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.
Senior Solution Manager at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
2021-09-09T15:23:33Z
Sep 9, 2021
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 VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication.
Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls.
Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used.
Hi community,
I'm working with OPNsense NGINX plug-in's WAF rules.
Can you recommend any good documentation on this topic (as there is very little documentation I was able to find)?
For example, how whitelist rules are created in the web interface that will work on one specific site and will not work on others.
Thanks for your help.
Director of Community at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)
Jul 25, 2022
Hi @Murat Gultekin, @Chirosca Alecsandru, @Hermann Potgieter, @Ralf Wenzel, @Neil Wurzel and @Mauro Ponze,
Can you possibly chime in here and help @Igor Parmon with their question?
Tnx.
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 prevention in transparent mode. I like that both firewalls offer DNS filtering with any DNS filtering company and also have a network configuration feature with customized configuration that is enabled by a setup wizard.
Two stark differences between PfSense and OPNsense are that PfSense does not allow for quick updates and patches, but OPNsense does. On the flipside, PfSense has two factor authentication that works with a remote radius server, which OPNsense can’t do.
Another feature of each to consider based on your company needs is the dashboard; PfSense has drop-down menus, while OPNsense has its menus placed on the left side. It comes down to your personal preference, but I find that having menus on the left side of a dashboard makes it easier to use because it is organized and navigation is clear. Some people may think OPNsense is harder to navigate because of the messy dashboard layout.
What I like about both options is that they are free to download and use. They also both have frequent updates, with constant updated documentation. OPNsense seems to be more intuitive to use and has a great reporting feature. PfSense, though, seems to have more product tutorials available and also more answers to FAQs that can be easily found online.
Conclusion
Both products have a similar set of features. In my opinion, though, I think PfSense is superior to OPNsense, not only because it has an array of features but also because it has an automatic backup feature that I find very valuable.
OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based.
It has an open license. It works very well, and there is an update every month.
OPNsense is highly stable.
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 initial implementation process is simple.
The system in general is quite flexible.
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.
OPNsense is easy to scale when running on the hardware.
We have found pretty much all the features of the solution to be valuable.
The most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities.
The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication.
Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls.
Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used.
The most valuable features in OPNsense are reporting and visibility.
The interface and the dashboard are the most valuable features of this solution.
The solution is good for a basic firewall for a small business or for home use.
The graphic user interface is very good and it is user-friendly which makes the product easy-to-use.
The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy.
The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed.
I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings.
We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience.