#18 of 18 firewall and router platforms · Updated October 2026
Arista NG Firewall review 2026
Arista NG Firewall (formerly Untangle NG Firewall) · Slow follower
Arista NG Firewall ranks #18 of 18 firewall and router platforms in the Firewall and Router Ledger 2026, with a Ledger Index of 46.4 out of 100. Arista NG Firewall keeps Untangle's app-based UTM depth and reporting, with VMware as the only documented hypervisor and few public release dates.
Scores
Source: Firewall and Router Ledger 2026, edition 2026-10-16. How each score works: methodology.
Pros
- Threat protection4/5
- Observability4/5
Cons
- High availability and performance1.5/5
- Platform and hypervisor freedom2.5/5
- Platform security and lifecycle2.5/5
What the Ledger says
NG Firewall scores well on the things Untangle built a decade ago: layer 7 application control, identity-based rules, TLS inspection, a reputation feed and reports that most small office firewalls lack. It scores badly on everything that needs a public record, because Arista publishes no roadmap, no support windows, no advisory page and no readable release history, and the latest release highlights page still describes 17.0. The hypervisor story is the practical limit for this Ledger's readers: VMware is the only documented hypervisor and Proxmox VE, KVM and Hyper-V are not mentioned on the installation pages. The one thing a buyer should check is whether 17.5.0 is a general release or still a beta, and what the per-server subscription costs for their device count, since neither is published.
NG Firewall ships no AI features and announces none. Its threat scoring comes from a third-party reputation feed, and agent access depends on an API the research could not verify.
Capability by area
Buying, lock-in and release record
Buying and licence (commercial risk)(lower is better)
- Price and licence volatility1.5
- No change documented since 2023; no public price list to track
- Purchase constraints2.5
- Paid apps are subscription only, per server and per device band; the Lite apps and NG Firewall Free have no expiry
- Channel and access2.5
- Direct and reseller sales; downloads through the ETM portal with an account; partner programme terms not found; the core source is public
- Owner stability2.5
- Large public owner since 2022, but the product is a small line inside Arista and its public release page has not been updated since 17.0
- Cost of staying supported3
- Paid apps stop working without a current subscription; platform upgrades are in place
Technical lock-in(lower is better)
- Formats2.5
- Configuration in a database exported as a backup file
- Export path3
- Backup files restore only to NG Firewall; migration to another firewall is manual
- Stack coupling1
- Runs alone; the ETM Dashboard is optional
- Hardware / cloud coupling1
- Any x86 machine, VMware, AWS or Azure; paid apps check their licence online
- Skills and tooling coupling2
- App-based web administration specific to the product on a Debian base
Release credibility
- Cadence2
- About two tagged releases a year on an irregular rhythm (17.4.1 on 2026-01-29, 17.5.0 on 2026-07-17); no schedule
- Roadmap transparency1.5
- No roadmap; the release highlights page stops at 17.0 and the release history article is not publicly readable; the wiki is public
- Say-do2.5
- Little is announced; the 17.5 beta of 2026-05-29 was tagged seven weeks later, though its GA status is not confirmed
- Velocity2.5
- One substantive item per release (per-profile DNS in 17.4, Dynamic Blocklists in 17.5) plus maintenance
- Lifecycle stability2.5
- In-place upgrades and a long version line; renamed after the 2022 acquisition, 32-bit dropped at 16.1, and no published support windows
Partners and services
- Partner programme openness2.5
- Reseller channel exists; programme terms were not found
- Multi-tenancy and self-service2.5
- ETM Dashboard manages many appliances with templates (vendor claim); no multi-tenant separation documented
- API and infrastructure-as-code1
- JSON-RPC API not verified; no Terraform or Ansible content
- Skills and certification1.5
- Wiki documentation and forum; no certification track found
Alternatives to Arista NG Firewall
Questions about Arista NG Firewall
Is Arista NG Firewall any good?
Arista NG Firewall ranks #18 of 18 firewall and router platforms in the Firewall and Router Ledger 2026, with a Ledger Index of 46.4 out of 100. Its strongest areas are threat protection, observability. Its weakest are high availability and performance, platform and hypervisor freedom, platform security and lifecycle.
What are the best alternatives to Arista NG Firewall?
The closest by Ledger Index are Forcepoint NGFW (47.3), IPFire (48.1), TNSR (48.6), OpenWrt (51.8).
How is Arista NG Firewall licensed and sold?
No change documented since 2023; no public price list to track.
How much lock-in does Arista NG Firewall bring?
Arista NG Firewall scores 9.5 out of 25 on technical lock-in (lower is better). Export path: Backup files restore only to NG Firewall; migration to another firewall is manual.
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