Sophos XGS vs Untangle NG Firewall comparison

Sophos and Untangle are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Sophos is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.4, while Untangle is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.0. Sophos holds a 1.8% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Untangle’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Sophos users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Untangle users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Untangle NG Firewall and Sophos XGS are robust network security solutions in the tech buyer category. Sophos XGS seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced threat protection features and sophisticated security capabilities.

Features: Untangle NG Firewall offers intuitive configuration, robust web filtering, and easy management. Sophos XGS provides advanced threat protection with deep learning policies, synchronized security for improved visibility and response, and comprehensive network protection.

Room for Improvement: Untangle NG Firewall could improve its reporting capabilities, modernize its interface, and enhance its mobile support. Sophos XGS would benefit from simplifying its initial setup, providing more detailed logging options, and minimizing the complexity of its advanced features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Untangle NG Firewall is straightforward to deploy and offers responsive customer support, making it suitable for quick, seamless starts. Sophos XGS requires a more complex deployment process but includes extensive documentation and professional support services to facilitate in-depth configuration.

Pricing and ROI: Untangle NG Firewall offers competitive pricing with a strong ROI, featuring transparent setup costs and effective subscription models. Sophos XGS is initially more expensive but is considered worthwhile for its advanced features and long-term protection benefits, justifying the higher initial investment with superior security performance.

To learn more, read our detailed Sophos XGS vs. Untangle NG Firewall Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Sophos XGS vs. Untangle NG Firewall

January 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 831,158 peers since 2012

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

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.3%, up from 17.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos XGS is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Untangle NG Firewall is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

Read full review

Jaffar Ali

Director Technical Services at TechnoBIZ

Has provided stability, security, ease of management, and better reporting options

People use Sophos XGS because the overall channel support is very good, so they don't face issues. Additionally, it is competitive in pricing against Fortinet in some cases, especially when considering high availability, email subscriptions, and gateways Sophos XGS has provided stability,…

Read full review

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

"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 really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."

"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."

"Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."

"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."

"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."

"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."

"Virtual Domains (VDOMs) are a feature that we found valuable."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The solution offers more antimalware and antivirus feeds than others."

"The UI for Sophos is very simple."

"It's easy to use and user-friendly."

"The policies are the greatest feature. They allow us to configure granular control over our network traffic."

"The solution is stable and reliable."

"The solution is scalable."

"It's much faster than the previous firewall, so you can do the work faster."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

More Sophos XGS 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."

"Application Control and filtering features are valuable."

"The most valuable features are IPS, MAPI, NAT, and VPN."

"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."

"They have a command center that makes it easy to log into and see all of your appliances nationwide."

"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 initial setup is very easy."

"The interface is very good."

More Untangle NG Firewall pros

Cons

"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."

"It would be nice if backups could more easily migrate between different models."

"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."

"With FortiGate, the main complaint that I have heard is about the technical support."

"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."

"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."

"The UTM filtering needs improvement."

"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"Sophos' technical support has degraded in the last couple of years. They seem to need to ask a lot of questions, even with simple problems, and take a long time to provide solutions."

"There are some issues with conversion and user roles when upgrading to Cyberoam."

"The solution could improve by using fewer hardware resources compared to other products like Palo Alto, which has better performance."

"It has recently started to suddenly block and crash."

"Their marketing strategy is quite low, and they need to enhance engagement with partners."

"Sophos XGS would benefit from further development in the SD-WAN area."

"The application is a little slow; it takes five to ten seconds to respond to every click when configuring. If we need to do significant configuration, it can take a lot of time. This might be because we have a low-end machine, and it could be faster with a high-end one."

"We'd always like the solution to be a bit less in terms of cost."

More Sophos XGS cons

"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 should improve reporting."

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

"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."

"The management console for partners is a bit tricky (buggy)."

"The hardware can be improved."

"For the web filter, I think they can do better especially on the free model."

More Untangle NG Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is high compared to some of the other solutions."

"Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."

"Setup cost may be not so low, as you expect, because it depends on different factors, but TCO for 5 years may pleasantly surprise you."

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

"The price of FortiGate support is too expensive."

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

"The price, in comparison to other products is very cheap."

"Fortigate's pricing is competitive."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The pricing for Sophos XGS is reasonable."

"The license for Sophos XGS is for three years, paid on a yearly basis. Everything is included with the license; there are no additional fees."

"We must purchase separate web server licenses, as they are not included in the regular device license. I would rate the product an eight out of ten in terms of price. It's relatively affordable."

"I pay close to $10,000 per year, which I find to be expensive compared to the other similar solution or equivalent solutions."

"Sophos XGS is a very expensive solution."

"The cost is comparable to other similar solutions."

"Sophos XGS is competitively priced."

"Sophos XGS is priced lower than some of its competitors, such as Fortinet"

More Sophos XGS pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

"The solution is fairly priced."

"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."

"The pricing model is better than with SonicWall."

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

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

More Untangle NG Firewall pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

14%

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...

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Sophos XGS?

The policies are the greatest feature. They allow us to configure granular control over our network traffic.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos XGS?

The pricing is justified, and the solution is considered budget-friendly compared to other vendors.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Sophos XGS?

Hardware stability needs improvement. I have experienced multiple hardware complaints, particularly during firmware u...

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 23% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% 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

Sophos XG vs Sophos XGS

Compared 30% of the time

OPNsense vs Sophos XGS

Compared 16% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Sophos XGS

Compared 7% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Sophos XGS

Compared 6% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Sophos XGS

Compared 5% of the time

More Sophos XGS Competitors

OPNsense vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 39% 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

January 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Sophos XGS

December 2024

Download Sophos XGS product report

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall

December 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

No data available

Learn More

Fortinet

Sophos

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.

Sophos XGS is a comprehensive network security solution designed to protect organizations from advanced threats. It combines next-generation firewall capabilities with advanced threat protection, web filtering, and application control.

XGS has powerful deep learning technology and can detect and block even the most sophisticated malware and ransomware attacks. It also offers granular control over web access, allowing organizations to enforce policies and prevent access to malicious or inappropriate websites. Additionally, XGS provides application control features, enabling organizations to manage and prioritize network traffic based on specific applications or user groups.

With its intuitive management interface and centralized reporting, XGS offers easy deployment and monitoring of network security.

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

Information Not Available

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 XGS vs. Untangle NG Firewall

January 2025

Free Report: Sophos XGS vs. Untangle NG Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about Sophos XGS vs. Untangle NG Firewall and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Sophos XGS 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.