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IPFire vs OPNsense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
411
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
IPFire
Ranking in Firewalls
37th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OPNsense
Ranking in Firewalls
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.1%, up from 18.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IPFire is 2.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 11.1%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate20.1%
OPNsense11.1%
IPFire2.1%
Other66.69999999999999%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Amr Fouad - PeerSpot reviewer
Prevented any kind of hacking and enables us to comply with customer requirements
We use the solution for firewall, intrusion prevention and detection. We installed it in order to comply with customers requirements IPFire has prevented any kind of hacking and enables us to comply with customer requirements. Accessing the internet was a bit complicated. We opted for this…
Moutaz Sheikh Alard - PeerSpot reviewer
Has helped simulate enterprise security setups and strengthens network segmentation practices
For my capstone, I use OPNsense for my project and its broader benefits for enterprise and cybersecurity context. OPNsense is an open source based firewall and routing platform. It offers enterprise-grade features such as intrusion detection and prevention system, VPN support, traffic shaping, and web filtering, all without license cost. This platform has a modular design, a clean web-based GUI, and frequent updates that prioritize security and usability. It competes with commercial firewalls such as Cisco ASA, FortiGate, and Palo Alto, but stands out because it's community-driven, cost-effective, and transparent. I find OPNsense's feature of acting as a central firewall and gateway most valuable, providing robust point segmentation between the internal network and DMZs in my capstone project, intrusion detection to monitor malicious traffic, VPN services for secure remote access, and logging and monitoring for compliance and auditing. This allows me to simulate a real-world enterprise environment on a smaller scale, demonstrating both security hardening and network efficiency. OPNsense impacts my projects and home network positively because its cost-effectiveness is perfect for lab and enterprise setup without expensive licensing. The flexibility, easy VLAN and DMZ configuration supports different zones such as web servers, mail servers, and log servers. The security-first design for IDS/IPS integration helps me showcase modern defense-in-depth strategies. The user-friendly management through the web GUI makes it possible to manage complex firewall rules clearly, which is critical when documenting and presenting a capstone. Scalability is also an advantage. Although my project is lab-based, OPNsense can scale into production deployments in SMBs and enterprise.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I'm looking forward to FortiGate's dashboard features, insights, application oversight, and monitoring, which could help us significantly."
"We can use our devices to check all of the perimeters. It secures email websites."
"Fortinet FortiGate has positively impacted our organization by preventing hackers from accessing our network."
"Fortinet FortiGate provides combined features that other firewalls do not offer, offering a full package cost-effective manager with all integration supported."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a simple solution, and the integration with other solutions in the Fortinet portfolio, such as the Security Fabric integration, is competitive."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable; I am told that Fortinet FortiGate is one of the best solutions available, and I believe it."
"IPFire has prevented any kind of hacking and enables us to comply with customer requirements."
"I would rate the stability as ten out of ten for IPFire."
"The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication. Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls. Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used."
"The interface and the dashboard are the most valuable features of this solution."
"OPNsense is easy to use and open source."
"It's more secure and more reliable."
"It has an open license. It works very well, and there is an update every month."
"The solution is good for a basic firewall for a small business or for home use."
"I have found the solution has some great features overall, such as guest access capabilities, dashboards, and ease of use. There is plenty of documentation and support and it has the plugins that I needed."
"We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience."
 

Cons

"In terms of pricing, Fortinet needs to do more to compete effectively."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"I wish that they could integrate zero-trust technology into Fortinet FortiGate. I am not sure whether it has been done already, but if they could implement that, it would help significantly."
"I would rate the technical support of Fortinet FortiGate as a five because it is not as strong as Cisco. Additionally, the turnaround time is very high compared to Cisco."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"Regarding challenges, customers initially faced issues like internet dropping, but after firmware upgrades, everything worked well."
"Accessing the internet was a bit complicated."
"The graphical interface could be much better."
"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."
"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."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"The solution could be more secure."
"The reporting part could be better."
"The documentation should be clearer because I faced some difficulties navigating many options."
"There is room for improvement in SSL inspection."
"The only thing that I would like to see improved is the Insight or the NetFlow analysis part. It would be good to have the possibility to dig down on the Insight platform. Right now, we can easily do only a few analyses. If this page becomes more powerful, it surely will be a well-adopted platform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is quite good. I don't have a public site, such as in Azure, where I can see the pricing. I always have to go through the distributor, and that could take some time to get the real price for each appliance."
"The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
"The price range is quite acceptable and normal."
"It is somewhat expensive compared to other solutions such as Sophos."
"You need to pay a license for this solution. Our licensing is now done in our subsidiary."
"We pay for the solution annually."
"The price of FortiGate is reasonable as I plan to buy new switches. The initial gadgets are already booted, and the pricing seems normal on the market. As for additional costs, I haven't subscribed to many extra features, so I'm only using what I need. Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us."
"They need to be competitive with other solutions."
Information not available
"It's a free solution."
"We are not paying any licensing fees. OPNsense is completely free for us."
"It is free."
"It is a free solution, and when you compare it to alternatives like FortiGate, which is quite powerful but also costly, the value becomes evident."
"OPNsense is open source software so at this time it is free for us to use."
"The solution is not expensive."
"We are using the paid version."
"It's not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Comms Service Provider
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
16%
University
6%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business261
Midsize Enterprise99
Large Enterprise143
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What needs improvement with IPFire?
The graphical interface could be much better.
What is your primary use case for IPFire?
I use IPFire ( /products/ipfire-reviews ) to protect my home.
What advice do you have for others considering IPFire?
Sometimes configuring IPFire is challenging. Overall, I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.
What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?
Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and cl...
What do you like most about OPNsense?
What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?
The pricing is competitive when compared to vendors like Palo and FortiNet.
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
1. Siemens 2. IBM 3. Cisco 4. Dell 5. HP 6. Intel 7. Oracle 8. Google 9. Microsoft 10. Amazon 11. Apple 12. Facebook 13. Twitter 14. Netflix 15. Adobe 16. SAP 17. VMware 18. Juniper Networks 19. Ericsson 20. Nokia 21. AT&T 22. Verizon 23. T-Mobile 24. Vodafone 25. Orange 26. Deutsche Telekom 27. British Telecom 28. Comcast 29. Time Warner 30. Sony 31. Samsung 32. LG
1. Deciso B.V. 2. iXsystems, Inc.  3. EuroBSDCon  4. Netgate  5. Claranet  6. Voleatech  7. Open Systems AG  8. Securebit AG  9. Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH  10. AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH  Additional customers include: T-Systems International GmbH, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone GmbH, 1&1 IONOS SE, OVHcloud, Hetzner Online GmbH, Strato AG, PlusServer GmbH, Host Europe GmbH, United Internet AG, 1&1 Versatel Deutschland GmbH, QSC AG, Bechtle AG, Cancom SE, Computacenter AG & Co. oHG, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH, Atos SE, Capgemini SE, Accenture plc, IBM Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about IPFire vs. OPNsense and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.