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Hillstone E-Series vs OpenVPN Access Server comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Hillstone E-Series
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
19th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (40th), SSL VPN (10th)
OpenVPN Access Server
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 1.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenVPN Access Server is 10.9%, down from 15.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenVPN Access Server10.9%
Hillstone E-Series1.9%
Other87.2%
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Offers good features like URL filtering, IPS, and IDS to users
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. When we updated the tool's features, everything became okay. The tool only had some memory-related problems. It took the tool a month to fix the issues.
AS
Network operation center engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Secure remote access has protected critical data and now simplifies role-based user management
An area for improvement is the pricing model. The concurrent user licenses get expensive pretty quickly as your organization grows, so more flexible pricing options would be a huge plus. Another area is configurational disconnect. While the admin web UI handles about 90% of what you need, the moment you have to do deep, advanced routing customization, you still have to drop back to the command line interface to make those changes. It would be great to see those deeper configurations completely integrated into the web portal. Lastly, it would be awesome to see native support for newer, lighter protocols through WireGuard built straight into the platform alongside standard OpenVPN for better performance efficiency.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Five out of five ROI."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"With Hillstone, TCO and ROI are very good, it's an easy sale."
"The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It only took a few hours to deploy."
"Once you set it up correctly, it works and continues to work reliably."
"I like that it's easy to use, easy to download, and not hard to manage."
"​It allows us to give access to our office network in a safe and secure way to users, no matter which computing platform they use. ​"
"OpenVPN Access Server has positively impacted my organization by supporting remote work and improving security since users must authenticate through the VPN first before accessing services such as RDP and SSH, which reduces our attack surface."
"It can securely do remote product updates, push out product updates; just like on our LAN, it's a virtual private network and we just push across our updates."
"The best features of OpenVPN Access Server are that it can integrate with any software and it can work on any platform."
"It can scale well."
"It is open source and therefore affordable for small projects."
 

Cons

"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"The current usage reporting is very basic. I would like to be able to access more granular data."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"The room for improvement would be the SSL VPN license cost."
"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The tool only had some memory-related problems."
"Regarding scalability, I find OpenVPN Access Server scalable with some caveats. However, sometimes your license disappears or gets wiped out when you scale the infrastructure, which can be quite annoying and requires reaching out to support to get set up again."
"The stability had room for improvement."
"The interface could be a little bit better in future iterations."
"There could be an easier way to set up the solution. However, if you use the provided information that comes with the solution there should not be a problem."
"There are tasks that require logging onto the server to run commands, which is not intuitive through the UI."
"There sometimes is an incompatibility between some VPNs."
"I would be more happy with the idea of licensing to have a reduced price with longer, grouped, annual fees. We have a lot of other software that does the same thing. It's a little higher price if you're going with a shorter stint, but there's a reduction in price for three- and five-year contracts."
"The server configuration file needs to be improved, it's the biggest problem in the configuration process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable. It depends on the model. The product's pricing is around 600 USD. You need to buy a software license to activate the features. You need to pay around 150 USD for that."
"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
"OpenVPN Access Server was free for students. I don't know if you have to pay for an advanced version."
"OpenVPN is a free and open-source solution."
"The product's pricing is good value, definitely. It is one of the best features, I would say. Evaluate the product before seeing which type of licensing is good for you. I think there is a good evaluation method available for OpenVPN, so you can just evaluate if it meets your needs. Then go forward with the right licensing policy."
"One of the valuable features of OpenVPN is that it is free for a single user."
"The solution was free of charge."
"OpenVPN is an open-source solution. If the solution is used for personal use it is free. For non-personal use, the solution can be expensive."
"It is an open-source solution, so we don't pay for anything."
"OpenVPN Access Server is free and open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

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How does Fortinet FortiClient compare with Open VPN Access Server?
Fortinet FortiClient is a feature-rich solution that is easy to use and deploy without sacrificing safety and security. It has a very fast connection rate and has a built-in VPN. With this solution...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenVPN Access Server?
The pricing and setup costs for OpenVPN Access Server are on the high side since licenses are not user-dependent but based on the number of connections established. With two free simultaneous conne...
What needs improvement with OpenVPN Access Server?
There are definitely areas for improvement. A broader network level access faces challenges, and the clustering configuration seems insufficient, posing a single point of failure. Moreover, patch m...
 

Also Known As

No data available
OpenVPN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank of China Macao, Instituto Tecnológico Bolivariano, Ministry of Labor in San Salvador, FEDCO
Verizon, Amazon, Disney, HP, Microsoft, IBM, Samsung
Find out what your peers are saying about Hillstone E-Series vs. OpenVPN Access Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.