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Appgate SDP vs OpenVPN Access Server comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Appgate SDP
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA as a Service (16th), ZTNA (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (16th), Microsegmentation Software (7th)
OpenVPN Access Server
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (1st), ZTNA (9th)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
Joseph Koomson - PeerSpot reviewer
Ip Network Security Specialist at MTN Ghana
Zero trust access has strengthened remote connectivity and secures diverse office devices
Appgate SDP support is always available to assist, which is the primary strength. However, there are areas for improvement. When a user is unable to connect, the platform should display detailed information such as the user's IP address, MAC address, and specific reasons for connection failure. Currently, aside from invalid username and password errors, Appgate SDP provides generic errors related to policy, such as a policy admin error. The system should provide deeper diagnostics to explain why a user cannot connect. The dashboard could also be enhanced with additional features and logins to provide better visibility. Sometimes there is no immediate clarity about what is happening. After using Appgate SDP for a long time and experiencing various errors, we have learned where to investigate, but this would be problematic for new users trying to resolve issues. The dashboard could display user connection times, failure reasons, and other relevant information. The user activity logs and accounting features should be improved in particular.
AS
Network operation center engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Secure remote access has protected critical data and now simplifies role-based user management
An area for improvement is the pricing model. The concurrent user licenses get expensive pretty quickly as your organization grows, so more flexible pricing options would be a huge plus. Another area is configurational disconnect. While the admin web UI handles about 90% of what you need, the moment you have to do deep, advanced routing customization, you still have to drop back to the command line interface to make those changes. It would be great to see those deeper configurations completely integrated into the web portal. Lastly, it would be awesome to see native support for newer, lighter protocols through WireGuard built straight into the platform alongside standard OpenVPN for better performance efficiency.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"Overall, the major benefit from Browser Isolation is improved security without compromising employee productivity."
"I recommend iboss for organizations looking for strong cloud-based web security and centralized access control."
"The students were always protected, and the content filtering worked very well, seeming to work better than other products we had tried previously."
"Previously, with AnyConnect, we experienced frequent issues, and in comparison to that solution, we have seen significant improvement and minimum downtime."
"The flexibility of the tool is valuable; it is very robust, has a very robust configuration capability, is pretty well documented, and is also good interface-wise."
"The simplicity of the SDP platform is a standout feature; instead of navigating through intricate details, users can seamlessly connect to the company's network or switch to the internet with minimal effort."
"Appgate SDP has positively impacted my organization, as we are using it to securely access the internet after the cyber attack."
"One of the most important features is stopping lateral movement across our network."
"Appgate SDP is the best solution for micro-segmentation and supplying VPN solutions."
"The interface is really friendly. It's simple to understand."
"It is pretty stable."
"The price point is fantastic since it is free."
"The initial setup phase of OpenVPN Access Server was fine, and it was easy."
"The main benefits that I have seen from using OpenVPN Access Server are that it is simple, easy, and secure."
"OpenVPN is a good option for kick-starting any kind of interoperability between offices."
"The product’s adaptability is valuable."
"The most valuable feature is that I can access my local network remotely and avoid doing all the port forwarding and redirections, and so on."
"This server allows you to connect to a network that does not have any public IP addresses."
"Overall, OpenVPN Access Server has positively impacted our organization by giving us a highly reliable, stable environment for remote work."
 

Cons

"The dashboard management feels complex in our organization, so simplifying the management dashboard would be beneficial."
"The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices; it is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents, and that is where in 2025 we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"I appreciate that iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard, allowing us to quickly investigate incidents and monitor policy violations without switching between multiple tools, improving operational efficiency; however, the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible."
"When a user is unable to connect, the platform should display detailed information such as the user's IP address, MAC address, and specific reasons for connection failure."
"The user interface should be improved as it is not very easy to work with the updates."
"On the cloud, when you make some changes, it may be difficult."
"It would be better to connect to an application portal from any device. Documentation and support could be better."
"If I could change or improve anything about Appgate SDP, it would be to enhance the user experience by improving the UI so that it is more explanatory."
"One thing that kind of sticks out to me is the ability to do a proper non-split tunnel."
"One limitation is that it's harder to provide access to multiple applications in the company with Appgate, but that's probably because of poor management."
"One thing that kind of sticks out to me is the ability to do a proper non-split tunnel. VPN tunnel-wise, it is not really a true unsplit tunnel, but I think that's just because of the way it's designed. A split VPN basically allows your system to talk to other systems without being forced down the tunnel. A VPN running in a non-split tunnel mode forces all the traffic down the tunnel to wherever you're VPNing to. It forces the traffic down so that the traffic is subject to the firewall and rules that you have in your corporate environment and such. It helps to prevent remote malicious folks that may be talking directly to that box from piggybacking into the corporate environment through it. They do it partially, but it would be nice to see more of an enterprise-level solution there."
"There is always room for more security features."
"OpenVPN Access Server could be improved in several areas. The encryption strength is inevitably lower compared with the latest technologies, and when I try to add features like two-factor authentication, the needed plugins and so on often are not really available or do not fit well."
"The main area for OpenVPN Access Server improvement is its pricing model, as the concurrent user license gets expensive quickly as the organization grows, so more flexible pricing options would be a huge plus for AVIARC."
"There are tasks that require logging onto the server to run commands, which is not intuitive through the UI."
"The concurrent user licenses get expensive pretty quickly as your organization grows, so more flexible pricing options would be a huge plus."
"The solution should provide a faster connection, and its security could be improved."
"The connection speed utilizing OpenVPN Access Server is notably slow, with high latency affecting performance."
"One improvement I would like to see in OpenVPN is better adaptability in certain geographical areas."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The pricing is according to the market price. It is not a very cheap solution. They have some very aggressive promotions to sell the product in the market."
"We pay $100 per user per month. One license for the site is around $17."
"It is a pretty expensive tool. It is maybe about $20,000 per year for a hundred users or so."
"OpenVPN Access Server is a cheap corporate solution."
"It is an open-source solution, so we don't pay for anything."
"One of the valuable features of OpenVPN is that it is free for a single user."
"OpenVPN is an open-source solution. If the solution is used for personal use it is free. For non-personal use, the solution can be expensive."
"OpenVPN is a free and open-source solution."
"The Pro Edition has a reasonable price per user."
"Begin with the community version and upgrade to paid one if the need arises."
"OpenVPN Access Server is free and open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
iboss could be improved by making the dashboard more user-friendly, providing more detailed real-time alerts, and imp...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
iboss is primarily used for cloud security, helping to protect users when they access websites and cloud applications...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
The pricing and licensing for iboss were reasonable for the security features. The setup costs were manageable, thoug...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appgate SDP?
Regarding pricing and setup cost, everything is already pre-installed in my organization, so I am not sure about pric...
What needs improvement with Appgate SDP?
Appgate SDP support is always available to assist, which is the primary strength. However, there are areas for improv...
What is your primary use case for Appgate SDP?
Appgate SDP is used for user connectivity both in the office and outside the office for remote connectivity. When out...
How does Fortinet FortiClient compare with Open VPN Access Server?
Fortinet FortiClient is a feature-rich solution that is easy to use and deploy without sacrificing safety and securit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenVPN Access Server?
The pricing and setup costs for OpenVPN Access Server are on the high side since licenses are not user-dependent but ...
What needs improvement with OpenVPN Access Server?
There are definitely areas for improvement. A broader network level access faces challenges, and the clustering confi...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
OpenVPN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.
United States Air Force  FINRA Weight Watchers Rackspace  DataDog SageNet  Verdant Norwegian Cruise Line  VoiceBase  The Third Floor 
Verizon, Amazon, Disney, HP, Microsoft, IBM, Samsung
Find out what your peers are saying about Appgate SDP vs. OpenVPN Access Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
921,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.