We performed a comparison between pfSense and Untangle NG Firewall based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products received high marks from reviewers, but Untangle NG Firewall ultimately won out in this comparison. It is easy to set up, user-friendly and secure. In addition it has excellent customer support and is fairly priced.
"The main features of this solution are customization and ease to use."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"It is very easy to use. The interface is quite understandable. There is a good community, and I can take over at any time I want. If there is anything wrong with it, I could just reinstall the whole thing and start all over again, and I'll be up again in less than a few minutes"
"What I found most valuable is the cost of the platform, the flexibility of the platform, and the fact that the ongoing fees are not there as they are with the competitor. Some people may think you're taking a risk with using Opensource. I think it just provides the end user, specifically for us small, medium business providers of services, the flexibility we need at the right cost to provide them a higher end, almost enterprise type service."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"The web blocking for my clients and the application control are valuable."
"They have a command center that makes it easy to log into and see all of your appliances nationwide."
"We find the web filter very valuable."
"NG Firewalls allow us to permit or deny applications we don't want to run. We also use content filtering, SSL inspection, and all the other things we run on the firewall to keep our clients protected and ensure they're not going where they shouldn't. It's a great firewall that works as intended."
"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."
"The majority of our clients are very small businesses, and Untangle devices have been fantastic for these small clients. We've basically standardized our stack to just simply use Untangle. We include the hardware and the service option, which makes it very easy and affordable for us to just simply push that into the monthly per-user costing that we provide as a managed services provider. It's really a no-brainer. They're easy to use, and they're easy to set up and configure. Support is generally good about resolving any issues that we have. We haven't had any real complaints."
"The solution could be more user-friendly, and the graphical interface needs some work so that someone without an IT background can use the application. I would like the ability to manage the on-premise appliance from the cloud. When I'm not in the office, it would be great to connect to the pfSense server and administer the network remotely."
"The stability could be improved."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"I'd like to find something in pfSense that is more specific to URL filtering. We have customers who would like to filter their web traffic. They would like to be able to say to their employees, "You can surf the web, but you cannot get access to Facebook or other social media," or "You can surf the web, but you're not allowed to gamble or watch porn on the web." My technicians say that doing this kind of stuff with pfSense nowadays is not easy. They can implement some filters using IP addresses but not by using the names of the domains and categories. So, we are not able to exclude some categories from the allowed traffic, such as porn, gambling, etc. To do that, we have to use another product and another web filter that uses DNS. I know that there are some third-party products that could work with pfSense, but I'd like the native pfSense solution to do that."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"It's just not listed as FIPS compliant for where we're at now in government, which is an issue."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"The integration of pfSense with EPS and EDS could be better. Also, it should be easier to get reports on how many users are connecting simultaneously and how sections connect in real-time."
"The biggest challenge that we have with this solution is local support. The local support is a problem in our area."
"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."
"They don't have any feature that allows you to drop the session."
"The storage is minimal, so we have to set the system to delete data after seven days."
"On their low-end appliance, they could have more memory and the largest storage space. The low-end appliance comes with a too-small hard drive, and it could use a little extra room. It only comes with about 4 gigs or 8 gigs of memory, and the hardware space is only 40 gigs, which is really small."
"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."
pfSense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 39 reviews while Untangle NG Firewall is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 6 reviews. pfSense is rated 8.4, while Untangle NG Firewall is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of pfSense writes "Feature-rich, well documented, and there is good support available online". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Untangle NG Firewall writes "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". pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Fortinet FortiGate, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and Sophos UTM, whereas Untangle NG Firewall is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, Fortinet FortiGate and SonicWall TZ. See our Untangle NG Firewall vs. pfSense report.
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