Software Alternatives & Reviews

OpenBSD VS OPNsense

Compare OpenBSD VS OPNsense and see what are their differences

OpenBSD logo OpenBSD

FREE, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system

OPNsense logo OPNsense

OPNsense® you next open source firewall. Free Download. High-end Security Made Easy™. Offers Intrusion Prevention, Captive Portal, Traffic Shaping and more.
  • OpenBSD Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-10-17
  • OPNsense Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-26

OpenBSD videos

Intro to most secure OS OpenBSD with sexiest Manjaro DeepIn Linux

More videos:

  • Review - Why I Switched From Arch Linux to OpenBSD
  • Review - Product Review - OpenBSD 6.3

OPNsense videos

Introduction to OPNSense firewall the PFsense fork. Overview

More videos:

  • Review - pfSense vs OPNsense
  • Review - ✅ OPNsense Install - not what i was expecting!

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to OpenBSD and OPNsense)
Linux
29 29%
71% 71
Operating Systems
17 17%
83% 83
Perimeter Security And Firewalls
Linux Distribution
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare OpenBSD and OPNsense

OpenBSD Reviews

Best free Linux router and firewall distributions of 2023
These systems are not intended for routers. They are general-purpose operating systems and should not really be used as routers. Similar to OpenBSD and VyOS, you will have to configure everything by hand without a Web Interface. It's easy to make a mistake and leave a hole that exposes internal systems to attackers.
Source: teklager.se

OPNsense Reviews

Best pfSense Software Alternatives and Competitors
OPNsense is the best open-source and free firewall alternative to pfSense Software. OPNsense is a user-friendly, open-source, FreeBSD firewall and router. Most of the same capabilities are available in this fork of pfSense Software. It distinguishes itself from other firewalls by combining highly sophisticated features with an open-source system. First, the OPNsense firewall...
The Best Open Source Router OS Software for Large or Small Networks
OPNsense is an open-source router OS software that is based on FreeBSD. It is designed to be used as a firewall, router, and VPN gateway, and it includes a range of advanced networking features. OPNsense is a fork of the pfSense project, and it is actively maintained by the OPNsense community.
Best free Linux router and firewall distributions of 2023
OPNsense makes the top of the list in 2023 because, for the last four years of maintaining this list, it has proved to be one of the most quickly developing operating systems on the market. It's an easy to use, mature system with a slick UI. OPNSense includes most, if not all, features found in expensive enterprise commercial firewalls. It has the quality of a commercial...
Source: teklager.se
11 Best pfsense Alternatives To Secure Your Network
By screening out unnecessary network traffic and malicious apps, firewall software protects networks and computers from attacks. For safeguarding your secure network from malware attacks and unauthorized access, OPNsenseis arguably top on our list of pfSense alternatives.
Top 7 pfSense Alternatives
OPNSense is a rising star in the router software arena. It is powered by HardenedBSD, which is a security-oriented fork of FreeBSD. Its current development pace is rapid, and it’s packed with features. It also has one of the best user interfaces of all of these options. Like a lot of these options, its primary weakness is its Wi-Fi support. A lot of OPNSense users started...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, OPNsense should be more popular than OpenBSD. It has been mentiond 94 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

OpenBSD mentions (13)

  • Can't import bookmarks in Firefox
    Thank you. I appreciate the answer. I was grokking the openbsd.org website for quite a while and didn't see anything like this. Source: 5 months ago
  • fw_update: yes//SHA256.sig: No such file or directory
    I seem to be able to ping openbsd.org, as I see 64 bytes from... continuously. However, when I try to install software such as doas pkg_add vim I get Can't find vim. Source: 5 months ago
  • Configuring a simple router with OpenBSD
    OpenBSD is a security-first Unix-like operating system belonging to the BSD family of operating systems. It is best known for the OpenSSH project founded in 1999 under the OpenBSD umbrella which has garnered widespread adoption beyond OpenBSD, including the infamous Linux operating system and even Microsoft Windows (since Windows 10). - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Why Artix?
    There are Gentoo variants with precompiled binary packages and backward compatibility. Redcore , Calculate, Pentoo, Funtoo and others. By OpenBSD I mean. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Help, Installing OpenBSD for first time.
    (unable to get list from openbsd.org, but that is OK). Source: about 1 year ago
View more

OPNsense mentions (94)

  • How to bypass public IP and NAT
    Firmware's like Asuswrt-Merlin or OpenWRT can support dynamic-dns, or you can do like I do and run something like OPNsense in an x86 VM with a NIC passed through, or buy an inexpensive firewall appliance (up to 500mbps/1gbps/10gbps). Source: 5 months ago
  • Stop ISP from getting into my Router
    The easiest solution is to buy your own router, set it up, disable the router functionality on the Fritzbox 7590 and plug your router into it. It'll be cheaper and easier than a Cisco Firewall, but if you want to go the dedicated firewall route then I would recommenced OPNsense. Source: 5 months ago
  • OpenBSD Innovations
    BSDs may not have a significant presence on desktops, but they're well known in the networking world for their reliability. They also were the foundation used to build OSes for specific applications. OpnSense and XigmaNAS, for example, are two excellent FreeBSD based applications aimed at firewalling/security and NAS/services. https://opnsense.org/ https://xigmanas.com/xnaswp/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Switches That You Actually Own
    For switches? OpenWrt supports a few models toward the lower end, and SONiC support a bunch at the higher-end datacenter ToR market, but none of these options are SME production-ready like Linux servers or OPNsense firewalls. Source: 11 months ago
  • Having to pay postage to ship back a DoA product sucks from a customer perspective
    That’s a stupid policy, and it looks like one of my UDMs is defective. I’m an idiot for not just buying good quality open boxes and putting https://opnsense.org/ on them. 🤦🏻‍♂️. Source: 11 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing OpenBSD and OPNsense, you can also consider the following products

FreeBSD - FreeBSD is an advanced operating system for x86 compatible (including Pentium® and Athlon™)...

pfSense - pfSense is a free and open source firewall and router that also features unified threat management, load balancing, multi WAN, and more

Deep Instinct - Deep Instinct is revolutionizing cyber security, offering advanced cyber security solutions that harness the power of deep learning analytics with unprecedented deep machine learning and AI prediction models.

MikroTik RouterOS - The main product of MikroTik is a Linux-based operating system known as MikroTik RouterOS.

Arch Linux - You've reached the website for Arch Linux, a lightweight and flexible Linux® distribution that tries to Keep It Simple. Currently we have official packages optimized for the x86-64 architecture.

OpenWrt - OpenWrt is an open-source firmware based on Linux for wireless routers