Out of 50, only 10 remain: who is actually making NGFW in Russia and who is just talking about it

Introduction

On March 16, 2026, SecPost reported: the Solar Group closed sales of its own NGFW. The product, into which 1.2 billion rubles were invested, lasted on the market for less than three years — from its presentation in April 2023 to the quiet removal of its page from the website in early 2026. Managers were instructed not to create a sales plan for 2026. Production at the Kraftway factory has been discontinued.

This is not a surprise. It is the natural outcome of a process that we at Ideco have been observing from the inside since 2016 — from the moment we began developing our own NGFW. We saw how, after February 2022, dozens of companies flooded the market promising a "Russian response to Palo Alto." We saw marketing NGFWs that appeared in rankings without having a real product behind them. And we saw how these projects went silent one by one.

In this article, we will analyze what happened to the Russian NGFW market over four years, who actually writes the code, and who has already left or is about to leave. At the same time, we will look at the global context: could NGFW problems be purely a Russian peculiarity?

No. But the Russian case is fundamentally different.

The scale of the "NGFW bubble": from 5 to 50 and back

Before February 2022, five domestic vendors operated in the Russian NGFW market. Out of 16 international cybersecurity suppliers, 15 completely left Russia. The freed-up space caused a frenzy: by the end of 2022, there were 15 vendors; by November 2023, Alexey Lukatsky from Positive Technologies counted 27, and at the peak, the number of claimants exceeded 50.

At the same time, the market volume was actually growing: from 30 billion rubles in 2022 to 52.2 billion rubles in 2024.

There was money in the market. The problem is that 80% of those claiming to develop an NGFW overestimated their capabilities.

Survival map: who made NGFWs before 2022, who after, who left

We have systematized all known market participants. The division is based on the actual state as of March 2026.

Group 1. Veterans — made NGFWs before 2022

These are companies that accumulated expertise before the crisis. They already had a user base and an understanding of operations in a production environment. They are the ones today who occupy about 60% of the market.

Group 2. New players — released product after 2022

Solar dropped out. Only product companies that invested substantial money and brought the product to commercial quality remain.

Group 3. Dropped out

Group 4. Continue development (hiring staff)

Companies that do not have a commercial product but are actively hiring NGFW developers. We analyzed their current vacancies.

TechArgos (t-argos.ru) — hiring NGFW test engineers, Python SDET engineers. Vacancies require experience with Cisco, Juniper, Check Point, Fortinet, Palo Alto. The project is called "flagship."

Bi.Zone (bi.zone) — looking for NGFW system analysts and senior C/C++ developers for DPI Secure SD-WAN. Requirements include DPDK, protocol reverse-engineering, IPS/DPI/NGFW.

Kryptonite (kryptonite.ru) is part of "ICS Holding" — develops high-load applications for traffic processing, including NGFW. C/C++ developers with experience in analyzers and compilers are required.

These companies continue to invest, but they are still far from a commercial product. Creating a competitive NGFW requires 3–5 years and over 1 billion rubles.

Group 5. Status unknown/not NGFW

Out of about 50 vendors declaring in 2022–2023, most have simply fallen silent. No product, no news, not even vacancies.

What about the world? New NGFW vendors in 2023–2026

It may seem that NGFW issues are purely a Russian story. Let's look at the global market.

Global Picture

The global NGFW market is $5.82 billion in 2024, forecasted to reach $13.38 billion by 2032 (Fortune Business Insights, CAGR 11.1%). Dominated by: Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Check Point, Cisco, Juniper.

Key Fact: In the last three years, no new vendor has created a successful classic NGFW product from scratch. In any country in the world.

China: Own Market, Own Rules

The hardware cybersecurity market — 21 billion yuan (~$2.9 billion) in 2024 (IDC / Sangfor). The leader — Sangfor Technologies (11.1%). Leading vendors: Sangfor (Athena NGFW), Hillstone Networks, H3C, Topsec, NSFOCUS, 360 Security, VenusTech. All have existed for over 10 years. There are zero new NGFW startups.

Southeast Asia

The APAC market — $1.70 billion in 2025, CAGR 14.2%. But this is a consumption market, not a production market. The only Indian vendor — GajShield Infotech (Mumbai, "data security firewall" focusing not on perimeter but on data control) — is a niche product. There are no local NGFW vendors in ASEAN.

Latin America

The market — $0.32 billion in 2025. Brazil, Chile, Colombia are investing in cybersecurity, but do not have their own NGFW vendors. The market is serviced by global players.

Africa and the Middle East

The MEA market — $0.51 billion in 2025, forecasted to be $8.6 billion by 2033. Cybersecurity is the #1 risk for African business. But local startups focus on identity and fraud prevention. There are no NGFW vendors on the continent.

Europe

Niche vendors: Stormshield (France, Airbus) — in 2024 released the SN-XL-Series up to 318 Gbps. Clavister (Sweden) — critical infrastructure protection. Both have existed for over 20 years. There are zero new startups.

Global trend: Cloud instead of hardware

The main trend from 2023–2026 is not new classic NGFWs, but SASE/SSE platforms: Cato Networks (Israel, cloud-native NGFW + SD-WAN), Zscaler (Zero Trust), Netskope (CASB/DLP). But even they are not creating a new classic NGFW — they are rethinking the architecture.

Conclusion on the global market

No one in the world has created a new successful classic NGFW from scratch in the past three years. The global market is consolidated around 5–7 vendors. Russia is a unique case: the only country where 50 new NGFW vendors appeared simultaneously in four years. The reason — forced import substitution. But there is one technological barrier: Enterprise-level NGFW is a 5+ year task and billions of rubles.