalls right now, especially UTM, focus on services and stagger all the services. If you want a particular service, you pay for it."

"The product is reasonably priced."

"The licensing is on an annual basis and is very reasonably priced."

"This is a cost-effective solution compared to other vendors, such as Cisco."

More Sophos Cyberoam UTM pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"This is not an expensive product. It is affordable and there are different packages available depending on the features that you need, or the sector that you are in."

"The tool's pricing is moderate, and licensing costs are yearly."

More Untangle NG Firewall pricing and cost advice

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815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

27%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Media Company

11%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

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...

See all answers

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 Sophos Cyberoam UTM?

The solution works perfectly without any users.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Cyberoam UTM?

The solution has a reasonable price.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Sophos Cyberoam UTM?

They could improve the product by enhancing hardware reliability, addressing occasional memory overflow issues, and i...

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

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Netgate pfSense vs Sophos Cyberoam UTM

Compared 26% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Sophos Cyberoam UTM

Compared 14% of the time

OPNsense vs Sophos Cyberoam UTM

Compared 12% of the time

Sophos UTM vs Sophos Cyberoam UTM

Compared 9% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs Sophos Cyberoam UTM

Compared 8% of the time

More Sophos Cyberoam UTM 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 11% of the time

Sophos UTM vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 7% 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

November 2024

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Sophos Cyberoam UTM

October 2024

Download Sophos Cyberoam UTM product report

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall

October 2024

Download Untangle NG Firewall product report

Also Known As

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

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Fortinet

Sophos

Untangle

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

Cyberoam Unified Threat Management hardware appliances offer comprehensive security to organizations, ranging from large enterprises to small and branch offices. Multiple security features integrated over a single, Layer 8 Identity-based platform make security simple, yet highly effective.

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

Gulf Corporation for Technology, Maridive & Oil Services, Fidelity Bank, Petra University, Capital FM Kenya, Safari Park Hotel and Casino, Mayfair Casino, Pacific International Lines, Mozambique Ministry of Education, University of Namibia, Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, University of Hawai, New Delhi Municipal Council

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

Sophos Cyberoam UTM vs. Untangle NG Firewall

October 2024

Free Report: Sophos Cyberoam UTM vs. Untangle NG Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about Sophos Cyberoam UTM vs. Untangle NG Firewall and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

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