Untangle NG Firewall Reviews

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.

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.

We are a reseller of their product. We use their appliances and their firewall software. Normally, we've got most of our clients from referrals that had been hacked before, and we told them to migrate to stop that from happening again. That's the main reason for the firewall and for the software that goes along with it.

We are using its most recent version. We always keep it up to date.

The web blocking for my clients and the application control are valuable.

Their tech support has been wonderful when we needed it. That's one reason we stuck with them for so long.

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.

All my other complaints about it have all been fixed with the latest addition. There is not much more that I can see that they need to do at the moment.

I have probably been using this solution for 10 years.

So far, it has been excellent. Untangle can be run on our own computer. You can build a dedicated computer and learn, and that's how we used to do it until they came out with their appliances.

We have about 14 or 15 clients who use this solution. We usually work with small businesses with about 3 and 50 machines, and it has scaled perfectly. We don't usually go over 50. If a company has more than 50 employees, they are ready to hire someone full-time. In fact, we've interviewed for companies to hire an IT person because the others have no idea what to look for. We only had one client with 130 machines, and there was no problem with scalability.

Their technical support has been excellent. When I first got the solution, I didn't know much about it, and they walked me through everything. I've had a couple of difficulties or problems, and they were able to resolve them with me. So, they tend to support that. I don't think they have what I see as a technical support department because every time I've called them, I've gotten one of two or three people, and all of them were good.

Usually, our clients switch from SonicWall. The reason for switching is that 
they are going to have to buy a new appliance because it's so old. It is not going to be supported anymore. There is also the cost difference with Untangle. Untangle is a much better buy for the money than SonicWall. SonicWall is a lot more complicated to use for somebody not familiar with its interface than Untangle. The same is true for WatchGuard. WatchGuard is easier than SonicWall, but it still has a learning curve. Untangle also has a learning curve, but it is the easiest one for somebody who doesn't know.

It is one of the easiest ones to set up for first-time use as compared to SonicWall and WatchGuard, which are two of the other firewalls I deal with the most. If you plug in the client, it just works. You can make your adjustments but it's mostly for novices. For some of our small businesses, you just plug it in, and it starts working and then we make the adjustments. The nice thing is you can adjust everything remotely.

It takes about an hour to get it set up perfectly. It starts working out of the box, but we need to add some rules to it.

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.

It is very easy, and if you have any questions, their tech support will help you in a heartbeat. They have excellent documentation on the web. You can even get Untangle free for home use.

I would rate this solution 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 are an implementor. Most of the use cases are for the detection and filter facility that Untangle provides. Most of the clients use VPN connection site-to-site, and in the last year, all the access has been through VPN. With the home offices becoming a new way of working, we are implementing this kind of solutions.

Its detection, antivirus, and filtering features are the most valuable. The facility to connect by using the VPN connection is also a very valuable feature. 

It is very strong, secure, and reliable. We have implemented the Untangle solution in all hardware. It is also a user-friendly solution. It is easy to learn and easy to configure.

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.

I have been using this solution for more than two years.

It is very stable. I love this solution.

Its scalability is great. It is simple to scale. You just create the backup, and you can increase it as you need it. We love this facility. It is not like Fortinet where you need to change the hardware, license, and features.

In terms of the number of users, the average number of users our clients have is between 100 and 150. We have some clients with less than 50 users. We also have three clients with more than 3,000 users.

We contacted them for technical support only once, and the issue was resolved in less than two hours. Their support was very good.

It is straightforward. Our target market is the small and medium companies that don't have IT departments and a firewall specialist. We provide the Untangle solution and the management of the solution for a quote. 

Most of the implementations are simple. However, we have implemented Untangle solution to replace Fortinet in a financial group in Mexico. This was the most complex configuration that we have handled. There were 65 locations with voiceover IP and some other features. We had to create balance and recovery from the cluster. 

Our last implementation took less than a week. You need just two people for its deployment and maintenance.

It is not expensive. It is cheaper than Fortinet.

Our clients evaluate Fortinet and pfSense. The flexibility to grow, the user-friendliness of the interface, and the common center facility are the advantages of Untangle NG Firewall. We can do everything in one console. 

Fortinet is very expensive. pfSense is free, but it is not as strong as Untangle. We have also experienced problems with the configuration of the HTTPS filter.  

I would recommend this solution to others. It is a user-friendly, cheap, and strong solution. I would advise others to try this solution and not make a decision based on the information given on the paper. All vendors are going to tell you the features and the problems that their solution can solve, but the best way is by testing. Ask them to provide demos and test the solution yourself.

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

We use it for security purposes. We have got multiple BPO sites, and we have about 15 to 20 deployments.

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.

We seek the availability of the hardware in our region. The hardware-based firewall from Untangle is currently not available in our region.

It should have threat protection on a real-time basis. This feature, available in Check Point and Sandstorm kind of scenario, is currently missing in Untangle NG Firewall.

I have been using this solution for 16 years.

We did this installation approximately six years ago, and nothing has crashed. It is very stable. We are getting the updates on a regular basis. We are very happy with it.

A single person can handle the entire installation at multiple locations.

We have scaled it from 10 users to 1,000 users without any issues. 

We have multiple installations at multiple offices in the organization. One deployment has 500 users. The other deployment has multiple sites with 50 to 100 users.

We never had many issues, and whenever we had issues, their support was good enough to give us good feedback. They were able to help us out in solving the problems.

It is very straightforward. 

It is not expensive. The best part is that it is based on the pay-per-use kind of scenario. An increase or decrease in the number of people doesn't make any difference. We are really happy about using this particular scenario.

We did evaluate other options. When we started using Untangle, the available options were very limited and not very cost-efficient.

I would recommend this product. It is easy to use for a maximum security scenario. It is very easy to do any kind of installation.

I would rate Untangle NG Firewall a nine out of ten. It is a really good product.

We are using this product internally, for intrusion prevention.

The most valuable features are IPS, MAPI, NAT, and VPN. These features are simply awesome.

This product has some unique features that are very good.

The pricing should be reduced because it is expensive.

I have been using Untangle for about one year.

Untangle is quite a stable product.

We use the software-based version, which is scalable. I am not sure about the hardware-based version so I cannot comment on it.

We have about 100 users.

We have not had a problem for the past couple of years so we have not been in contact with technical support.

We are also using FortiGate and Check Point.

The initial setup is very simple. Any layperson can set it up within an hour.

You can configure it and forget it.

One person part-time is more than enough for maintenance.

This is an expensive product.

This is a product that I can recommend and if anybody implements it and wants support, we would be open to providing technical support for it. This is something that we would be happy to do.

In summary, this is a good product and my only real complaint is about the pricing.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.