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 #26 with an average rating of 8.3. Untangle holds a 1.2% 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: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

April 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 May 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Untangle NG Firewall is 1.2%, down from 1.3% 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

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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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

"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."

"The quick resolution of issues with Fortinet FortiGate is due to the support of the company and the fact that the equipment is easy to work with."

"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."

"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."

"I find the ease of configuring specific policies to be the most valuable feature of the Fortinet FortiGate firewall."

"The customization potential is quite impressive."

"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Since it can be put on any box, the scalability is fantastic."

"The most valuable features are IPS, MAPI, NAT, and VPN."

"Web filtering is very reliable."

"It is very easy to deploy and monitor. "

"All features are useful. We are using premium features such as bandwidth sharing, failover, web filters, SSL controls, antivirus, and VPN. We use these features to the fullest. These features are available in the paid firewall license, not the free one."

"The features I have found the most useful are the web filter, the captive portal, the SSL inspector, and the ad-blocker. They're awesome."

"Application Control and filtering features are valuable."

"Easy to set up and easy to integrate."

More Untangle NG Firewall pros

"The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution."

"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."

"It helps a lot of companies to reduce their downtime. Also, It helps businesses in terms of being secured and protected from any threats."

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

"If malicious traffic attacks our on-premises servers, then it gets blocked by Zscaler Cloud Firewall."

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

"I like the ease of deployment and its flexibility. We don't need to deal with license, quotes, procurement, delivery, and installation. Everything is software-based, and it's very easy to operate."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pros

Cons

"The SD-WAN functionality is a bit overly complicated and not fully documented."

"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."

"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."

"The cloud features can be improved."

"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."

"The solution lacks multi-language support."

"One of the problems I was having was with user mapping, and it is an issue for which I have escalated tickets with Fortinet support."

"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The pricing should be reduced because it is expensive."

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

"There is room for improvement in the logs. Like with Cisco, I can do almost everything and know almost anything about what's running. Untangle works very much out of the box. It's very user-friendly, but it's not engineer-friendly. So, it's good for a home user. For something fairly easy, but at the same time, with good technology to have at home, because at home, I'm not a millionaire or anything like that. So it's not like I'm worried to get hacked. I didn't want something like a Cisco firewall; it would be a bit overkill to have at home. So that's why I went for Untangle. But it lacks a few features. It's just a tick-box kind of thing. So they have apps and turn on and off the apps. The VPN's configuration is all very ticked. They have a few custom configurations, but it's not that much."

"The ability to setup a DDNS for each WAN independently would be a very handy feature."

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

"Web-filtering policies could be improved."

"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 user interface, training, and general product innovation need improvement. Enhancements could also be made to their reporting and accessibility."

More Untangle NG Firewall cons

"If I can get rid of Jetscaler, I will use Twingate for sure."

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

"Its technical support services could be better."

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

"It would be nice to have some sort of a form factor, a physical form factor perhaps, or virtual machine that you could install on devices or on a cloud, and have some cloud computing."

"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."

"Zscaler Cloud Firewall should have a better understanding of all dynamic cloud applications."

"Pricing is a challenge."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."

"It scales well if you know what to buy from a physical box standpoint. They seem to offer something for every level."

"Its pricing is fine. It is on a yearly basis. Other than the licensing fee, there is no extra fee."

"Its price is normal. If I compare it with other vendors, such as Palo Alto, it's normal. Palo Alto is expensive."

"If the customer is looking for SD-WAN, it comes free with FortiGate."

"Fortinet FortiGate is expensive."

"We find the most valuable aspect of this solution is the price. It is affordable, and cheaper than other firewalls."

"The price for the Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable. Secure SD-WAN is free of charge. If you have their firewall, it's free of charge. It's very tempting."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"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 the most cost-effective to use."

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

"The solution is fairly priced."

"Usually, it's about $350 a year for 12 users, and it's about $600 for 50 users. It's very reasonable as compared to the others. One of the reasons is that they're all open-source. You just buy their appliance and put it in until it dies. Because it's run under open platforms, mine seems to always work on older equipment. I've taken old equipment and put a new hard disk in it. I have taken about nine-year-old computers and put their operating system on them, and ran them like a champ. The only thing that changed was the hard drive because I don't trust a hard drive that's more than three to four years old."

"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

"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."

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

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

"It is not the most budget-friendly solution, but it's important to consider its overall value."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis. It is somewhere around 30 or 40 pounds per user for our organization."

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

"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."

"There are different subscription models available."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Government

University

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% 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 9% 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 16% of the time

OPNsense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Multicloud Defense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Untangle NG Firewall

April 2025

Download Untangle NG Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Cloud Firewall

April 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

April 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: April 2025.

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