Untangle NG Firewall Reviews

This solution has been great for our use case, and we deploy it on-premises.

We find the web filter very valuable. In this part of the world, bandwidth is expensive, and we don't have too much bandwidth. So, the web and application filters are used a lot to block these torrents.

The primary issue we have is the two-week wait time for replacement hardware parts when we need to replace them. The hardware barely crashes, but when it does crash, it is because we do not have stable electricity in this part of the world. Secondly, the storage is minimal, so we have to set the system to delete data after seven days. This may not be ideal because we will have issues if we want to analyze for an extended period, as some of the clients we deployed the solution for use the data that is derived from Untangle NG Firewall for part of their bonus payment. For example, they analyze staff visiting R&D-related sites and how often they spend on them to see whether the individual is progressing. However, due to storage limitations, these clients have problems properly analyzing. Additionally, the package's branding and documentation can be improved as the interface is a lot easier to allow less script because we've been trying to use fewer script certificates and continue to face difficulty.

We have been using the solution for approximately four years.

The solution is stable. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the scalability a six out of ten. We have 13 users utilizing the solution in our organization.

Customer service and support are not very helpful. I rate them a three out of ten.

Negative

The initial setup is straightforward. It can be set up in less than an hour.

We are resellers, and we also do the integrations and monitoring for our users. So, for example, Untangle NG Firewall has a way of connecting remotely. We do the remote management for the Untangle NG Firewall, review their locks, and then send them a lodge if we believe they need to pay attention to certain things.

Depending on the market you are in, the pricing may be expensive. We consider it expensive, so I rate the pricing a five out of ten. However, not every company will go for it because we don't have many big companies here.

We made a comparison with one of our clients that is running Sophos. However, Untangle NG Firewall had better ease of maintenance, configuration and deployment.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. The solution is good, but its storage and documentation can be improved. Nevertheless, I recommend the solution to people considering implementing it.

I am using the solution as a firewall.

The tool provides a very reliable protection for my school.

Application Control and filtering features are valuable. It's valuable to have cloud management. VPN is also a valuable feature.

The product must improve its reporting features.

I have been using the solution for about five years. I have used versions 150 and 500.

I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability an eight out of ten.

The initial setup was very straightforward.

The product’s cost is moderate to high.

The product provides us with good protection. I recommend the solution to others. Overall, I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

We have discussed areas of improvement with the vendor in the past and over time. The good thing is they regularly give us updates and each time one comes, it includes some of the changes that we discussed.

This is a product that improves day by day, with the addition of features that are being demanded in the market. We have applications hosted locally that this has a positive effect on. One example is that they have improved their email security, which is something we have configured in our environment. 

At times, the vendor has given us notifications on zero-day attacks and information about things we need to do.

This firewall has a lot of features and we are using all of them.

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. This is unlike using a device with hardware that is vendor-specific. We had such a problem one time, and it required that we had to purchase more hardware.

They do not offer 100% of the features that we need.

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

I have been working with Untangle NG Firewall for approximately seven years, since 2014.

Nowadays, stability is good. In the past, there were problems with stability but this is something that the vendor has worked on to improve.

We have still had issues but when we looked at the details, we found that it was a problem with our hardware. It wasn't optimized to work in that environment. Once we increase the hardware to match the requirements, it was fine and started working well.

This is a scalable solution. We are using the Complete version, which means that we automatically receive any new feature that comes out. Furthermore, if we want to add more users or devices, it is just a matter of communicating that, and the system automatically adjusts to the capacity that we need.

The local technical support does not understand the product very well. It's very hard to find a technical support person that can fully configure the system. At times, we find it easier to learn it ourselves and improve it internally.

In terms of configuration, it's straightforward. It's not complex, except when a new solution comes out because you really need to have time to learn it.

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.

We use a version for the public sector. There is a version specific to the education sector as well as other industries. Feature-wise, you can choose what you need. For example, if you want only to handle a gateway or maybe an SD-WAN, as a package, then that is an option. If you want to handle web filtering, you'll only handle web filtering. The package that we use is Next Generation Complete. We chose this because we use all of the features, including bandwidth control, in terms of load balancing.

Untangle NG Firewall is something that I recommend, although we have only tried the software version. We have not tried the hardware appliance. That said, we have used the software version for approximately seven years and it has worked well. It is flexible, and if you want to choose to upgrade automatically then it will do the updates by itself, as long as it's connected.

This is a good product but in the security field, you can't simply just say that everything is fine. There is always room for improvement.  Although they do not offer 100% of the features that we need, we are not interested in changing to another solution at the moment.

I am somewhat hesitant to discuss features that this product needs because we have not learned the entire solution. We do not understand all that it has to offer and as such, we might suggest that it needs a feature that is already there.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Untangle is to fully understand their needs. Then, compare their requirements against what the solution is offering. It works well for us but our needs may not be the same as someone else. Companies and business entities are always different.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for small offices with 12 users. 

Most of our clients are small businesses with approximately four to fifteen users. We have one customer with approximately 20 users.

We do a lot of Voice over IP, which is one of the features that I like about it. The firewall works really well with Voice over IP.

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

The reporting is wonderful. You can run reports and they are very helpful.

The alerting is great. It will send you alerts when there is any nonsense going on. For example, you will get alerts on DDoS types of attacks.

It has wonderful content filtering built into it. They also have a cap portal feature that is pretty good. It has several useful interesting features included.

The VPNs are great too, they are wonderful.

We set up RDP on our clients, but it's Atlanta LAN, the LAN RDP. If you get on the VPN, then the allow group, you can actually RDP, you make the VPN connection to it. You can also then do a site-to-site VPN and they make it very simple. Overall, the VPN features are wonderful.

The zero deployments are wonderful with this. With Zero deployment, you don't have to touch the firewall. When the firewall arrives on-site, you have a smart hands technician to unplug the old one and you plug in the new one. It automatically downloads the configuration offline. No technician will ever have to physically touch that firewall. It can all be done through the command center once the firewall connects to it. Everything is automatically added once you purchase it and it will download the proper configuration for that site.

They don't have any feature that allows you to drop the session. If you log in and you see your ARP table with many connections and you want to drop one for some reason or another, such as troubleshooting, or It's an employee that shouldn't be online and you want to remove them, you don't have the ability to click on a session and terminate it.

I have been using Untangle NG Firewall for two years.

We use the most up-to-date version. 

All of our firewalls are always up-to-date through the command center. We always update them as soon are they are released.

Untangle NG Firewall works great. I have no issues with the stability and I have yet to replace a box.

It's fully scalable. It's great for large corporations and it's great for small businesses.

They even make a version of their Untangled box for residential use.

Overall, scaling is pretty easy.

The technical support is wonderful. They are all US-based out of Colorado.

When you need help, you are not talking to a level-one technician; you are speaking with an engineer.

They don't have to remote into your computer, they can enable the back end. They have the ability to enable a remote session to where they can remote inject to the firewall and see what is going on and try to help you.

We used SonicWall. The reason why we stopped using SonicWall is that it is expensive to get a single pane of glass with SonicWall to have the heads-up on issues.

I like the licensing model and the pricing model that Untangle has compared to SonicWall.

I like the hardware as a service feature that Untangle has. SonicWall didn't have it at the time that I was using it but they may have it now.

I like the general use of the appliances. It is a little easier to navigate through, in my opinion, than it is with SonicWall.

The site-to-site VPN is just as easy to set up between SonicWall and Untangle. They both make it easy to do site-to-site VPN.

They both make it easy to set up regular VPNs.

The difference between Untangle and SonicWall is, SonicWall has an SSL VPN, where you go to a website versus Untangle that has an application installed on the PC for VPN. If you have a lot that you need to deploy, you have to touch the client's machines and set it up for them, versus just having a website to go to, to sign in. That's one of the major differences between the two.

You can have templates that simplify the process.

They will back up the firmware for you to configure. Your firewall is backed up all of the time on the command center. If you make a change and it's bad, you can push the bad config down, and put the old one back into it. Or before you make a change, you can back up the config into the cloud and the controller, then you can make the change.

With Zero deployment, so you can have a general template that you push onto all of the devices. If you need to dropship one to somebody somewhere that's not local, just get a smart hands tech. They can plug it in and once it hits the internet, it automatically downloads its config off of the server.

We maintain this solution ourselves, but technical support will help if we need help with anything.

One person can maintain a whole fleet. You can have thousands of them out there and one person could easily maintain them because it's all in one portal, and all of the alerts get generated.

If there is an issue then you get an email with an alert or a text message letting you know that there is something wrong. It makes it easy to deal with.

The pricing model is better than with SonicWall.

I am not able to discuss the pricing specifically because pricing with every partner is different.

The reason we chose this solution is because of their support. It is hands down the best support that I have had with a firewall. I don't have to open a case first. With SonicWall, you have to call a level one, they open a case, and they transfer you to an engineer.

With Untangle, you can call or email support, or the community. They have wonderful community support for everything. They have a log of knowledge-based articles.

I would rate the support a ten out of ten.

It doesn't matter what company you go with for our firewall. They're all going to have their caveats that somebody isn't going to like.

There are features that you might like on one that you may not like on the other, but I look at the overall simplicity of it, the overall usability and ease of use, and also that it's easy to train a technician on how to set them up. They are not that difficult.

I would rate Untangle NG Firewall a ten out of ten.

We use the solution as a firewall.

The interface is very good. 

We use the web sensor, the virus blocker, the spam blocker, bandwidth control, application control, and firewall options. We're quite happy with all of it.

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

In the future, Untangle should offer a web server feature. That's the only application Sophos gave us which Untangle doesn't have.

There have been no issues with stability. I've been quite surprised.

We don't have many users, so I'm unsure about the product's scalability potential. 

We've never had to reach out to technical support, as we have yet to face any issues using the solution.

We've used multiple solutions. We were previously using Sophos, but we switched because of its high price tag.

The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment took about 45 minutes. You only need about one person for maintenance.

I handled the implementation myself.

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.

Before choosing this solution we tried both Sophos and WatchGuard.

It's very easy to use the product. In comparison, Sophos has a bigger learning curve.

I would rate the solution ten out of ten.

We are using a lot of applications which are running on Untangle. We use web filtering, application control, firewall, and VPN services.

Web filtering is very reliable. I can say all the features are very useful. We haven't been using much ad blockers or phish blockers. We've bee using web filtering, application control, policy manager, IP filtering, and VPN. They have been very useful.

The hardware can be improved. Now, we're using hardware appliances. In terms of processing power, I think it can actually be improved further, because, in terms of the number of requests, especially if you are using web filtering, the number of requests that should be coming onto the appliance is quite large and it needs a bit more processing power.

If the solution included a unified device tracker and management, that would be great. So that we could actually include other endpoints, like our laptops, or mobile devices. We need something to help in terms of mobile device management. I think it's one critical feature which is required by another interface because people are now bringing their own devices to the workplace to get services. I think MDM is quite critical to be included in that.

Generally, in terms of the administration, it's a team of about five users who administer the appliance. In terms of using the functionality or the features, there are about 800 users.  All are accessing the appliance through various means, through the web filtering, and through the access VPN.

We are planning to actually activate a number of additional features and see if we are going to be able to fully utilize additional features from one failover and one balancer so that we can actually then put them in a cluster and be able to fully utilize all our internet service provider links.

In terms of technical support, the service is excellent. Considering that there is a command center where you can actually just draw a ticket and they get in through the command and will be able to assist you even on the appliances, remotely, and be able to resolve the issues is great. I would say the only major issue is only the time difference between us in Zimbabwe and America because we are on different time zones. Generally, the support is very good.

Previously, we had been using various other solutions from Cisco. I've seen that Untangle is quite easy to administer and quite straightforward in terms of how to configure the various features which are found there. The main reason was to try to get a simplified solution that is resilient and able to scale up, and have all the solutions on one portal. 

In this instance, using one appliance, which can actually give you all of these applications, is a plus for enterprise organizations like us. We are required to have just one appliance to be able to address various issues, like web filtering, spam blockers, application control, load balancer. I think it's easier rather than having various vendors with various technologies. In terms of reporting, you would need to get to all those appliances to get different reports of what is happening.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's very simple. You just plugin and then you use the web interface and it's quite straightforward for a tech guy. In terms of deployment, because we are deploying two firewalls, it only takes about two days to do the configuration.

In terms of distribution, maybe it's because we're in Zimbabwe, it's a bit of a challenge. It's a hassle. It's not very visible here in Zimbabwe and Africa. It's something which we got over the internet. There is only one distributor, locally, but now, we are dealing directly with Untangle.

This is a very good product. In terms of sizing, you really need to understand your requirements at the outset and be able to get the correct appliance. Especially in terms of the number of functionalities. You should be looking into that in particular so that you get the correct appliance and be able to utilize it.

I would rate this solution a 9.5 out of 10. Having various solutions in one appliance, one portal, that's easy to implement, with excellent customer service makes for a sound solution. And it's not harsh on the pocket, in terms of the budgets, in terms of the license renewals etc. It's quite affordable. It's quite reasonable. It makes sense. I would say it's a very good product when you are comparing all those metrics.

It performs very well, because you can deploy it on any hardware. You don't need to use an appliance from the company. We can use any server the company currently has, saving them money, or we can get an appliance from Untangle and deploy it.

None of my clients has had a ransom or breach using Untangle, whereas my Cyberoam and Sophos clients have been breached. 

It is the easiest product to use. Features include:

• Phishing
• Spam filtering
• Web filtering
• Application filtering
• Web cache
• SSL filtering.

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

It is very stable. The last three versions have been stable.

It is very scalable. With my Untangle box, I can easily stick in 4G of RAM and I add 500 users.

The technical support is very good. With all the licenses, they give you free 24-hour support. If the system gives an issue, you just click on the support button, type in your error, and click submit. Then, in the cloud, they log on and fix the error for you immediately.

My clients wanted to switch because they had been breached and/or their VPN did not work like it should.

It is the most cost-effective to use.

On our shortlist was Untangle, Fortinet, and Kerio Control.

• WatchGuard is useless.
• Cyberoam can't get their VPN to work, so it crashes all the time.
• Salesforce is amazing, but it costs you an arm and a leg. Then, you have to get a technician and spend a fortune to train someone just to read the reports.
• Check Point is great, but only if you're a bank.

Don't listen to media people who promote products because they get kickbacks or are paid by companies to promote products.

Most important criteria for selecting a vendor: price to performance.

I am the owner of our company and we are resellers and users of this solution. 

It has made day to day management simple. you set it up and forget about it. The occasional email alerts and reporting remind you that untangle does exists in the organisation and is happily secretly doing it's job.

I think this is a great product, it's easy to set up if you need to do group policies on it and it's easy to integrate with active directory and a simple interface. From a small business perspective, it's a very good product because you don't really have to be that technical in order to use it. It works 100% of the time and never crashes or fails. 

At this stage, I think the SSL decryption option can be streamlined.

I think decryption transparency could be improved because you basically click a button and then you set up one rule-set and that's about it. I've noticed there's a problem on some sites where it doesn't do the proper decryption. I actually had to go through the application control module, and logs to see what was happening, and why some sites could not function, before I could decipher that it was the SSL decryption that was blocking the sites. I would like to see more hands-on configuration in that respect.

Update:- 10/26/2020

Untangle now supports TLS v1.3. So far testing has yielded positive results and I have not really had to bypass most of the sites we browse to, after resetting the policies to default.

I've been using this solution for about one year two months. 

It's been a pretty stable solution. It hasn't crashed much, only when I've really put it through its paces. From an end-user perspective, I wouldn't have known that anything was wrong - it was only when I did something bad and was blocked that I got a pop-up window saying I'd been blocked by the firewall. From a user perspective, you don't even see anything. I never had any performance degradation, no lagging, no internet browsing, speech slow downs, nothing like that.

I would guess the solution is scalable. We haven't yet got to that stage with it so it hasn't been tested. For now, my whole family of 10 people have been using it in our home environment, but I have one other client that's interested in installing it and he has around 15 office users and about 25 remote users. We'll know after I've put it through its paces whether it's capable or not.

I initially had difficulty getting device license to appear in command center and had to log a support call. The issue was literally sorted the same day with no hassle. I have not had any other issues since.

I'm aware of some of the other solutions and I think the only other firewall that comes closest to it is Sophos, which is very easy to use and to set up. If you then compare it to things like SonicWall, a solution that requires a high degree of technical know-how, it makes for a more difficult product.

The initial setup took me roughly an hour because basically what happened is once you set up all the conflicts, it still had to connect to the command interface on the internet and only then did it actually work 100%. So if it doesn't activate via the command centre, it doesn't go through during setup. It took me a while to realise that and the whole thing took about an hour and a half and everything was sorted out. It only takes one person to deploy.

My deployment was in-house. I never needed to contact their support team.

The reporting is the best I've ever seen so far and you do really get to understand your environment in a short time, and begin to see the cracks that were hidden in plain sight. This has helped me in making new strategic choices and what I've spent so far has really been worth it.

If you an SMB or NGO, then the setup and price model is relatively cheap and you can either go for the 1year or 3year subscription model, provided you chose the complete package. Individual modules licensing is ok if you only using few options like Firewall, Web Filtering or Intrusion prevention, but costs can quickly scale up.

I am still actively supporting an configuring SonicWALL firewalls for my clients, and have evaluated Sophos, Seqrite, Endian, Fortinet, Kerio Control and the open-source PfSense.

If you're a small SMB, I would say go for Untangle because it's less hassle, less overheads to set up or maintain. You set it up and leave it in the background and forget about it. But if you're an enterprise company, I think you might end up having issues with the performance because most of it is sold as a package under software virtualization. I haven't tested the big hardware devices as yet because I don't really need to buy the device. It's only when a client buys it that I'll be able to set it up. But from a virtual perspective, you might end up having something that's over utilized for your environment if you're a big organisation.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10 simply because I haven't tested all aspects of it as yet. What I've tested so far I like.