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Untangle NG Firewall: UTM Overview and Analysis

See our complete list of top UTM vendors Key Takeaways Untangle gets high marks from small and lower-midrange customers, and even offers a free software appliance for small and remote offices. Untangle NG Firewall includes a firewall, routing, Web filtering, IPS and other features to stop advanced threats. Customers like the ease of implementation, […]

Written By: Drew Robb

Jul 23, 2018

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See our complete list of top UTM vendors

Key Takeaways
Company Description
Product Description
Markets and Use Cases
Metrics
Intelligence
Delivery
Agents
Pricing

Key Takeaways

Untangle gets high marks from small and lower-midrange customers, and even offers a free software appliance for small and remote offices. Untangle NG Firewall includes a firewall, routing, Web filtering, IPS and other features to stop advanced threats. Customers like the ease of implementation, flexible interface, reporting and support. Limited throughput, policy verification and advanced networking features are some of the limitations for larger customers.

Company Description

Untangle’s integrated suite of software and appliances provides enterprise-grade capabilities and consumer-oriented simplicity to organizations with limited IT resources. The company has more than 40,000 customers around the world. Untangle is headquartered in San Jose, California, and is a private company founded in 2003. It is currently backed by Providence Strategic Growth, the growth affiliate of Provident Equity Partners.

Product Description

Untangle NG Firewall includes a firewall, routing, Web filtering and intrusion prevention system (IPS). In addition, it comes with content filtering; protection against ransomware, malware and advanced threats; application-based shaping for bandwidth optimization; and virtual private network (VPN) connectivity options. Its UTM capabilities are integrated with policy management tools that enable IT administrators to monitor, manage and control their network while also providing protection from evolving threats.

The content filtering feature helps IT get a handle on any rogue application, encrypted Web request, malware distribution point, drive-by malvertising attempt or spam. Further features include performance tuning, bandwidth optimization, secure connectivity and control over network traffic.

NG Firewall works with the company’s cloud-based threat intelligence service, ScoutIQ, and its centralized management platform, Command Center. The NG Firewall platform supports individual applications that perform network security functions, like gateway anti-virus, anti-spam and intrusion prevention. These apps work together via the Integrated Rules Engine so that they can meet security policies and provide reporting across functions.

“Traditional firewalls and other technologies are no longer effective in today’s encrypted Web traffic, which is primarily HTTPS. SSL adoption is rising for a few different reasons,” said Dirk Morris, founder and chief product officer at Untangle. “SSL adoption will force network security vendors to shift to non-content-based security approaches.”

Markets and Use Cases

With products designed for the below-enterprise market, the company safeguards small businesses, home offices, nonprofits, schools and small governmental organizations.

Metrics

Untangle said it does not publish what it considers to be misleading and hardware-dependent performance numbers.

Intelligence

Untangle ScoutIQ aggregates data about threats seen in the wild on all NG Firewall deployments worldwide. It delivers detailed threat analysis across all traffic types, inspecting data at the application level, to provide insights across every port, protocol, and application, including SSL-encrypted traffic. It also aggregates anonymous telemetry information across files, URLs and IPs.

Delivery

Untangle NG Firewall is available as a turnkey appliance, virtual machine, or can be downloaded and run on third-party hardware. It is also available for public cloud deployment for AWS and Azure.

Agents

No agents or endpoint clients are required. Untangle works at the gateway.

Pricing

Up to 25 devices for one year costs $540. Unlimited licensing costs $12,900 per year.

Drew Robb

Originally from Scotland, Drew Robb has been a writer for more than 25 years. He lives in Florida and specializes in IT, engineering, and business. As well as eWeek and TechRepublic, he writes for a wide range of magazines including Gas Turbine World, SDxCentral, and HR Magazine. He is the author of Server Disk Management in a Windows Environment (Auerbach Publications).