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Untangle 9.0 charging for IPSEC?

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Valnar

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http://www.untangle.com/products/new-release-9-0
http://www.untangle.com/ipsec

IPsec is available from $25 per month or as part of the Premium Package and Education Premium Package .
Click to expand...

I still love my Untangle installation, but I think this is where they jumped the shark. They moved from that cute Linux UTM to a full-blown, money-grabbing corporate entity no better than Sonicwall or anyone else. If you need IPSEC, the ROI benefit of Untangle was just killed in one year vs anyone else.

We've all been asking for IPSEC support in Untangle, as many of us use pfSense in conjunction with it to fill that void. Welp, that won't change now. This is a big FU from Untangle. IPSEC is free (or included in the initial cost) in most firewalls, Linux or otherwise. Not a friggin monthly fee.

/rant off


(Yah, I fully expect a reply from certain members of the [H] forum. This post was entirely created to do that. ) :D
 
Wow that sucks, and a monthly fee at that, that's a real kick in the butt. Sucks how it seems lot of orgs these days will start off well then turn into money hungry corporations.
 
Untangle is aimed at SMB to Enterprise....and that usually means paying supported packages. They never had a primary focus on being "free" first.

In the forums at Untangle for the past few years, with us resellers/SMB Consultants asking for IPSec....the vast majority of us gave feedback that it would be great as a "paid" add-on....so it's been known it will be a paid package for a long time now.

If you're using Untangle in a business, you should have one of the bundles anyways, to get the most out of Untangle, Such as Kaspersky antivirus, and CommTouch spam filter, and Active Directory connector, and Bandwidth Control. Configuration Backup, and most importantly...Support!

IPSec has high support overhead too...it's usually one of the components of a firewall/edge device that generates the most support calls.

The "freebie" version is fine for home users or those with home offices 'n such. But once you get to a real business, unsupported free stuff has little business being in place.

The majority of our Untangle installs at our clients are paid bundles. I think I only have 2x freebies out there..and they have no VPN needs.
 
dashpuppy said:
Bastards :(
Click to expand...
That's your only comment? C'mon, you took the fun out of my first post!

YeOldeStonecat said:
In the forums at Untangle for the past few years, with us resellers/SMB Consultants asking for IPSec....the vast majority of us gave feedback that it would be great as a "paid" add-on....so it's been known it will be a paid package for a long time now.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but there is no justifying a monthly fee. If you end up selling that module to any of your customers, then either 1) You are a heck of a salesman, or 2) they are ignorant of the alternatives on the market. If IPSEC gets absorbed into a bundle, then that might be the only way I'd see anyone going for it.
 
Valnar said:
Sorry, but there is no justifying a monthly fee. If you end up selling that module to any of your customers, then either 1) You are a heck of a salesman, or 2) they are ignorant of the alternatives on the market. If they get absorbed into a bundle, then that might be the only way I'd see anyone going for it.
Click to expand...

It can be monthly, or yearly, however you want it to be billed. We actually do it yearly...because you get a price break paying for a whole year up front.

The goal of Untangle isn't the freebie stuff...that's for the home hobby users. It's the "bundles". Lots of our clients use the Education/Premium bundle...which also allows non-profits to use this bundle...and that bundle includes most things a business desires in a good UTM anyways (see my prior reply for the list). (and..uhm...selling good network security doesn't take a heck of good salesman, it just requires sound advice of things that will benefit the client). So when I pull the trigger to "upgrade" those clients to version 9...IPSec will be available since it's included in the bundles our clients have.

Untangle never had its sights on being a bottom feeder. Their goal was to be a good UTM for businesses with paid bundles...and they're right on track.

You're comparing it to PFSense or m0n0wall? Wrong selection of competition, no wonder you're confused/stunned.

IPSec was also added as an "afterthought"....due to high demand for it. So developers had to put time aside and develop this app. I was initially rooting for IPSec...years ago, but lately.....I can only think of one client that I plan on moving to Untangle.. which might benefit from Untangles IPSec support....they have a WAN currently existing of 6 sites....with mixed old Cisco PIX and Linky/Cisco RV0 units at. IPSec would only benefit me only in the fact that it would allow me to replace all the units slowly. Rather than try to replace all the units at once. But then I'd still switch it over to OpenVPN for the tunnels once done. IPSec is on its way to retirement, as it should be.

They are also coming out with a centralized management panel..to manage multiple Untangle installs....that wouldn't be free, I wouldn't expect it to.

They're also coming out with a product similar to "Astaro Red".....where you have a WAN and traffic is filtered from small satellites with "thin units", auto configured to pass traffic through the tunnel and out through filtering at "mothership". That won't be free, nor would I expect it to be.
 
A part of me thinks this should be free acoss the board, and apart of me doesnt. I'm on the fence.

However if they are going to charge for it I think a monthly free is a little shady. A one time licensing fee seems more legit to me.

just my .02
 
The monthly pricing of modules/bundles was added due to resellers asking for this. Untangle is listening to its primary community. Dunno what's wrong with that. Just like they did when we asked them to add IPSec..and told them it would be fine as a priced add-on.

http://www.untangle.com/ipsec
If you look at that page...describing the pricing, you'll see...hmm...what's the word I'm looking for..."flexibility"? in payments.

(monthly)
OR
(1 yr) with a discount
OR
(2 yrs) with a bigger discount
OR
(3 yrs) with an even bigger discount

Hmm...kinda like quite a bit of other software licensing ...such as antivirus...cheaper as quantity goes up, and as length of term of license goes up.

Untangle created very flexible ala cart pricing and broke it down into monthly/annual/biannual/triannual due to the reseller community asking for those options, since many of us offer our clients various MSP services.
 
The cost for some is hidden in a bundle. That may make it somewhat okay assuming the overall price doesn't go up, but it doesn't make it okay on its own. For the à la carte price, it's ridiculous. I am not just comparing that to pfSense or m0n0wall, but every other vendor I can think of too.

'No objections to the other future planned features costing money. But charging extra (once again....MONTHLY) for ipsec is like charging monthly for port-forwarding or NAT.
 
I can understand montly fee's for things like anti virus and the much more larger dns black list, along with any other "service" that has to be maintained.

However IPsec isnt maintained and is dying. You install it, and you're done.

Just because you get a discount with a longer contract doesnt make it flexible. Thats hardly the definition. The definition of flexiblity would be givng the customer the option of a one time user licensing fee in conjunction with a monthly paid service.


This goes for anything, not just Untangle.
 
Umm.

The IPsec module itself should be free for 1 user.

$150 limits you to 5 users

$250 limits you to 10 users

$500 unlimited users


The support for that module should cost $25 per month

The unlimited module should come with 1 year of free support.
 
Mackintire said:
Umm.

The IPsec module itself should be free for 1 user.

$150 limits you to 5 users

$250 limits you to 10 users

$500 unlimited users


The support for that module should cost $25 per month

The unlimited module should come with 1 year of free support.
Click to expand...

bingo, although I dont think it should cost an EXTRA $25. That should be included the support you're already paying for.
 
It's even more disingenuous when they say no per-tunnel licensing. Well, it still is, but they are licensing it in another way. My $25/month statement (which only goes down to $22 or so for a year) assumes 1-10 PC's. If you have over 50 computers on your network (an easy SMB target for this platform), the price goes up to $150/month or so.

Honestly, how can this be defended? The support calls may...MAY... happen once or twice in the beginning to setup a tunnel, but after that its all gravy. And if you are an integrator installing it for a customer, I doubt you need any help setting up IPSEC.

All this puts it on a level far worse than Sonicwall or Cisco.
 
Valnar said:
All this puts it on a level far worse than Sonicwall or Cisco.
Click to expand...

How so? I have clients with Cisco, Sonicwall, Juniper....if you want updates and support for those (non-UTM appliances we're talking really just for router/NAT/VPN crap)...gotta pay out the wazoo...at far higher prices per PC BTW.

And..oh yeah, BTW, they charge by "# of VPN users also"!

The way I've seen Untangle for the past quite a few years....great UTM features at an affordable price. Compare it against other platforms that have same features...and look at the price of those.

Ever call their support? You usually get a live body within about a minute..often it's Ritchie. You have top notch help right away, they often remote right into your box and fix it up. Hard to find that level of support at other places. Only other one of the big names I can say is close to that is Juniper.

Your mind is clearly made up though...no sense in wearing out my Thinkpads keys anymore, .time to turn back to getting work done.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
And..oh yeah, BTW, they charge by "# of VPN users also"!
Click to expand...

Not for site-to-site tunnels. I can do as many as the platform can handle on any firewall I've installed. User VPN, maybe. Cisco has a one-time fee to max out your platform for AnyConnect, which is like OpenVPN (SSL based). IPSEC VPN is free.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Ever call their support? You usually get a live body within about a minute..often it's Ritchie. You have top notch help right away, they often remote right into your box and fix it up. Hard to find that level of support at other places. Only other one of the big names I can say is close to that is Juniper.
Click to expand...

That alone is why I really started looking into selling / deploying untangle boxes for clients. I can't name a single other vender that I can call and have a live person who speaks english as a first language, and get to that person within 5 minutes of picking up the phone. The only group that has ever come close was Dell's XPS support.
 
They took too long to bring in IPSEC and I was getting tired of having Sonicwalls handling IPSEC to our vendors.

So I began planning a roll-out of a setup to completely drop Untangle. I'm sure losing our 4 x 50 user subs is not much, but they keep screwing around with crap that does not work well or is not needed. *cough*rerouter*cough* just to name one.
 
C7J0yc3 said:
That alone is why I really started looking into selling / deploying untangle boxes for clients. I can't name a single other vender that I can call and have a live person who speaks english as a first language, and get to that person within 5 minutes of picking up the phone. The only group that has ever come close was Dell's XPS support.
Click to expand...

you no spech engrish ?
 
Wow. Interesting feedback.

Allow me to add a few points.

1)
This doesn't change any cost or ROI to our customers. The premium package has not changed in price.
In fact, all pre-9.0 premium package (ed pack etc) customers now get IPsec at no additional cost.
Ultimately, Untangle is focused on packages and the premium package customers are what keep Untangle afloat, so we take care of them.
We want customers to get the full experience of the premium package.

If you're just using Untangle as a gateway + IPsec then there are many many options out there (many of them 100% free and quite good).

2)
IPsec is available to buy individually for customers who REALLY want JUST IPsec. The issue here is that we can not afford sell IPsec at a loss.
Many of you may look IPsec and see it as WAY overpriced, but we have to make sure we don't lose money on customers who buy IPsec but don't buy live support.
We are still required to support these customer's IPsec implementations.

Valnar said:
The support calls may...MAY... happen once or twice in the beginning to setup a tunnel, but after that its all gravy.
Click to expand...

lol. I wish that were true. The reality is that OpenVPN currently dominates our support costs. People call ALL the time.
Power goes out? Lets call Untangle. ISP down? Lets call Untangle. DNS down? Lets call Untangle.
We simply can not afford to deal with more VPN issues than we already do at no additional cost.
Sure, we could outsource support to India and have indians read scripts and save lots of money, but thats not Untangle is about and thats not fair to our premium package customers (which is again is our focus).
We want our paying customers to have the best experience possible.

Additionally, we have to re-coup the extensive development cost to write the app and maintain it. I know people always assume that it costs $5k to develop an app, but it turns out engineers actually like salaries.

3)
The IPsec app is an *option* available to you. You aren't forced to buy it.
If you don't like it and don't want it then all you get with 9.0 is a bunch of platform improvements, bugfixes, and performance improvements. Sorry!

Other options are available and may make better sense for you. You can run IPsec on another device that suits your needs.
You can run IPsec on Untangle from the command line if you know what you're doing.

4)
I must giggle a bit at all the anger-laced quips flying around, "money-grubbing" "money hungry" "disingenuous."
I'm not sure how we can be any more transparent. People asked for IPsec for a long time, and now we're proud to announce it.
Let me put to rest any illusions you have of us sitting back smoking cigars while we sit on our piles of money laughing maniacally about all the gullible customers paying hand over first for the software that costs us nothing to write and maintain.
What I see is a small team trying to build the best company and product for small businesses and schools and change the way its done.
It may not be right for everyone, but you don't get to be a big company by doing exactly what the incumbent big companies are doing.

We'll continue to re-evaluate IPsec pricing, but we must first know the actual support costs. Everything assumed at this point is an assumption based off OpenVPN support experience.
What we won't do is start off with a super-low price and then have to quadruple it when we realize we're losing money each time we sell it.
People tend to be upset when you raise the price dramatically.



Hope this helps explain Untangle's position.
 
The reality is that OpenVPN currently dominates our support costs. People call ALL the time.
Click to expand...
No argument there. OpenVPN is a bear.

This doesn't change any cost or ROI to our customers. The premium package has not changed in price.
In fact, all pre-9.0 premium package (ed pack etc) customers now get IPsec at no additional cost.
Click to expand...
Kudos to you, and I retract my statements that a price increase for premium users is unfair. But per your statement, then how are you recouping the development costs on IPSEC except for the people who just want that single feature? Or do all new 9.0 users pay for an increase too?


You say your argument for charging upwards of $1000/month to just have IPSEC is support. You might want to spell that out in big red letters somewhere. Because as a feature, it is still overpriced. I have Untangle for just a couple features, but use the forums. Granted I didn't pay for support, but at least I have the option to use the basic features (like firewall) for free. I guess we simply differ on IPSEC being a basic feature.
 
dmorris@untangle said:
IPsec is available to buy individually for customers who REALLY want JUST IPsec. The issue here is that we can not afford sell IPsec at a loss.
Many of you may look IPsec and see it as WAY overpriced, but we have to make sure we don't lose money on customers who buy IPsec but don't buy live support.
We are still required to support these customer's IPsec implementations.
Click to expand...


Can you share any more details on this?
 
dmorris@untangle said:
lol. I wish that were true. The reality is that OpenVPN currently dominates our support costs. People call ALL the time.
Power goes out? Lets call Untangle. ISP down? Lets call Untangle. DNS down? Lets call Untangle.
Click to expand...

I feel like I wasted a shitload of out money then, I called like twice because I'm not completely useless. Untangle was my first OpenVPN experience, It was redeployed entirely just one time[scratch that, twice when we went to the R200's, only once when making one office the new corporate/primary office for the VPN server.] (and I never had to call support). This is over the course of about four(4) years... All we really use are some of the modules like OpenVPN, web filter lite, ad blocker and a couple of others. I guess I can live with the fact that I supported a fairly decent project I guess. The two times that I called in with support was for an email pass-through issue corrupting emails to Outlook. Which I ended up just giving up on because the support back then was less than satisfactory.

We've also had plenty of power outages and surges, our boxes keep on ticking. Then again I did go out and purchase R200's, switching them off of the old Gigabyte nForce 1U boxes we had. :D
 
Mackintire said:
Can you share any more details on this?
Click to expand...

Sure.

If users by Bandwidth Control but not Live Support, we support the Bandwidth Control but in theory not the rest of the apps or the platform. Likewise for IPsec VPN. If you buy the app but not Live Support we still support that app, but not the rest of the platform. In other words, support is bundled with each app individually for that app only, and as such support for a given app is included in the cost of service (on our end). We have to assure that the price in all seat bands exceeds the average cost of goods sold and the amortized cost to develop and maintain the application.

If you don't think you need support or the app and can do it yourself, then thats totally fine. We realize that may apply to lots of people, but there are already great options out there for that. Additionally for those people you could easily drop to the terminal on untangle and configure freeswan for yourself.
 
Last edited:
dmorris@untangle said:
Sure.

If users by Bandwidth Control but not Live Support, we support the Bandwidth Control but in theory not the rest of the apps or the platform. Likewise for IPsec VPN. If you buy the app but not Live Support we still support that app, but not the rest of the platform. In other words, support is bundled with each app individually for that app only, and as such support for a given app is included in the cost of service (on our end). We have to assure that the price in all seat bands exceeds the average cost of goods sold and the amortized cost to develop and maintain the application.

If you don't think you need support or the app and can do it yourself, then thats totally fine. We realize that may apply to lots of people, but there are already great options out there for that. Additionally for those people you could easily drop to the terminal on untangle and configure freeswan for yourself.
Click to expand...

Ahh, but the new question is, do you run a untangle unit at home :p
 
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