Untangle NG Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall comparison

Untangle and Zscaler are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Untangle is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.0, while Zscaler is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.3. Untangle holds a 1.1% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Zscaler’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Untangle users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

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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: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

July 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 July 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.2%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Untangle NG Firewall is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Cloud Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

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MatthewSmith3

Service Delivery Manager at CasCom

Thorough with all-in-one security functions and good affordability

The all-in-one gateway security functions and the ability to install it on generic equipment stand out. The centralized management console is great. I can template my installations and configurations. My ability to monetize it as a gateway security appliance to offer enhanced service offerings allows me to increase our price point. I provide it as a managed device to many of our clients. I take on the initial costs and charge them a monthly fee. They have threat detection.

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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

"The best feature of Fortinet FortiGate is value for money. It is very easy to deploy and scale. It saves us costs and increases bandwidth throughput."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."

"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."

"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."

"I haven't configured or experienced any stability issues."

"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."

"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are that it does the job effectively and protects our environment."

"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"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."

"Application Control and filtering features are valuable."

"The product is easy to implement."

"The all-in-one gateway security functions and the ability to install it on generic equipment stand out."

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

"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."

"The initial setup is very easy."

More Untangle NG Firewall pros

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

"Zscaler is still a very good product."

"The solution is scalable."

"The visibility and log availability offered are highly valued for troubleshooting purposes, and this is a key factor driving customer interest in the firewall module."

"Once you have Zscaler running you have access to configure it however you want."

"It is a stable solution."

"Includes advanced tech protection."

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

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pros

Cons

"Improvements for Fortinet FortiGate could be made by making it easier to implement on networks and simpler to add users and accounts that utilize this solution. That's basically the only challenge that I see."

"In an incident, after a restart, Fortinet FortiGate did not connect to FortiGuard servers. Due to that reason, on the customer end, all websites got blocked. I don't know why this happened. The firewall of a bank in Sri Lanka rebooted yesterday, and after that, FortiGuard servers did not connect properly, blocking all customer environment websites."

"We faced difficulties with the configuration because there are many features we could optimize using Fortinet FortiGate, but our reseller didn't have a good understanding of it. So, we just use it on a basic level, not with the best practice for using FortiGate."

"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."

"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."

"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."

"The platform's compatibility with Wi-Fi equipment needs improvement."

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

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

"We have a minor issue when assigning IP addresses in the ARP tables. You should be able to go into the ARP tables, look at the IP address and say, "Nope, they need to be on this side on this IP address." The ability to set a DHP reservation from the ARP tables would be great. It's no big deal, but it would be nice to have."

"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 storage is minimal, so we have to set the system to delete data after seven days."

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

"The web content filtering needs improvement."

"The product should improve reporting."

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

More Untangle NG Firewall cons

"There are several areas for improvement. Firstly, the GUI is outdated, with noticeable lags and delays, especially when generating reports for past transactions."

"The product could improve its integration with some legacy systems."

"We are having some issues with internet access being denied when organizational ID-based policies change. For example, a lower level employee ends up getting the same level of access as that of a higher level employee."

"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."

"They do not provide a few components that are fundamental to differentiate the products"

"There are some areas it could improve when it comes to blocking, we have to block some things manually. For example, if we block a top-level domain we have seen that the new IPs come through, the IPs are not blocked. There should be some more granular way of doing it. My only request is if you're blocking something at a top level, the sub-level sub-domains and all those other IPs should be blocked too automatically."

"Instead of the standard license, they should certainly provide customers with the visibility to access and view the logs."

"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."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."

"It's very competitive."

"For medium and enterprise organizations, FortiGate is more affordable."

"The pricing of the solution is very competitive."

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

"Cost-wise, there is not much difference from Sophos, but feature-wise, we get more features."

"The pricing is flexible."

"On a scale of one being cheap and ten being expensive, I rate the tool's price as an eight."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"It is the most cost-effective to use."

"The pricing model is better than with SonicWall."

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

"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 setup cost is about $2000 to $3000 per year."

"Untangle is open-source software. So, you can get it for free. That has been a benefit, especially for the residential users because it is free. The license costs start at $25 a month for some additional features, including higher tiers of security intrusion prevention. The free version comes with intrusion detection, and then the license version has intrusion prevention. It also has some additional things for active directory connectors, etc. It starts at $25 a month to cover 12 devices. Then it goes up from $25 to $50 a month for 12 to 25 devices. That's where it really doesn't scale out per site. If you have a site that has more than 50 devices on it, then Untangle quickly becomes cost prohibitive in comparison to several other competitors."

"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."

More Untangle NG Firewall pricing and cost advice

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

"There are different subscription models available."

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

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

"The product is a bit expensive compared to the solutions offered by its competitors, like Palo Alto. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the license in charges associated with the product."

"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."

"It is expensive for small businesses."

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

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

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?

The setup cost is about $2000 to $3000 per year.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Untangle NG Firewall?

The user interface, training, and general product innovation need improvement. Enhancements could also be made to the...

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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?

Zscaler Cloud Firewall is quite expensive compared to competitors. However, it offered moderate value for money.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox 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 40% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 14% of the time

Sophos UTM vs Untangle NG Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

Sophos XG 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 14% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

OPNsense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

July 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall

June 2025

Download Untangle NG Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Cloud Firewall

June 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

July 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: July 2025.

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