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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
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (41st), 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 October 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 9.6%, down from 15.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenVPN Access Server9.6%
Hillstone E-Series1.9%
Other88.5%
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 most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."
"If an organization is not looking for a web proxy, it's a very, very good product."
"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."
"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."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"I have found the stability to be good."
"The setup is easy."
"There is support for multi-factor authentication."
"For those looking into OpenVPN Access Server, I recommend it for its strong security, user-friendly access management, and operational scale."
"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."
"What I appreciate the most about OpenVPN Access Server is that it's very easy to set up."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"This server allows you to connect to a network that does not have any public IP addresses."
 

Cons

"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The tool only had some memory-related problems."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"The current usage reporting is very basic. I would like to be able to access more granular data."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"The product is fully customized through configuration files, which is all achieved through manual data entry."
"The connections could be faster and more stable."
"The plan for OpenVPN Access Server could be improved. When adding new people, better plans for startups would be beneficial."
"For an infrastructure product, that is not acceptable."
"My impression of the connection speed when using OpenVPN Access Server compared to other VPN solutions is that it is stable and reliable, but it can be resource-heavy compared to newer solutions, handling day-to-day corporate traffic well while experiencing higher CPU utilization and slightly slower connection throughput compared directly to lighter protocols like WireGuard."
"OpenVPN Access Server could be improved in several areas. The encryption strength is inevitably lower compared with the latest technologies, and when I try to add features like two-factor authentication, the needed plugins and so on often are not really available or do not fit well."
"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."
"I want the tool to be faster. We have experienced connectivity issues while using OpenVPN and FortiClient."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
"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."
"One of the valuable features of OpenVPN is that it is free for a single user."
"I don't need to pay for its license since it is an open-source tool."
"Begin with the community version and upgrade to paid one if the need arises."
"The product offers yearly as well as monthly subscription plans. It has moderate pricing."
"It is free, you buy support."
"The price point is fantastic since it is free."
"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."
"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%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
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.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.