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OPNsense vs Smoothwall Firewall 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

OPNsense
Ranking in Firewalls
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Smoothwall Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
45th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of OPNsense is 7.2%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Smoothwall Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OPNsense7.2%
Smoothwall Firewall0.4%
Other92.4%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

PM
IT Manager at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Open-source firewall has provided affordable real-time protection and secure remote access
In my opinion, OPNsense could improve by incorporating either an open side of wireless management or a way that you can also manage your interconnected devices. You could easily have SNMP, Simple Network Management Protocol, incorporated in it so that you can easily manage the devices and easily get the information about the devices that you are managing. Additionally, the inclusion of Pi-hole would allow you to create an ad-free network instead of adding it on a separate device. I would prefer that incorporated into OPNsense, or if it is there, I would appreciate guidance on how to use it.
Himanshu-Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at Qualic
Offers good scalability and monitoring features
There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we don't have to jump around to different pages. For example, if we're creating a rule, we should be able to do everything on the same page. Just a drop-down thing or something. This would improve productivity.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is user-friendly and easy to configure."
"URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me."
"OPNsense is highly stable."
"It has an open license. It works very well, and there is an update every month."
"OPNsense can be deployed in the cloud and on-premises, and I have used OPNsense in many different types of companies, such as financial and metropolitan."
"I find everything valuable in OPNsense; the configuration and reporting aspects are what we require, reporting on user access and data consumed is fascinating in OPNsense, and the configuration offers a clear idea of everything that I have configured in DHCP."
"OPNsense impacts my projects and home network positively because its cost-effectiveness is perfect for lab and enterprise setup without expensive licensing, and the flexibility, easy VLAN and DMZ configuration supports different zones such as web servers, mail servers, and log servers."
"I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings."
"It was easy to initially deploy it."
 

Cons

"The scalability needs improvement."
"The support for OPNsense is good because we have documents available on the internet. The support could improve a little."
"I would like to see better SD-WAN performance."
"In our experience, OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"There is room for improvement in SSL inspection."
"FortiGate is a better firewall but that is commercial software that you have to buy a license for."
"When using the solution at the beginning was difficult. There was a steep learning curve."
"The logging could improve in OPNsense."
"There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we don't have to jump around to different pages."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not an expensive product. Basically, I deployed it because it was the fastest solution to satisfy our needs in open source."
"It's not expensive."
"We are using the paid version."
"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, especially considering the availability of a free community edition."
"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."
"There are no licensing costs for OPNsence."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
University
17%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 client, Open VPN and client, and PPTP client. Both also have intrusion detection a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?
Setup cost is almost zero as one can simulate the whole environment using open source version. Pricing seems fair enough. Open source license allows a beginner to have a complete firewall solution ...
What needs improvement with OPNsense?
When I talk about VPN, I am not completely satisfied with the VPN functions of OPNsense. What I have received so far is that sometimes the VPN route caches for some time and sometimes I want to cha...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
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