OPNsense vs SonicWall NSv comparison

OPNsense and SonicWall are both solutions in the Firewalls category. OPNsense is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.1, while SonicWall is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.4. OPNsense holds a 11.2% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to SonicWall’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of OPNsense users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of SonicWall users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

OPNsense and SonicWall NSv are two prominent network security solutions. SonicWall NSv offers advanced features, while OPNsense is favored for its flexibility and open-source model.

Features: OPNsense offers strong customization options, comprehensive reporting capabilities, and an open-source model. SonicWall NSv is noted for its robust threat intelligence, advanced security features, and superior feature set.

Room for Improvement: OPNsense could benefit from enhanced hardware compatibility, simplified settings, and more accessible documentation. SonicWall NSv users highlight the need for a more user-friendly configuration process, better documentation, and an improved user interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: OPNsense is easier to deploy due to simpler initial setup processes. SonicWall NSv provides superior customer support for troubleshooting and guidance.

Pricing and ROI: OPNsense's open-source nature results in lower setup costs and favorable ROI. SonicWall NSv, despite higher costs, delivers good value due to its superior features and support, making it potentially costly for smaller organizations.

To learn more, read our detailed OPNsense vs. SonicWall NSv Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

OPNsense vs. SonicWall NSv

December 2025

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Helped 881,114 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

5.8

Fortinet FortiGate offers cost-effective, robust security, reducing expenses, enhancing efficiency, easy implementation, quick ROI, and improved network management.

Sentiment score

3.8

OPNsense offers quick ROI, annual savings, improved network protection, efficiency, but faces challenges like market disruptions and cyber threats.

Sentiment score

4.9

SonicWall NSv efficiently saves time and costs, enhancing productivity and revenue opportunities with streamlined features and ease of deployment.

Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.

MURALI NIDAMANURI

Managing Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The automation part is giving us a cost benefit and speed; we can react faster.

Bart Homblé

BDM Fortinet & BDM Teamlead at Exclusive Networks

It's a very useful tool to mitigate and protect your enterprise.

Bernard Samontanes

Staff Infrastructure & Security Engineer at Mozn Systems

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

The network attacks reduced by approximately 60% after using that, even without customizing the custom configuration yet.

Mahmoud Suleiman

Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 11-50 employees

For a very little investment, I was able to increase the security of my network.

Richard Chamberlain

Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the OPNsense report

Investment was challenging but strategic, given its advantages like 30% depreciation in the Indian ecosystem by the third year.

reviewer2092029

CEO at a recruiting/HR firm with 11-50 employees

I have seen a return on investment that includes money saved, time saved, and fewer employees needed.

Mohamed Fouad

Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Integrated Solutions

Based on SonicWall NSv, it helped us to easily navigate through everything and get done what we needed in a very quick manner.

Samodthemiya Gamage

Senior Cybersecurity Analyst at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the SonicWall NSv report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.6

Fortinet FortiGate's customer service is generally praised for responsiveness, though some users experience delays in critical situations.

Sentiment score

4.9

Users often solve issues using online resources, valuing community help, but suggest OPNsense centralize and improve support options.

Sentiment score

8.5

SonicWall NSv is highly praised for its prompt, effective, and friendly customer support, often rated highly for reliability.

The quick resolution of issues with Fortinet FortiGate is due to the support of the company and the fact that the equipment is easy to work with.

Alexandre Menezes

IT Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

I would rate the technical support for Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.

AnishKumar

NAC Support at Rah Infotech Pvt Ltd

As a solution provider, when I encounter problems, I connect directly with Fortinet support, and they provide solutions within a very short time.

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

Compared to some open-source projects with weak support, OPNsense stands out for having both a strong community and commercial backing options.

Moutaz Sheikh Alard

ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

I mainly rely on community support since the solution is open source.

Stephen Zoran

Senior Client Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

If you say you do not have one, it is finished. This is where the monopoly starts.

Harry Fusser

Senior Solutions Engineer at a educational organization with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the OPNsense report

Customer support for SonicWall NSv is top-notch.

Bnelson Bosundra

IT systems and network engineer at Nelo Global Technologies Africa Limited

Whenever I create a case regarding any issue, their support is prompt and effective, adhering to the SLA, which leaves our customers very satisfied.

Parvendra Kumar

Project Manager in IT at IT Solutions India Pvt. Ltd.

I would rate the customer support a 10 out of 10.

Deljin Davis

HPC engineer at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the SonicWall NSv report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

Fortinet FortiGate is scalable and popular for SMEs but requires careful design and may incur scaling costs and licensing constraints.

Sentiment score

6.6

OPNsense is scalable and adaptable, supporting small to large deployments with flexibility in hardware upgrades and virtual machines.

Sentiment score

7.5

SonicWall NSv excels in scalable, seamless cloud transitions with efficient expansion, despite setup challenges and VM performance adjustments.

They scale up really well from smaller models like the FortiGate 40 and 50 to bigger sites with the FortiGate 100 for more throughput - up to enterprise datacenters.

Ian Manton

IT Manager at Daltons Limited

The variation comes in terms of the interfaces and throughputs, but from a security perspective, you get the same benefit, irrespective of whether you have an entry-level unit or an enterprise.

reviewer2667480

Cewa Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

We determine sizing based on multiple factors: number of users, available links, traffic types, server count, services in use, and whether services will be published.

FatmaSamy

General Surgery Specialist at Helwan University Cairo

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

OPNsense is an extremely scalable solution.

Chirosca Alecsandru

Owner at Networks srl

I use Zenarmor, pinning it to one core for packet inspection, and the CPU performance seems very good.

Stephen Zoran

Senior Client Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

OPNsense's scalability is excellent; I just need to resize my hardware and upgrade the server, and voilà, I am good to go.

Mahmoud Suleiman

Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the OPNsense report

It has met our organization's needs by allowing us to scale our security posture consistently with our cloud compute growth, increased traffic and user areas, new cloud regions, and policy complexity growth.

Samodthemiya Gamage

Senior Cybersecurity Analyst at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Nonetheless, the product is robust, eliminating major scalability concerns.

reviewer2092029

CEO at a recruiting/HR firm with 11-50 employees

On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate its scalability as eight to nine.

Munjal Bhalgama

Owner at IT CARE

For more quotes and insights, download the SonicWall NSv report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

Fortinet FortiGate is praised for its stability, with effective long-term performance and improvements in newer firmware versions.

Sentiment score

7.5

OPNsense is highly stable and reliable, excelling in security and usability, but occasionally faces VPN and update issues.

Sentiment score

8.4

SonicWall NSv offers reliable, secure performance for over 100 users, with quick support, minor issues, and strong stability.

We're experiencing 99.999% availability consistently.

Ricardo Biggs

Manager, Information Technology at a consumer goods company with 11-50 employees

I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.

AnishKumar

NAC Support at Rah Infotech Pvt Ltd

Currently, we are experiencing a general outage of one of the main internet service providers of the Dominican Republic, and we have not been impacted in our operations because with SD-WAN, we have another internet service provider and we are working with the second WAN connection without any disruption.

Juan Frias

CISO at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

For home and small network use, OPNsense is also reliable, providing enterprise-grade security at no cost.

Moutaz Sheikh Alard

ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

OPNsense is the same, but it does have a way of installing the Realtek drivers, which gives you a lot more stability overall on the system.

RicardoDias

Network and Programming Specialist at Twentytwo Integration

The only challenge faced was its inadequacy to manage large voice traffic effectively, even with dedicated hardware.

reviewer1027455

Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the OPNsense report

Understanding and handling these devices onsite was limited, requiring external support.

reviewer2092029

CEO at a recruiting/HR firm with 11-50 employees

It rates around eight to nine in terms of stability, and it is quite good.

Munjal Bhalgama

Owner at IT CARE

Regarding security, we have not had any issues since we have been using SonicWall NSv, and everything is usually up to date.

Tanaka Benson Mujanja

DevOps Support Engineer at Bluegrass

For more quotes and insights, download the SonicWall NSv report

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiGate needs enhanced UI, simplified licensing, improved performance, reporting, third-party integration, and expanded automation features.

OPNsense's challenges include interface usability, integration issues, and the need for improved VPN, analytics, and virtualization support.

SonicWall NSv users desire better pricing, support, cloud integration, user interfaces, and improvements in reporting, authentication, and setup processes.

These sessions should be around five to ten minutes long, allowing users and partners to quickly grasp the information without disrupting their daily tasks.

MURALI NIDAMANURI

Managing Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The solution should be able to implement machine learning and analytics of all the logs for threat detection and protection.

Elvis Mahadeo

Senior Systems Engineer at Caribbean Development Company

It would be better for customers to get immediate replacements even with a standard subscription.

Pravin Mandlik

Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

I would like the APIs to be more mature and more developed and have more options to automate threat hunting.

Chirosca Alecsandru

Owner at Networks srl

Enhancing its performance for significant amounts of data traffic would make it closer to a perfect solution.

reviewer1027455

Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

It would be beneficial if they could create some videos on how to set it up themselves.

Richard Chamberlain

Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the OPNsense report

I believe that application-based QoS policy is very important given the current environment. This feature should be available for application QoS as well in this firewall.

Parvendra Kumar

Project Manager in IT at IT Solutions India Pvt. Ltd.

When the software was downloaded, optimal hardware utilization was lacking, making hardware upgrades inevitable.

reviewer2092029

CEO at a recruiting/HR firm with 11-50 employees

Currently, we are getting challenges with user-wise reports and other reporting details.

Munjal Bhalgama

Owner at IT CARE

For more quotes and insights, download the SonicWall NSv report

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find Fortinet FortiGate costly initially, but cheaper overall, despite some high renewal and setup costs.

OPNsense is a cost-effective, open-source firewall solution offering affordability compared to commercial firewalls, appealing to enterprises.

SonicWall NSv pricing is moderate to high with costs starting at $25,000, appreciated for its technology and ease of use.

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.

AiméKouchade

Network & System Admin at Invoke Studios

It offers cost savings as it is generally cheaper than the competition.

NilsPaley

IT Infrastructure Architect at Apotek 1

It is about 20% cheaper.

MithatBulut

Network Security Engineer at TD SYNNEX

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

It is free.

Samo Primožič

Technical support engineer at ADVANT računalniški inženiring, komunikacije, svetovanje in distribucija d.o.o.

They use AI for packet inspection, which integrates with OPNsense and pfSense.

RicardoDias

Network and Programming Specialist at Twentytwo Integration

I consider the pricing of OPNsense to be high when compared with other market products.

reviewer1027455

Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the OPNsense report

The Global VPN will be chargeable in our product, unlike Fortinet or Sophos, where it is free—this is a major difference.

Munjal Bhalgama

Owner at IT CARE

SonicWall NSv was a bit expensive for the subscription.

reviewer2774850

Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that it is low cost.

Mohamed Fouad

Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Integrated Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the SonicWall NSv report

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiGate provides robust, flexible security solutions with key features like web filtering, SSL VPN, SD-WAN, and centralized management.

OPNsense is user-friendly and cost-effective, offering extensive VPN, firewall features, and easy scalability with strong community support.

SonicWall NSv offers user-friendly, powerful security features with advanced threat protection, automation, and cost-effective solutions for businesses.

These features help reduce our downtime, manage the ISPs, and deploy SLAs for all the website traffic.

Syed Ali Waqas

Head IT at Burraq Cyber Security Solutions

The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring.

Viraj Fernandopulle

General Manager Group IT at DART GLOBAL LOGISTICS PTE. LTD.

We got a firewall and gave an SSL VPN to my client to connect to their servers, after which, such kind of activities involving ransomware attacks stopped.

VINAY GUJARATHI

Owner at Mindware Computer Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

The most valuable features include the basic firewall functionality and the GeoIP location services.

reviewer1027455

Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

I can have a Wi-Fi VLAN and feel secure that the server network or the VM network that I have on a different VLAN are isolated, and they cannot talk to one another, which adds a great level of security.

Richard Chamberlain

Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

It offers enterprise-grade features such as intrusion detection and prevention system, VPN support, traffic shaping, and web filtering, all without license cost.

Moutaz Sheikh Alard

ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the OPNsense report

The cloud delivery threat intelligence spots suspicious behavior in just a few seconds, stopping it before execution, automatically blocking and quarantining files.

Bnelson Bosundra

IT systems and network engineer at Nelo Global Technologies Africa Limited

SonicWall NSv positively impacts my organization by providing firewall capabilities as a virtual firewall while offering the capabilities of a physical firewall with great performance and reliability.

Mohamed Fouad

Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Integrated Solutions

SonicWall NSv has positively impacted my organization by helping us access our whitelisted web apps since we manage web apps while ensuring proper standards to prevent any information leaks.

Tanaka Benson Mujanja

DevOps Support Engineer at Bluegrass

For more quotes and insights, download the SonicWall NSv report

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 18.8%, down from 20.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 11.2%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall NSv is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate	18.8%
OPNsense	11.2%
SonicWall NSv	0.3%
Other	69.7%

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

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.

Read full review

Moutaz Sheikh Alard

ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

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.

Read full review

Samodthemiya Gamage

Senior Cybersecurity Analyst at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Secures east-west cloud traffic and improves threat visibility through deep inspection

SonicWall NSv offers great features. I cannot pinpoint a single best feature, but the best feature is the ability to deliver the full, high-efficiency inspection power of a physical SonicWall, including zero-day defense using Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection to the cloud, efficiently removing the performance versus cloud trade-off typically associated with virtual firewalls. Regarding deep memory inspection and real-time zero-day defense in SonicWall NSv, deep memory inspection is distinct from traditional sandboxing methods because it is focused on what is happening in the memory during file execution time, rather than just observing file system behavior. The deep memory inspection process addresses all challenges by employing a proprietary technique within the secure analysis environment, focusing on CPU-level analysis and real-time verdict. Those are the key points. SonicWall NSv's user interface is quite clear and easy to navigate. If someone has not worked with SonicWall and this is their first experience with the platform, I would highly recommend it. It is very easy to navigate and very user-friendly. SonicWall NSv has positively impacted our organization because we gained clear visibility into our network, and it helps to identify potential security issues that we had. We were able to remediate those issues, and so far, we have had a great experience with SonicWall NSv. We were able to manage approximately 99% of network-based attacks through this platform.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

University

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Security Firm

12%

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	357
Midsize Enterprise	133
Large Enterprise	188

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	8

Questions from the Community

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As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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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...

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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.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that since OPNsense is free, the licensing and setup was eas...

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What do you like most about SonicWall NSV?

The product helps improve our security.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall NSV?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it's okay.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SonicWall NSV?

While I have not encountered significant challenges, during the configuration part, I noticed that some features, suc...

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Comparisons

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 6% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Netgate pfSense vs OPNsense

Compared 46% of the time

IPFire vs OPNsense

Compared 11% of the time

Sophos Firewall vs OPNsense

Compared 9% of the time

Sophos UTM vs OPNsense

Compared 3% of the time

Untangle NG Firewall vs OPNsense

Compared 2% of the time

More OPNsense Competitors

Azure Firewall vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 25% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 21% of the time

Stormshield Network Security vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 16% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Meraki MX vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 6% of the time

More SonicWall NSv Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

OPNsense

January 2026

Download OPNsense product report

Buyer's Guide

SonicWall NSv

January 2026

Download SonicWall NSv product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

No data available

SonicWall Network Security Virtual

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

OPNsense is an adaptable open-source firewall and routing platform appreciated for its flexibility, scalability, and user-friendly interface. It is equipped with robust security features and offers excellent reporting and visibility, essential for small businesses and home setups.

OPNsense stands out for its modular design, allowing cost-effective customization. This system supports VPNs and various firewall capabilities, making it suitable for securing networks from malicious traffic. Its frequent updates and extensive documentation, combined with a supportive online community, enhance user experience. However, there is room for improvement in integration with virtual servers and Azure. Scalability and hardware updates are important for large-scale environments, and users desire more reliable VPN solutions and enhanced threat intelligence tools.

What are OPNsense's most important features?

Flexibility: Easily customizable due to its open-source nature.
Robust Security: Advanced security features for network protection.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplified management and configuration.
Frequent Updates: Regular improvements and new features.
Dense Documentation: Extensive resources and community support.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Open-source design reduces costs.
Scalability: Ability to grow with business needs.
Customizability: Tailored solutions for different requirements.
Community Support: Access to a strong network of resources and peers.

OPNsense is implemented in industries requiring VPN and firewall functions, supporting site-to-site connections, protecting servers, and managing commercial network traffic. Companies apply it for security, UTM, SD-WAN, content filtering, intrusion detection, and prevention, utilizing its open-source nature and effectiveness as a next-generation firewall.

OPNsense

SonicWall NSV is a software-based virtual firewall that provides additional security for customers with public-facing servers or services on Microsoft Azure. The AGSS Bundle is considered the most valuable feature, providing security services such as antivirus, intrusion prevention system, and anti-spyware botnet GUI.

Additionally, customization of firewall rules provides great value to customers, allowing them to lock things up in the way they desire. SonicWall NSV offers extensive security control options to protect customers' valuable information and assets.

SonicWall

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. 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.

Comlogic, Depaul, Hutt City Council

Buyer's Guide

OPNsense vs. SonicWall NSv

December 2025

Free Report: OPNsense vs. SonicWall NSv

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