Untangle NG Firewall vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

Untangle and WatchGuard are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Untangle is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.0, while WatchGuard is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.0. Additionally, 94% of Untangle users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of WatchGuard users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Untangle NG Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox are advanced firewall solutions in the network security category. WatchGuard Firebox has the upper hand due to its extensive features and perceived value despite being more complex to deploy.

Features: Untangle NG Firewall offers strong content filtering, bandwidth control, and a user-friendly interface. WatchGuard Firebox provides comprehensive security services, advanced reporting capabilities, and more extensive features.

Room For Improvement: Untangle NG Firewall could enhance its reporting tools, improve VPN performance, and add more customization options. WatchGuard Firebox needs better documentation, a simpler installation process, and more intuitive management tools.

Ease Of Deployment and Customer Service: Untangle NG Firewall stands out for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. WatchGuard Firebox is more complex to deploy, but it also receives high marks for customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Untangle NG Firewall is seen as a cost-effective solution providing good ROI, while WatchGuard Firebox, though perceived as more expensive, justifies its cost with robust features and strong ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Untangle NG Firewall vs. WatchGuard Firebox Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall vs. WatchGuard Firebox

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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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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CarlosArdila

Project Manager, Information Technology at Telelago

May 24, 2024

Serves as the main firewall for customers' premises and data centers

The initial setup is straightforward. You can deploy it on-premises or using the cloud. If you configure the device to connect to the cloud, you can deploy the Firebox based on templates. You can add a template for a specific client and deploy it for a particular use case. For example, if you're setting it up for a restaurant or a cafe, you can have templates tailored for those businesses. This significantly reduces deployment time, especially if you have several customers of the same type of business. One person is enough for the solution's deployment, but it will run in less than an hour. A network security engineer meets with clients to gather configuration requirements. He prepares a configuration template before the implementation. When he arrives at the site, he turns on the device, applies the template, tests everything, and then migrates the settings from the existing router or firewall to the Firebox.

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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 customization potential is quite impressive."

"The GUI is good."

"The reporting and monitoring are very good."

"The payment function for applications is good."

"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."

"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."

"The solution is stable."

"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

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

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

"The interface is very good."

"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."

"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."

"We find the web filter very valuable."

"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."

"NG Firewalls allow us to permit or deny applications we don't want to run. We also use content filtering, SSL inspection, and all the other things we run on the firewall to keep our clients protected and ensure they're not going where they shouldn't. It's a great firewall that works as intended."

More Untangle NG Firewall pros

"The most valuable are the VPN and proxy features."

"The policy monitoring and allowing different traffic flows are the most useful features for us; regulating which traffic comes in and out."

"The Dimension control, the one-spot reporting and control, has been nice. It's been easy to go in and make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing and that only the right stuff is getting in."

"The GUI is easy and intuitive."

"The solution simplifies my business. Normally, for administration, we are using NetApp System Manager on Window since it's easy to create new policies. In a short amount of time, you can create new policies based on new requirements. For example, in the last few months, many requirements changed due to the coronavirus, adding the use of new services, like Office 365, and eLearning tools, like Zoom."

"The features that I have found most valuable are the FireWall features. The management side of WatchGuard is quite easy because it supports two ways to manage it - by the web and the other one they call WatchGuard systems manager. I used to be familiar with WSM only, but they improved their GUI in the web browser and now it is much easier to do it within the web browser."

"The main reason we went with it was the security protocols. They were more robust on this device."

"Their centralized console simplifies management for organizations with multiple Fireboxes."

More WatchGuard Firebox pros

Cons

"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."

"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."

"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."

"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."

"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."

"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."

"Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting."

"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"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 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."

"The web content filtering needs improvement."

"The product needs to improve its mobile application."

"The ability to setup a DDNS for each WAN independently would be a very handy feature."

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

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

More Untangle NG Firewall cons

"The drawbacks are just sometimes not having the technical information that we need in order to easily make connections with all of our Internet-based clients."

"I would like to see more training become available for us."

"The reporting is a little on the weak side. I would like to see a better reporting set and easier drill-down options."

"The only downside is that it is missing an API, that you can use to easily collect information from it."

"The product can improve in terms of layout to provide easier access and viewing to users, especially for the reports."

"There's always room for improvement, especially if the threats are getting more sophisticated and the IT department cannot sufficiently meet this kind of sophistication with their own knowledge and experience. Knowing that this solution can get up to the level of addressing a lot of these threats is something that everybody wishes for. If we look at the dark web and the lawful web, they are two opposites, and if these two good and bad collide in the world of the internet, you want the best possible product—especially if you cannot get to that point of knowledge. I am just an individual and end user, with limited knowledge of usage. That's why I say there's always room for improvement, from their side and also from mine, because by knowing exactly what they can achieve and the knowledge that they can get on an everyday basis, and the portion that is understandable to me, it's an improvement for them as well."

"Setup of this solution is complex, it's not plug and play."

"This is a great product and offers great protection but they don't hear the customers' needs. They don't make improvements as per the customers' requests."

More WatchGuard Firebox cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has been two years. I don't remember the actual price, but it was affordable. We buy the boxes and then use the license for three years."

"The pricing is very reasonable."

"The price of FortiGate is average and I would say that based on the top five products available on the market, it is in the affordable range."

"Fortinet bundles FortiGate with other products and because of this, the price is a little expensive to some SMB enterprises."

"Its price is reasonable. They have a clear pricing policy. It is not complicated by the number of VPN users at a time. We know what the price is. The yearly subscription for the security license is rather high, but it is all included for whatever number of users you have and the kind of functions you need."

"We have the full version of Fortinet FortiGate and we are on a three-year contract with a commitment of five years."

"In the Asian economy in which we operate, FortiGate is expensive."

"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."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"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 the most cost-effective to use."

"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."

"The pricing model is better than with SonicWall."

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

"The solution is fairly priced."

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

More Untangle NG Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The price is so small that I don't pay attention to it anymore. I think we pay a few thousand dollars for two to three years, so about $100 per month. That's for all of our users. There is an additional cost if we want to go with a deeper licensing model, but we just pay for antivirus, IPS, and main product support."

"WatchGuard Firebox is a cheap solution."

"The subscription that was purchased is for three years, but it is usually for one year at a time."

"The licensing can be a one-time purchase unless you need the extra services for example twenty-four seven support."

"Very competitive pricing regarding throughput compared to other alternatives."

"It's an affordable tool"

"The pricing of WatchGuard is probably a little higher than the SonicWall, but it makes up for it in dependability. It's worth it to me, especially since it's not much higher. For just a little bit higher price you get the dependability of the firewall with the WatchGuard brand."

"Cheap."

More WatchGuard Firebox pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Comms Service Provider

Retailer

Hospitality 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 ...

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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...

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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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What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.

See all answers

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

Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate 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

Check Point NGFW vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 1% of the time

More Untangle NG Firewall Competitors

Netgate pfSense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 9% of the time

Sophos XG vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 7% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 6% of the time

OPNsense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 6% of the time

Sophos UTM vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

More WatchGuard Firebox Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

November 2024

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall

October 2024

Download Untangle NG Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard Firebox

October 2024

Download WatchGuard Firebox product report

Also Known As

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

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Fortinet

Untangle

WatchGuard

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.

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.”

WatchGuard Firebox is a versatile security solution primarily used for security purposes such as firewalling, VPN, and protecting networks from outside and inside threats. It is also used for routing, multi-factor authentication, vulnerability management, and segregating industrial networks from corporate networks.

The product is praised for scalability, stability, user-friendliness, reasonable pricing, and good technical support. Some users use it for web filtering and hosting web pages, while others – for remote access connections and mobile VPNs. Firebox offers great protection, good performance, and flexibility without licensing limitations.

WatchGuard Firebox Features

WatchGuard Firebox has many valuable key features, including:

Policy management
Strong security
High performance
Network configuration for multiple clients
Built-in SD-WAN
Application control
Threat detection and response
Network discovery
Intuitive interface

WatchGuard Firebox Benefits

Some of the benefits of using WatchGuard Firebox include:

IT administrators can create and implement policies for content filtering, VPNs, and network inspections.
The solution is easy to set up, manage, and maintain.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by WatchGuard Firebox users.

PeerSpot user Kelly C., IT Manager at a hospitality company, mentions, “One of the most valuable features is the Gateway AntiVirus. We scan all traffic as it's coming through. We also use spamBlocker to scrub spam. We use content filtering, which is critical in any corporate environment to make sure that people don't surf things they're not supposed to. WatchGuard has a very easy VPN and branch office VPN setup, so we use those pretty extensively too.It's very easy to use. In terms of performance, WatchGuard has always worked well for us. Regarding the reporting, I was in the Dimension server earlier today. It's very powerful. I like it. And the management features are easy to use. I like the fact that I can open up the System Manager client or I can just do it through the web if I'm making a quick change.”

A Director of Information Technology at a retailer says, “Among the most valuable features is the ease of use — love the interface — of both the web interface and of the WatchGuard System Manager. It's a stable platform. The devices are pretty rock-solid.”

Jason M., IT Director at a healthcare company, explains, “The policy monitoring and allowing different traffic flows are the most useful features for us; regulating which traffic comes in and out. In terms of the throughput and performance, we don't have a problem or any bottleneck there. We downgraded the size of our appliance because we're a small facility, and what we had before was actually too big. The one we are now going with seems to be doing a great job.” He also adds, “The management feature is pretty nice.”

Steve R., President and Owner at Peak Communication Systems, Inc., comments, "It saves us time in the respect that we now have the template built for it so we can get in and get it done. We've had much less problems supporting Voice over IP technologies from different companies. Because our client base has grown over the years, we're probably saving 20 to 30 man-hours a month now that we've got this on a good stable level."

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

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,

Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall vs. WatchGuard Firebox

October 2024

Free Report: Untangle NG Firewall vs. WatchGuard Firebox

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