Comparison conclusions:
pfSense offers paid options for additional support and features (pfSense Plus), a wider range of features and a larger community, but might have a steeper learning curve.
OPNsense provides a clean interface and built-in security features, but its community and documentation are smaller
The summary above is based on 40 interviews we conducted with pfSense and OPNsense users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution."
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"You can purchase switches and you don't need to do anything with them. You just put in the firewall and the switches get all the policies and rules that you already have in the firewall. With Fortinet, you just connect the FortiSwitch to the Fortinet and that's it."
"Fortinet FortiGate's reliability is valuable."
"We use a southern institution that's audited for IT security and the reporting that automatically comes off the unit makes it much easier to meet compliance standards and makes it easier as far as the amount of time that has to be spent to compile that information. If you get your reporting set up correctly when you initially set it up, you just select the one you want and hit print. The auditing trail on it is the best feature."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"Content protection, content inspection, and the application level firewall."
"I have found the most valuable features to be antivirus and malware protection."
"The flexibility of adding new kinds of services without spending any money can't be beaten."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"I mostly like all of it. Whatever we use is valuable."
"It is a good firewall with good performance."
"The DNS-level filtering is impressive for thwarting time scanners."
"The most valuable features of OPNsense are the GUI and frequent updates."
"The solution is user-friendly and easy to configure."
"The most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities."
"We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"It's open source."
"OPNsense is easy to scale when running on the hardware."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"Web security solutions can be improved."
"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."
"Its customer service could be better."
"Netgate pfSense needs to improve the configuration for a VPN."
"It requires more attention to provide a better alternative for open source to small government or educational institutions with reduced budgets in terms of technology."
"The usage reports can be better."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"The access control aspect of the product could be improved."
"It is not centrally managed, where you log into the website and can see all your services there. We would like to be able to see is all the configurations from a central interface on all our pfSenses."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
"It could use a little bit of improvement in the reporting."
"We did not like the fact that you have to configure everything with the graphic user interface. We have used other firewalls, such as FortiGate, that you can configure via code. OPNsense is not easy to integrate. When you are deploying via GitHub or another source repository, this is not possible. That's one thing we didn't like much."
"The scalability needs improvement."
"There are some add-ons that need enhancements to make management easier for users, especially the reporting features. Some reports don't show the level of detail I'm looking for, and I've had trouble installing certain add-ons, especially for Internet bandwidth shaping within my company."
"There should be more technical documentation."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
"I would like better documentation concerning the provided packages and their integration."
"An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while OPNsense is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". Netgate pfSense is most compared with Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM, IPFire and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Netgate pfSense vs. OPNsense report.
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