We performed a comparison between OPNsense and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: OPNsense ultimately won out in this comparison. Our reviewers agree that OPNsense is easy to install and easy to use, while pfSense was less so. One area where pfSense did come out on top was in the free support category.
"The feature my customers find the most valuable is the exportability."
"The main thing that I love the most is its policy and objects. Whenever I try to give access to a user, I can create an object via group creation in the object fields. This way, I am not able to enter a user in the policy repeatedly."
"Its Snort 3 IPS has better flexibility as far as being able to write rules. This gives me better granularity."
"The security features are the most valuable. My customers find the security products very useful because nowadays there are many threats from the internet and other malicious users. The security products really help."
"Cisco's engineer helped us with a lot of scripting to see what existed. Previously, we didn't have a proper policy. In fact, we didn't have any policy because we didn't have any firewall for the data center, so generating a policy was a big challenge. Cisco's engineer helped us to do some scripting and find out what kind of policy we can have and organize those policies. That was nice."
"The ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager) which is the graphical user interface, works out, and Cisco keeps it current."
"ASA integrates with FirePOWER, IPS functionality, malware filtering, etc. This functionality wasn't there in the past. With its cloud architecture, Cisco can filter traffic at the engine layer. Evasive encryptions can be entered into the application, like BitTorrent or Skype. This wasn't possible to control through a traditional firewall."
"Previously, our customers had to always utilize hand-to-hand delivery. Now, they are able to move completely to a secure digital method. They use a strictly dark fiber optics connection from a central location to the endpoint."
"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."
"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."
"The system in general is quite flexible."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"The technical support is very good."
"What I like best about OPNsense is that, as a firewall, it's pretty good. I'm quite impressed with it. I had an excellent experience with OPNsense, which helped me achieve the targets I wanted."
"The solution has high availability."
"We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable."
"It is a very good solution for enterprises that need a VPN for their employees. It is the best way to provide a remote work facility to employees at a very low cost. Other solutions that I have had in the past were very expensive. Enterprises don't always have that kind of money to invest."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are security, user-friendliness, and helpful online management."
"The solution is very easy to use and configure."
"What I found most valuable is the cost of the platform, the flexibility of the platform, and the fact that the ongoing fees are not there as they are with the competitor. Some people may think you're taking a risk with using Opensource. I think it just provides the end user, specifically for us small, medium business providers of services, the flexibility we need at the right cost to provide them a higher end, almost enterprise type service."
"This solution could be more granular and user-friendly."
"The operation of the ASA is good but the problem is that whenever you require an upgrade, there are multiple pieces of software that you have to upgrade. Extensive planning is required, because if you upgrade one piece of the software it has to be compatible with the others as well. You always need to check the compatibility metrics."
"I would like more features in conjunction with other solutions, like Fortinet."
"Recently, we have been having an issue with the ASA firewall. We haven't found the root cause yet and are still working on it. We failed over the firewall from active to passive and suddenly that resolved the issue. We are now working to find the root cause."
"It would be great to have all the data correlated to have an overview and one point of administration."
"One thing that Cisco could improve is the GUI. The graphic user interface should be more user-friendly."
"Cisco Secure Firewall should be easier to handle. It uses ASDM, which is not easy to understand. It would be better if there was direct access via HTTPS."
"I'm not a big fan of the FDM (Firepower Device Manager) that comes with Firepower. I found out that you need to use the Firepower Management Center, the FMC, to manage the firewalls a lot better. You can get a lot more granular with the configuration in the FMC, versus the FDM that comes out-of-the-box with it. FDM is like Firepower for dummies."
"Its interface should be a little bit better."
"The IPS solution could be more reliable."
"The interface isn't so friendly user. But we have some technicians here who are quite confident with this tool. OPNSense could maybe add sets of rules so it's simpler to manage different groups with particular needs."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"There is room for improvement in SSL inspection."
"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."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"More documentation would be great, especially on new features because sometimes, when new features come out, you don't get to understand them right off the bat. You have to really spend a lot of time understanding them. So, more documentation would be awesome."
"The solution could be more user-friendly, and the graphical interface needs some work so that someone without an IT background can use the application. I would like the ability to manage the on-premise appliance from the cloud. When I'm not in the office, it would be great to connect to the pfSense server and administer the network remotely."
"Other solutions provide more scope for growth. For instance, we can have only 10 to 20 employees on VPN, but other solutions can support more users. We also have more capabilities to increase the performance of the solution."
"In terms of areas of improvement, the interface seemed like it had a lot. The GUI interface that I had gotten into was rather elaborate. I don't know if they could zero in on some markets and potentially for small, medium businesses specifically, give them a stripped-down version of the GUI for pfSense."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"The integration should be improved."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
OPNsense is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 15 reviews while pfSense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 31 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.2, while pfSense is rated 8.6. 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. ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of pfSense writes "Feature-rich, well documented, and there is good support available online". OPNsense is most compared with Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos XG, Fortinet FortiGate, Sophos UTM and Check Point NGFW, whereas pfSense is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and WatchGuard Firebox. See our OPNsense vs. pfSense report.
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