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: According to our user feedback, pfSense is the superior option when compared to OPNsense. It is highly stable, easy to use, and cost-effective, making it a popular choice. Users appreciate its ability to be customized, its web interface, and its monitoring capabilities. Despite some suggestions for improvements, pfSense is highly praised for its scalability and flexibility. It is also cost-effective for small and medium businesses, with no ongoing fees and a significant return on investment.
"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."
"It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"It is easy to manage, and it doesn't need much knowledge from the team. It is a stable device, and there are many features that are included out of the box."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"Good basic firewall features."
"At our peak time, we have reached more than 5,000 concurrent connections."
"The flexibility of adding new kinds of services without spending any money can't be beaten."
"The initial setup is easy."
"My technicians find the pfSense's web interface very useful. It is very easy to use. pfSense is very reliable and stable. We like the OpenVPN clients that can be deployed using pfSense very much."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are security, user-friendliness, and helpful online management."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me."
"It is a very good solution. I like the dashboard. I can see what is going on and manage it as I like it."
"The most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities."
"It has firewall and VPN capabilities, which are very valuable features."
"I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings."
"It's more secure and more reliable."
"It's open source."
"OPNsense is highly stable."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"The solution lacks multi-language support."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"It is stable, but its stability can 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."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"The stability could be improved."
"I tried pfSense, and it has a big issue with file system consistency, and this is what drove me to OPNsense. The file system stability is quite a big issue for us. We have a lot of outages related to power issues, and OPNsense is much more stable on this side."
"The hotspot and the portal feature in this solution are not stable for WiFi access. We use it at least once or twice every day and it crashes. Some modules can be better by improving detection and having new updates. Additionally, we have some issues with clustering and load balancing that could improve."
"There is more demand for UTMs than a simple firewall. pfSense should support real-time features for handling the latest viruses and threats. It should support real-time checks and real-time status of threats. Some other vendors, such as Fortinet, already offer this type of capability. Such capability will be good for bringing pfSense at the same level as other solutions."
"If you want to take advantage of all of the solution's options, you need to have a bit of a technical background. It's not for a layperson."
"There are a few weaknesses. For example, there is a lack of some features that I have in certain commercial products."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"The support for OPNsense is good because we have documents available on the internet. The support could improve a little."
"There is room for improvement in SSL inspection."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"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 logging could improve in OPNsense."
"The reporting part could be better."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 15 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 21 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while OPNsense is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "Feature-rich, well documented, and there is good support available online". 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. ". Netgate pfSense is most compared with Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, Cisco Secure Firewall, KerioControl and Untangle NG Firewall, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM, WatchGuard Firebox and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Netgate pfSense vs. OPNsense report.
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