No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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 (39th), SSL VPN (10th)
OpenVPN Access Server
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 1.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenVPN Access Server is 11.7%, down from 12.7% 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

"The initial setup was straightforward. It only took a few hours to deploy."
"If an organization is not looking for a web proxy, it's a very, very good product."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ransomware protection that the tool offers."
"Five out of five ROI."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"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."
"This solution has two main features that we find very valuable; a threat-intelligence option, and a web/application filtering option. The technical support team are very good and very quick."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"OpenVPN Access Server has positively impacted our organization by enabling remote issue resolution in minutes where previously critical alerts required hours of travel to fix, alongside improved productivity as employees can quickly access internal resources, file servers, and collaborate with teams."
"Highly configurable. You can create your own custom client installer and can rebrand the server-side program."
"For us, it's important that OpenVPN Access Server is cheap and that we get to use it ourselves."
"Two-factor authentication allows us to not force frequent password changes."
"The solution is reliable, easy to use, and open source. It's free at no cost."
"The setup is easy."
"We use OpenVPN Access Server to connect from site to site from our data center to our customer site and to dial and access our VPN to our network."
"The best features OpenVPN Access Server offers is whitelisting members in my company who have joined recently; it is really easy to use, and it is really easy to set up OpenVPN Access Server as an internal app."
 

Cons

"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"The tool only had some memory-related problems."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The current usage reporting is very basic. I would like to be able to access more granular data."
"The room for improvement would be the SSL VPN license cost."
"The upgrade path from older versions was more difficult than we wanted to tackle, so we ran an older version of the software for longer than I wanted. Patching, updating, and migrating to newer versions was a problem for us. That said, we were on a rather old version that I inherited yet it worked rock solid."
"It requires some experience of Linux server configuration to set it up."
"The solution can be more compatible with different operating systems."
"The product is fully customized through configuration files, which is all achieved through manual data entry."
"There sometimes is an incompatibility between some VPNs."
"Needs a better GUI."
"It should automate our processes."
"The plan for OpenVPN Access Server could be improved. When adding new people, better plans for startups would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
"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 solution was free of charge."
"The licensing has a fixed pricing."
"It is free, you buy support."
"It is an open-source solution, so we don't pay for anything."
"One of the valuable features of OpenVPN is that it is free for a single user."
"The solution is free of cost."
"I would say the product's pricing is a good value. I would recommend to other companies to implement it. I've seen other software, in tandem with the service, to be very expensive."
"OpenVPN Access Server is free and open source."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Infrastructure VPN solutions are best for your needs.
904,016 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise18
 

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?
Do not assume the pricing or purchasing path will be straightforward, especially through AWS Marketplace. Confirm in writing whether your intended setup requires PAYG, BYOL, a Marketplace amendment...
What needs improvement with OpenVPN Access Server?
The licensing and purchasing workflow needs serious improvement. OpenVPN should provide clear documentation for customers who need multiple Access Server instances, different connection counts, AWS...
 

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.
904,016 professionals have used our research since 2012.