Untangle Gateway Platform

Rating:

Pros:

Untangle will do virtually everything your Sonicwall, Barracuda or Watchguard firebox appliance will do and more for the low low price of FREE! To get started you can use an old PC and once you have proved it all out, do what I did and purchase a new PC and a second NIC card. Since it runs in Linux you don't even need to buy an operating system. This Untangle installation CD, which you can download, installs it all. There may be a few features that you need which are not free in the base product. Virtually everything is available ala-cart with a very reasonable price tag. The cost of adding these ala-cart items is hands-down less than what you would pay to either add or upgrade your hardware appliance. This is especially true if you if you add any kind of maintenance contract with them. I've found that Untangle still does a better job than my hardware appliance which was costing me thousands and recently became obsolete so the vendor could sell me a "new and improved" appliance. Untangle ha

Cons:

You need a low-end PC and possibly a second NIC card to run it. It isn't stateless so for example a hard drive failure will put it out of commission. You would need to fix it yourself but at least it is something you can get parts for. Make sure you have a plan B. Not all hardware is Linux supported such as video and NIC cards. Check with Untangle and if you are purchasing a PC especially for Untangle DO NOT get the latest hardware. You can purchase technical support but it isn't really included with the free product.

Untangle does more for free than what the big boys can do for thousands.