pfSense vs. Untangle SD-WAN Router

pfSense is incredibly budget friendly and capable for organizations of all sizes. My specific scenario, working for a non-profit organization, requires budget consciences decisions without compromising security and function. pfSense has helped tremendously in accomplishing this. It specifically tackles advanced routing, static routing, remote access, intrusion prevention, in a single platform, mostly available for free.

Incentivized

Awesome for most small businesses that need some better protection past their provider's box. Those usually don't handle anything past being a gateway well. Pricing is another thing. The costs are great as compared to the cost of a box plus support and licensing. Untangle really does have the smaller markets taken care of with exactly what they need. Anything more and you'll be looking at a physical solution.

Incentivized

• Easy to use. Good user interface design! Easy to understand and easy to set up.
• Lower hardware requirement. 3 years ago, we used an old PC to run it. Now, we have changed to a router device with Celeron CPU and 8GB RAM. It runs smoothly with a 1000G commercial broadband.

Incentivized

• VPN
• Works out of the box.
• Simple to use.

Incentivized

• There is no API for making changes. This can be a hindrance in environments where auto-deploying something needs firewall rules or HAProxy configs updated. Since all settings are stored in an XML file and then configs are generated from that, even manually updating config files cannot be done.
• Beware that some network cards can have issues. pfSense is based on FreeBSD, so it's best to look on their compatibility list before deploying.

Incentivized

• GUI is rough.
• Setting up intricate routes are a bit confusing.
• No HA

Incentivized

pfSense can be a very elementary firewall but can also be as comples as you want, according your needs. I'd always reccomend a HA solution when used in a company and, for bigger companies, commercial license is recommended. It's also very adptable to everyone's needs.

Incentivized

pfSense+ basic provides "As Available" email support. pfSense+ Pro offers 24 hr turn around email support. pfSense+ Enterprise offers 24/7 phone support.

Incentivized

PFSense is not a fully featured and supported enterprise-grade solution; however, it does offer a lot of similar functionality at a fraction of the cost for more minor requirements.

Deploying untangle compared to the others is almost night and day. Sophos is amazing but is usually slow on the GUI. Sonicwall is like using black magic to bring someone back from the dead. Untangle hits all the marks for coving your customers without hitting them with enterprise-level costs.

Incentivized

• pfSense has only had positive impacts on our company. We are not a huge company so not having to buy licenses to get all these features have been excellent.
• I was not around when our current sysadmin decided to use pfSense, but I am assuming from day one it was probably a 100% return on investment since it does everything we need it to and it was open source software.

Incentivized

• Low setup Cost.
• Cheap scalability.
• Fast deployment keeps customers happy with low downtime.

Incentivized