Is Untangle Firewall Still Free? What Happened to Untangle (2026)

Untangle still exists, but it is no longer called Untangle and it is no longer free in the way it used to be. Arista Networks bought Untangle Inc. in 2022 and renamed the product Arista Edge Threat Management (ETM) NG Firewall. In 2026 the core platform is still a free download with a firewall, intrusion prevention, OpenVPN, captive portal and reports, but WireGuard, IPsec, multi-WAN, Policy Manager and full web filtering need a subscription, and home subscriptions are no longer sold.

I first installed Untangle in 2007 on a spare desktop PC and went on to run it across 12 branch offices, so this page is the follow-up to that original 2010 post: what changed, what you still get for free, and where to go if the free tier is no longer enough.

Quick answer

• Name now: Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall (often just "Arista NG Firewall").
• Current version: 17.x (17.5 is the newest in Arista's release history).
• Free in 2026: Firewall, Intrusion Prevention, Phish Blocker, Ad Blocker, Captive Portal, OpenVPN, Tunnel VPN, Reports, and lite versions of Web Filter (Web Monitor), Application Control, Virus Blocker and Spam Blocker.
• Paid: WireGuard VPN, IPsec VPN, Threat Prevention, SSL Inspector, full Web Filter, Bandwidth Control, WAN Balancer, WAN Failover, Policy Manager, Directory Connector, Branding Manager and support.
• Download: free Arista ETM account, then the ETM Dashboard, Get Started menu (ISO or OVA).
• Best free alternatives: OPNsense, pfSense CE, Sophos Firewall Home Edition.

What happened to Untangle: a short timeline

Sources: Arista's NG Firewall FAQ, the Q Series end-of-sale notice and the NG Firewall release history.

Untangle free vs paid in 2026

Arista's datasheet groups the apps into Protect, Filter, Perform, Connect and Manage. This is what you get without paying:

Pricing is per device band (the number of unique IPs seen on non-WAN interfaces each day, including VPN users), sold monthly or for 1, 3 or 5 years. Each NG Firewall needs its own licence. A 30-day trial unlocks everything, then the box drops back to the free set.

What this means in practice: for a home lab or a very small office that only needs a firewall, IPS, OpenVPN and reports, the free tier still works. If you relied on Untangle for web filtering in a school, multi-WAN failover, or WireGuard between sites, you now need a subscription or a different firewall.

How to download Untangle NG Firewall today

1. Create a free account at edge.arista.com and sign in to the ETM Dashboard.
2. Open Get Started and download the NG Firewall installer: the graphical ISO for a normal PC, the serial ISO for headless appliances, or the OVA for VMware and other hypervisors.
3. Write the ISO to a USB stick (Arista's support site has a guide for creating a bootable USB installer).
4. Boot a PC with at least two network ports, install, and finish the setup wizard in the browser.

The full walkthrough, with screenshots, is in my Untangle installation guide, and the sizing table is in Untangle hardware requirements. For a tour of every free app and the dashboard, see Untangle Firewall: the NG UTM I have used since 2008.

Only download from Arista. Old ISOs on mirror sites are often 16.x or earlier and miss security fixes, including the command injection and cross-site scripting issues Arista published in a February 2026 security advisory for 17.4.0 and earlier.

Is Untangle still worth using in 2026?

Yes, if you want the easiest point-and-click UTM interface, you are happy with the free app set, or your organisation will pay for a subscription and wants vendor support from a large company.

No, if you want a fully open source firewall, need WireGuard or IPsec for free, or want application control and web filtering without a subscription.

Best free alternatives to Untangle

I compare all of them, with current versions and hardware needs, in the best open source firewalls in 2026, and go head to head in pfSense vs OPNsense.

My Untangle story (2007 to today)

I moved to Untangle from Microsoft ISA Server, which had become expensive and did not do everything I needed. Untangle let me reuse an old HP desktop (3.0 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB disk, two network cards) as an all-in-one box: web filtering, virus and spam blocking, IDS and OpenVPN between offices, all from the free Lite package. It ran for years without problems, and I rolled the same setup out to 12 branches with policies replicated across sites.

That "everything free on a spare PC" model is what made Untangle popular, and it is the part that has changed most under Arista. Today I run pfSense in my homelab, but I still recommend NG Firewall to offices that want a simple UI and are willing to pay for the subscription apps.