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Hillstone E-Series vs OpenVPN Access Server comparison

 

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
20th
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
70
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 1.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenVPN Access Server is 11.7%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenVPN Access Server11.7%
Hillstone E-Series1.9%
Other86.4%
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

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Five out of five ROI."
"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."
"With Hillstone, TCO and ROI are very good, it's an easy sale."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness."
"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients secure connectivity from a remote location to their offices or their servers."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ransomware protection that the tool offers."
"The most valuable feature is that I can access my local network remotely and avoid doing all the port forwarding and redirections, and so on."
"Simple to install and maintain, easy to find documentation or help in Google."
"It can scale well."
"Once you set it up correctly, it works and continues to work reliably."
"The product’s adaptability is valuable."
"In my opinion, the most useful function in OpenVPN Access Server is the user management feature, which I regularly use to manage the users and the concurrent sessions."
"OpenVPN Access Server is strong and quite good, and the cross-platform support is excellent, the integration with enterprise-level authentication is very good, and the scalability part is quite strong, providing improved security, better than other tools in the market, and we can utilize it in different ways while integrating with other cloud platforms or on-premises, so in that field, it stands out from others and improved our security."
"OpenVPN Access Server allows us to establish a secure connection to an IP address that would otherwise be inaccessible without using a VPN."
 

Cons

"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"The tool only had some memory-related problems."
"The room for improvement would be the SSL VPN license cost."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"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 provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"This solution should improve the connection speed and the user interface. The stability of this solution should be improved as well."
"They should make the solution more secure by adding some firewall functionalities."
"The stability of the solution could improve."
"The interface could be a little bit better in future iterations."
"​There was one annoying feature where we had to disable and enable the user. I cannot remember what it was exactly, but I think it was for a password lockout. It would be nice if there was a checkbox, or something, in the web interface to allow you to unlock a user whose password was locked."
"I have not seen a return on investment in terms of fewer employees needed, money saved, or time saved."
"When there are too many concurrent users trying to connect at the same time, there may be a bit of a bottleneck."
"My impression of the connection speed using OpenVPN Access Server is that, compared to other VPN solutions, OpenVPN Access Server is a little bit slow, but it is very safe and always connects."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
"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 cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
"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."
"It is free, you buy support."
"I don't need to pay for its license since it is an open-source tool."
"The solution was free of charge."
"Begin with the community version and upgrade to paid one if the need arises."
"The Pro Edition has a reasonable price per user."
"One of the valuable features of OpenVPN is that it is free for a single user."
"With regard to setup cost, pricing and/or licensing, the simple answer is that you'll need to set aside some time to learn it and experiment with it."
"The licensing has a fixed pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Hillstone E-Series?
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. Wh...
What is your primary use case for Hillstone E-Series?
I use the solution in my company for site-to-site VPN, SSL VPNs, URL filtering, IPS, IDS and all the other features which are available in the firewall.
What advice do you have for others considering Hillstone E-Series?
Our company did not use the tool's micro-segmentation features. There were no issues while integrating the tool. I have not used any AI in the tool. I recommend the tool to others. I rate the tool ...
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?
In terms of specific outcomes or metrics with OpenVPN Access Server, we have saved time because otherwise, we need to purchase other software and their software takes a great deal of time in terms ...
What needs improvement with OpenVPN Access Server?
OpenVPN Access Server can be improved by addressing the issue we faced with a single VPN server since it does not allow the creation of replicas without a load balancer, which we found to be an ava...
 

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: June 2026.
909,647 professionals have used our research since 2012.