Untangle NG Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall comparison

Untangle and Zscaler are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Untangle is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.0, while Zscaler is ranked #23 with an average rating of 8.5. Untangle holds a 1.2% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Zscaler’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Untangle users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Untangle NG Firewall and Zscaler Cloud Firewall are two competing products in the network security space. Zscaler Cloud Firewall shows superior features and support, while Untangle NG Firewall has more appealing pricing.

Features: Users of Untangle NG Firewall value its intuitive setup, comprehensive reporting capabilities, and competitive pricing. Zscaler Cloud Firewall is favored for its advanced threat detection, scalable cloud architecture, and superior customer support.

Room for Improvement: Untangle NG Firewall users mention the need for a more modern design, better automation options, and improved user interface. Zscaler Cloud Firewall users suggest improvements in offline support, a reduction in complexity during configuration, and enhanced integration capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Untangle NG Firewall is praised for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Zscaler Cloud Firewall has feedback highlighting a steeper learning curve and occasionally slower support response, but offers broader cloud-native benefits.

Pricing and ROI: Users find Untangle NG Firewall's pricing competitive with satisfactory ROI. Zscaler Cloud Firewall, though more costly, delivers excellent ROI through its extensive feature set.

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

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

January 2025

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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 February 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.7%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Untangle NG Firewall is 1.2%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Cloud Firewall is 0.3%, down from 0.3% 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

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.

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Bhaskar Rao

Network manager admin at Yamaha

Though it helps deal with web traffic or any malicious traffic, it needs to work on its DC performance issues

The product's initial setup phase is moderate in level, so it is neither very complex nor very easy. For the deployment, my company first needs to gather all the requirements of the users and the domain names and consider how many users there are in the company. In the implementation and planning part, my company needs to consider what kind of policies we will create while ensuring that the policies are created based on the requirements of the users. There is a need to segregate the users' requirements since there are separate departments in the company, like the HR department, sales department, IT department, and manufacturing department, so that our company can create policies depending on their requirements. On-site, if you want a GRE tunnel, our company can handle GRE tunnel traffic routing and Zscaler Cloud Firewall, after which Zscaler will take action based on the policies created by our organization. For the deployments and maintenance, a team of five members consisting of two managers and three engineers is required.

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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

"Its stability is the most valuable."

"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls. We can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."

"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."

"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."

"The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."

"The VPN is the most valuable feature."

"The solution is scalable."

"Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Web Filter is effective, Web Cache offers bandwidth savings, and the VPN setup is easy."

"It is very easy to deploy and monitor. "

"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."

"Application Control and filtering features are valuable."

"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."

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

"Easy to set up and easy to integrate."

More Untangle NG Firewall pros

"Zscaler is still a very good product."

"Zscaler provides effective protection against various cyber threats ensuring a safe environment"

"Most of the features that Zscaler has to offer, we will deploy."

"If malicious traffic attacks our on-premises servers, then it gets blocked by Zscaler Cloud Firewall."

"It provides in-depth visibility into your network, ensuring that traffic flowing into your organization, be it from offices or individual users, is effectively filtered and secured through multiple layers of protection."

"It is a stable solution."

"The solution offers good sandboxing."

"The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pros

Cons

"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."

"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."

"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good. I hope that their technical support will be better in the future."

"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."

"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."

"The user interface could be improved."

"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

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

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

"Web-filtering policies could be improved."

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

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

"The product needs to have a better support group for its online support, specifically for its help desk."

More Untangle NG Firewall cons

"The issue right now is probably that Zscaler is not providing web browser isolation. Another solution, Menlo, offers this. For one customer, we had to send traffic to Menlo to do the isolation for us. It was requested by the customer so that they could integrate any iframe. Zscaler needs to add this type of feature in their next release."

"Data Leak Prevention is only for web filtering and there is no protection for email."

"When it comes to customer support, there is room for improvement in Zscaler's service."

"I don't have the visibility of a control dashboard or a network management system."

"Zscaler Cloud Firewall should have a better understanding of all dynamic cloud applications."

"It would be nice to have some sort of a form factor, a physical form factor perhaps, or virtual machine that you could install on devices or on a cloud, and have some cloud computing."

"It would be better if they improved their policy, package visibility, and flexibility while we're creating rules for inspection. It could also be cheaper or more things could be included in the basic package. In the next release, I would like better coverage in the Asia Pacific region and better quality of service."

"Apart from the issues associated with the product in areas like the DC performance issues and DC failover, Zscaler Cloud Firewall's IP should not have a proxy IP."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They need to be competitive with other solutions."

"The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."

"We have the full license that included all of the features and support."

"The pricing is very reasonable."

"For the price, I'd rate it a ten because it's very cost-effective."

"It is expensive. You need to pay for the subscription every year, which is very expensive. The subscription includes technical support and hardware exchange in case of failure."

"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"

"The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

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

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

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

"The solution is fairly priced."

More Untangle NG Firewall pricing and cost advice

"There are licensing costs, and I would not say that it's a cheap vendor."

"Zscaler is priced too high compared to the cost of Fortinet."

"It is expensive for small businesses."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis. It is somewhere around 30 or 40 pounds per user for our organization."

"It comes at a significantly reduced cost while ensuring control and effectiveness."

"There are different subscription models available."

"It is not the most budget-friendly solution, but it's important to consider its overall value."

"There is an annual license required for the use of the Zscaler Cloud Firewall."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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

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

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

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

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

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

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What do you like most about 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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Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?

Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...

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What do you like most about Zscaler Cloud Firewall?

The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Cloud Firewall?

The product is a bit expensive compared to the solutions offered by its competitors, like Palo Alto. There is a need ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 23% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 14% 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

OPNsense vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 40% 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 5% of the time

More Untangle NG Firewall Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 21% of the time

OPNsense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Multicloud Defense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

February 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall

January 2025

Download Untangle NG Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Cloud Firewall

January 2025

Download Zscaler Cloud Firewall product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

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.

Fortinet

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.”

Untangle

Zscaler enables the world’s leading organizations to securely transform their networks and applications for a mobile and cloud first world. Its flagship services, Zscaler Internet Access and Zscaler Private Access, create fast, secure connections between users and applications, regardless of device, location, or network. Zscaler services are 100% cloud-delivered and offer the simplicity, enhanced security, and improved user experience that traditional appliances or hybrid solutions are unable to match. Used in more than 185 countries, Zscaler operates the world’s largest cloud security platform, protecting thousands of enterprises and government agencies from cyberattacks and data loss.

Check more details: https://www.zscaler.com/produc...

Zscaler

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,

Zenith Live, Azure, Carlsberg Group

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

January 2025

Free Report: Untangle NG Firewall vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

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

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