NGINX API Gateway vs OPNsense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NGINX API Gateway and OPNsense based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Postman, F5, SmartBear and others in API Monitoring Software.
To learn more, read our detailed AlertSite vs. NGINX API Gateway Report (Updated: September 2023).
744,865 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It's easy to install, and the performance is good.""API routing is the most valuable feature."

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"The solution has high availability.""It's open source.""The IDS and IPS features are valuable. From the usability perspective, there is a lot of good documentation. As IT professionals, we found it very easy to configure the firewall. It was easy to configure and use.""OPNsense is highly stable.""The most valuable features of OPNsense are the GUI and frequent updates.""URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me.""One of the most valuable features is the network checking. Additionally, the firewall and web filtering functionalities are highly useful.""OPNsense is easy to use and open source."

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Cons
"The UI could be more attractive.""It could be more secure because security is always a problem."

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"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 is room for improvement in SSL inspection.""Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine.""The interface of the solution is an area with shortcomings.""The IPS solution could be more reliable.""OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based.""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.""An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We are using the open source version, so there is no cost involved."
  • More NGINX API Gateway Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Its pricing is unbeatable in comparison to other firewalls. You can have a small instance that could be €80 a month with the hardware underneath. Azure Firewall and FortiGate are out of the question at this price. If you are on a public cloud, you need the underlying infrastructure. Other than that, there is no additional cost. If you have it on-prem, you have to buy the server or the appliance. The hardware cost is replaced with the infrastructure cost in the cloud. You also have costs for the public IPs and underlying VMs, but that's not related to OPNsense. It would be the same for a FortiGate deployment on Azure. You need a FortiGate license, and you need the underlying infrastructure that scales up depending on your needs."
  • "It is open source and free."
  • "The price of OPNsense is good."
  • "I'm using the free version of OPNsense. I didn't check the pricing for the solution because I still need to test it before getting the approval to purchase OPNsense, and it isn't easy to get approval from the higher-ups."
  • "It's a free solution."
  • "It's not expensive."
  • "I would rate the pricing three out of ten."
  • "We are using the paid version."
  • More OPNsense Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:API routing is the most valuable feature.
    Top Answer:We are using the open source version, so there is no cost involved.
    Top Answer:Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and client, Open VPN and client, and PPTP client. Both also have intrusion detection and… more »
    Top Answer:The solution is user-friendly and easy to configure.
    Ranking
    Views
    368
    Comparisons
    35
    Reviews
    2
    Average Words per Review
    196
    Rating
    8.5
    3rd
    out of 54 in Firewalls
    Views
    105,921
    Comparisons
    92,771
    Reviews
    17
    Average Words per Review
    468
    Rating
    8.4
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    OPNsense
    Video Not Available
    Overview

    The NGINX Plus API gateway authenticates API calls, routes requests to appropriate backends, applies rate limits to prevent overloading services and to mitigate volumetric attacks, offloads SSL/TLS traffic, and handles errors and exceptions. NGINX's API gateway takes all API requests from a client, determines which services are needed, and delivers the result in a high‑performance manner.

    NGINX Plus API gateway is used to protect APIs with rate‑limiting policies, enforce specific request methods, and provide fine‑grained access control:

    • Ensures application backends are not overwhelmed by a problematic or malicious API clients through rate limits based on attribute of the request.
    • NGINX Plus allows only specific request methods for app services. For example, you can accept only the GET method to ensure that access to your inventory service is read‑only (just returns the inventory).
    • Controls access to specific resources using JSON Web Tokens (JWTs). For example, you can allow write access to a service for API clients with admin credentials, but only read access for clients with standard user credentials.

    OPNsense is a user-friendly, fast-track, open-source FreeBSD-based firewall and routing platform. This software offers features that are generally available from costly commercial firewalls, with the added benefit of open and verifiable sources. The firewall provides users, developers, and organizations with an advantageous environment through transparency. The development of this project is driven by a strong focus on security and code quality.

    The solution offers a variety of components, such as:

    • Weekly security updates. These updates provide the user with the ability to reach new emerging threats in a timely manner through small increments.

    • Two major releases every year. These yearly releases are on a fixed release cycle and provide organizations with the ability to plan ahead of an upcoming upgrade.

    • A roadmap of instructions. Each major release provides a guide and a set of clear goals.

    A team of professionals developed OPNsense. Other professional and experienced software architects, engineers, and developers are encouraged to join in the development of the solution to make it as successful as possible. OPNsense offers a variety of rich features with each release. Each upgrade is based on FreeBSD for continual, long-term support and utilizes a freshly advanced MVC framework based on Phalcon. OPNsense is committed to helping businesses, school networks, remote offices, hotels, and other markets in keeping their data protected.

    OPNsense Core Features

    OPNsense continually offers a free, complete, high-end security platform with new releases and features. With each release, OPNsense focuses on providing more unique and better security features in a timely manner. These features include:

    • Captive Portal
    • Built-in reporting and monitoring tools including RRD Graphs
    • Network Flow Monitoring
    • Traffic Shaper
    • Support for Plugins
    • Granular Control Over State Table
    • Dynamic DNS
    • Two-factor authentication throughout the system
    • Netflow Exporter
    • Encrypted Configuration Backup to Google Drive
    • Forward Caching Proxy (transparent) with Blacklist Support
    • Stateful inspection firewall
    • DNS Server & DNS Forwarder
    • High Availability & Hardware Failover (with configuration synchronization & synchronized state tables)
    • DHCP Server and Relay
    • Virtual Private Network (site to site & road warrior, IPsec, OpenVPN & legacy PPTP support)
    • Intrusion Detection and Prevention
    • 802.1Q VLAN support

    Reviews from Real Users

    OPNsense is a favorite security solution among reviewers for a number of reasons. Two of those reasons include the user-friendliness of the solution, which makes it easy to use, and its ability to easily scale.

    For many, a user-friendly solution is essential. FiorindoDi A., a system administration specialist at a tech vendor, says, "The graphic user interface is very good and it is user-friendly, which makes the product easy-to-use."

    Peerspot reviewers speak of the scalability of the solution. For example, an anonymous cloud and infrastructure manager at a venture capital and private equity firm reviewer notes, "OPNsense is easy to scale when running on the hardware."

    Offer
    Learn more about NGINX API Gateway
    Learn more about OPNsense
    Sample Customers
    Information Not Available
    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.
    Top Industries
    No Data Available
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider24%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Logistics Company12%
    Aerospace/Defense Firm6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government9%
    Educational Organization6%
    Company Size
    No Data Available
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business69%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise19%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise51%

    NGINX API Gateway is ranked 2nd in API Monitoring Software with 2 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 19 reviews. NGINX API Gateway is rated 8.6, while OPNsense is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of NGINX API Gateway writes "Has good performance and is easy to install". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OPNsense writes "There are lots of capabilities built-in: Few would be High Availability, Proxy, DNS, Intrusion detection/prevention, content filtering, traffic and bandwidth management with 2factor autn. ". NGINX API Gateway is most compared with Postman, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Fortinet FortiGate, Untangle NG Firewall and Sophos UTM.

    We monitor all API Monitoring Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.