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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
6.9
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (6th)
Appgate SDP
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA as a Service (15th), ZTNA (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (17th), Microsegmentation Software (6th)
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

"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"iboss is definitely very good in terms of service."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"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."
"The interface is really friendly. It's simple to understand."
"It is pretty stable."
"It is a scalable solution...The support answers your questions very fast."
"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."
"One of the most important features is stopping lateral movement across our network."
"For those looking into OpenVPN Access Server, I recommend it for its strong security, user-friendly access management, and operational scale."
"We were surprised how straightforward it was to integrate with AWS."
"It is much easier to scale and troubleshoot compared to regular Windows-based VPN solutions or PPTP daemon."
"I would recommend this solution to other people."
"Simple to install and maintain, easy to find documentation or help in Google."
"OpenVPN is a good option for kick-starting any kind of interoperability between offices."
"The best features OpenVPN Access Server offers is whitelisting members in my company who have joined recently; it is really easy to use, and it is really easy to set up OpenVPN Access Server as an internal app."
"It can securely do remote product updates, push out product updates; just like on our LAN, it's a virtual private network and we just push across our updates."
 

Cons

"The easiest device I have set up was the Barracuda line of products."
"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."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"Its pricing could be better."
"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."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"They could provide a single-box solution to manage tools for 4000 users. Additionally, they could add extra features to enhance remote micro connection."
"It would be better to connect to an application portal from any device. Documentation and support could be better."
"On the cloud, when you make some changes, it may be difficult."
"One thing that kind of sticks out to me is the ability to do a proper non-split tunnel."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"The product is fully customized through configuration files, which is all achieved through manual data entry."
"I'd like to have more control over the users when they are accessing the network."
"The upgrade path from older versions was more difficult than we wanted to tackle, so we ran an older version of the software for longer than I wanted. Patching, updating, and migrating to newer versions was a problem for us. That said, we were on a rather old version that I inherited yet it worked rock solid."
"They may have this already, but it would be nice to be able to get more notifications if a site drops unexpectedly."
"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 could be an easier way to set up the solution."
"The interface could be a little bit better in future iterations."
"From the user experience perspective, OpenVPN Access Server should be more user-friendly in the East Africa market where I am located."
 

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."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"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."
"The solution was free of charge."
"With regard to setup cost, pricing and/or licensing, the simple answer is that you'll need to set aside some time to learn it and experiment with it."
"The solution is free of cost."
"OpenVPN Access Server is a cheap corporate solution."
"The product's pricing is good value, definitely. It is one of the best features, I would say. Evaluate the product before seeing which type of licensing is good for you. I think there is a good evaluation method available for OpenVPN, so you can just evaluate if it meets your needs. Then go forward with the right licensing policy."
"I would say the product's pricing is a good value. I would recommend to other companies to implement it. I've seen other software, in tandem with the service, to be very expensive."
"Begin with the community version and upgrade to paid one if the need arises."
"I don't need to pay for its license since it is an open-source tool."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise10
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?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
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

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
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.
914,351 professionals have used our research since 2012.