This is one of the most asked questions we get. Should I have pfSense or OPNSense, or maybe IPFire or OpenWRT?
Sophos XG SFOS v17.5.8 (not fully sure how the versioning works, but that was the ISO) Untangle 14.2.2 The goal of these tests is to show how these platforms perform when installed bare metal to this D-1521.
It depends on what you want to do! Here, at TekLager, we run OpenWRT in our Access Points and OPNSense on our routers.
- OPNsense is ranked 18th in Firewalls with 10 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 17 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of OPNsense writes 'Has good performance but I want to see a friendlier user interface'.
- Is OPNsense better than pfSense? Both are good, but here, at TekLager we are recommending OPNsense. If you are interested in a detailed comparison, please read pfSense vs OPNsense. How about other operating systems? Take a look at the comparison of 16 different operating systems.
- Sophos has it built in. With PFsense you'll have to tinker with radius servers to make it work. You want a VPN that easily and with a few clicks of a button works with an iPhone's native client.
- Sophos UTM: Free for home use only. Quite a bit more powerful than PfSense is out of the box. Incredibly good GUI, very easy to use and very well organized. Needs about 1.5-2GB of RAM to run, and a more modern CPU. Can do basically everything with only one or two clicks and it just works once set up.
Here are a few basic recommendations we make, depending on what you want to use your hardware for.
I want something powerful and simple.
You should get OPNSense or pfSense. Both of these operating systems are mature, full-featured, and have a lot of documentation online.
OPNsense has a nicer user interface and seems to be implementing new features faster than pfSense.
Pfsense Oder Sophos
pfSense has been around for longer, so the community is bigger, and there's more documentation online.
IPFire has a less mature user interface, so we don't recommend it unless you already know it. OpenWRT is excellent, but not as user friendly as OPNSense and pfSense.
I want to have wireless in my router.
Opnsense Vs Sophos Utm
That's easy! You should use OpenWRT.
Sophos Vs Opnsense
OpenWRT has the best Wireless support and achieves the highest wireless throughput. No other operating system comes close.
You should NOT use pfSense or OPNSense - they don't support 802.11ac and have sub-optimal 802.11n support.
Opnsense Vs Sophos Download
See more information about OpenWRT performance here.
I have an APU router and want to have a full gigabit internet speed.
OpenWRT and IPFire achieve full gigabit routing on APU routers out of the box. It's possible to get a full gigabit throughput on pfSense and OPNsense as well, but a few configuration tweaks are required. See our Knowledge Base for detailed instructions.
I want to use my router as a VPN client
Opnsense Vs Sophos Vpn
pfSense, OPNSense, and OpenWRT are working great with OpenVPN.
On APU routers pfSense and OPNsense achieve about 100Mbit/s throughput. OpenWRT achieves about 140Mbit/s.
APU delivers more than 600Mbit/s with Wireguard VPN. If you have a choice between OpenVPN and Wigeguard, choose the latter.
More detailed information can be found in APU OpenVPN and Wireguard performance benchmark
TLSense routers achieve between 300Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s throughput with OpenVPN depending on the model.
Is OPNsense better than pfSense?
Both are good, but here, at TekLager we are recommending OPNsense.
If you are interested in a detailed comparison, please read pfSense vs OPNsense.
How about other operating systems?
Take a look at the comparison of 16 different operating systems.