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    pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?

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    • DashrenderD
      Dashrender @scotth
      last edited by

      @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

      @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

      @scotth

      They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

      When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

      However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

      https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

      After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
      I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
      EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

      For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
      Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

      black3dynamiteB scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • black3dynamiteB
        black3dynamite @Dashrender
        last edited by

        @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

        @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

        @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

        @scotth

        They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

        When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

        However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

        https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

        After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
        I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
        EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

        For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
        Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

        SSD will help squid proxy cache.

        DashrenderD scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • DashrenderD
          Dashrender @black3dynamite
          last edited by

          @black3dynamite said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

          @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

          @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

          @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

          @scotth

          They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

          When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

          However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

          https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

          After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
          I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
          EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

          For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
          Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

          SSD will help squid proxy cache.

          how useful is that in a home network?

          S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • S
            scotth @Dashrender
            last edited by

            @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

            @black3dynamite said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

            @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

            @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

            @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

            @scotth

            They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

            When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

            However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

            https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

            After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
            I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
            EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

            For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
            Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

            SSD will help squid proxy cache.

            how useful is that in a home network?

            I'm hoping that it'll impede momma and kid from being blatantly foolish in their cruising activities.

            <<yes, I have attempted to share information about foolish behavior on the internet>>

            scottalanmillerS DashrenderD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • scottalanmillerS
              scottalanmiller @scotth
              last edited by

              @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

              @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

              @scotth

              They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

              When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

              However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

              https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

              After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
              I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
              EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

              @WrCombs needs that, lol. Your router has 300% the power of his brand new laptop!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • scottalanmillerS
                scottalanmiller @Dashrender
                last edited by

                @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                @scotth

                They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

                When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

                However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

                https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

                After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
                I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
                EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

                For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
                Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

                It should not.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • scottalanmillerS
                  scottalanmiller @black3dynamite
                  last edited by

                  @black3dynamite said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                  @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                  @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                  @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                  @scotth

                  They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

                  When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

                  However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

                  https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

                  After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
                  I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
                  EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

                  For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
                  Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

                  SSD will help squid proxy cache.

                  Only if the cache is larger than RAM.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • scottalanmillerS
                    scottalanmiller @scotth
                    last edited by

                    @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                    @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                    @black3dynamite said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                    @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                    @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                    @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                    @scotth

                    They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

                    When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

                    However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

                    https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

                    After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
                    I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
                    EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

                    For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
                    Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

                    SSD will help squid proxy cache.

                    how useful is that in a home network?

                    I'm hoping that it'll impede momma and kid from being blatantly foolish in their cruising activities.

                    <<yes, I have attempted to share information about foolish behavior on the internet>>

                    A cache cannot do that.

                    S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • S
                      scotth @scottalanmiller
                      last edited by

                      @scottalanmiller said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                      @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                      @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                      @black3dynamite said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                      @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                      @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                      @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                      @scotth

                      They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

                      When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

                      However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

                      https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

                      After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
                      I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
                      EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

                      For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
                      Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

                      SSD will help squid proxy cache.

                      how useful is that in a home network?

                      I'm hoping that it'll impede momma and kid from being blatantly foolish in their cruising activities.

                      <<yes, I have attempted to share information about foolish behavior on the internet>>

                      A cache cannot do that.

                      Sorry, proxy

                      scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • scottalanmillerS
                        scottalanmiller @scotth
                        last edited by

                        @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                        @scottalanmiller said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                        @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                        @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                        @black3dynamite said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                        @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                        @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                        @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                        @scotth

                        They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

                        When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

                        However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

                        https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

                        After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
                        I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
                        EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

                        For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
                        Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

                        SSD will help squid proxy cache.

                        how useful is that in a home network?

                        I'm hoping that it'll impede momma and kid from being blatantly foolish in their cruising activities.

                        <<yes, I have attempted to share information about foolish behavior on the internet>>

                        A cache cannot do that.

                        Sorry, proxy

                        That's totally different. A proxy has no benefit from the SSD. A very large cache would, but not a proxy. So back to "what is the purpose?"

                        S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • S
                          scotth @scottalanmiller
                          last edited by

                          @scottalanmiller I'm planning to retire an old spinning drive. That's all

                          DashrenderD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • DashrenderD
                            Dashrender @scotth
                            last edited by

                            @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                            @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                            @black3dynamite said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                            @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                            @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                            @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                            @scotth

                            They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

                            When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

                            However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

                            https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

                            After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
                            I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
                            EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

                            For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
                            Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

                            SSD will help squid proxy cache.

                            how useful is that in a home network?

                            I'm hoping that it'll impede momma and kid from being blatantly foolish in their cruising activities.

                            <<yes, I have attempted to share information about foolish behavior on the internet>>

                            I'm lost - what does a squid proxy have to do with keeping the kids off the internet - other than possibly it's a webfilter as well as a caching proxy - my original question was about the benefit of SSD - to which the reply was squid proxy cache.. ok that make sense, but how is a proxy cache helpful for most home users - is there really a lot of overlap in a home to make this worth while?

                            scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • DashrenderD
                              Dashrender @scotth
                              last edited by

                              @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                              @scottalanmiller I'm planning to retire an old spinning drive. That's all

                              But if it means spending money - that money could possibly be used better somewhere else. That's basically what I was getting at.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • scottalanmillerS
                                scottalanmiller @Dashrender
                                last edited by

                                @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                                @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                                @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                                @black3dynamite said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                                @Dashrender said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                                @scotth said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                                @Emad-R said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                                @scotth

                                They are both great, but when you want to scale you want them on hardware and not VM that will handicap your hypervisor.

                                When you think about hardware and low power, there are alot of alterantives better than those 2 and cheaper, netgate provides PFsense but for 200$ ad the idea of desktop machine acting as router and using alot of power does not make sense to me.

                                However pi3 or better makes perfect sense, but guess what neither PFsense or OPN runs on ARM

                                https://store.netgate.com/MBT-2220-system.aspx

                                After my lab, I'm planning to load it up on an HP Elite 8300 SFF i5 quad core with 8 GB RAM and an addin dual Intel NIC. It's what I'm running Sophos on now. I don't experience any issues with this setup.
                                I picked it up for $100 during a desktop refresh.
                                EDIT: I'm also planning retire my spinning drive.

                                For home use - a desktop class machine is totally fine.
                                Not sure an SSD will make any difference in the performance of the firewall though.

                                SSD will help squid proxy cache.

                                how useful is that in a home network?

                                I'm hoping that it'll impede momma and kid from being blatantly foolish in their cruising activities.

                                <<yes, I have attempted to share information about foolish behavior on the internet>>

                                I'm lost - what does a squid proxy have to do with keeping the kids off the internet - other than possibly it's a webfilter as well as a caching proxy - my original question was about the benefit of SSD - to which the reply was squid proxy cache.. ok that make sense, but how is a proxy cache helpful for most home users - is there really a lot of overlap in a home to make this worth while?

                                Squid's two main functions are a proxy to filter, or a cache. Since he is not using the cache, we assume it is for the filter.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • 3
                                  360col
                                  last edited by

                                  OPNSense user here. Its just more friendly. Tried Sophos XG and it killed my WAN speed even with most things disabled. I have used Sophos UTM in production for many year previously.

                                  I have a very old EdgeRouter sittign around. Wondering if I'll run the latest firmware. I didn't like it much back then so its been clotting dust.

                                  DashrenderD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • DashrenderD
                                    Dashrender @360col
                                    last edited by

                                    @360col said in pfSense vs OPNSense - Fanboy fued or real differences?:

                                    OPNSense user here. Its just more friendly. Tried Sophos XG and it killed my WAN speed even with most things disabled. I have used Sophos UTM in production for many year previously.

                                    I have a very old EdgeRouter sittign around. Wondering if I'll run the latest firmware. I didn't like it much back then so its been clotting dust.

                                    What didn't you like about it? FYI - it's not a UTM, so you can't look at it from that POV.
                                    As far as I know, all ER are still supported.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • scottalanmillerS
                                      scottalanmiller
                                      last edited by

                                      pfSense can be turned into a full UTM. Don't know about OPNSense.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • 1
                                        1337
                                        last edited by 1337

                                        Pfsense have been around much longer and very likely have a significantly larger user base. So assuming there are no other differences that would be a big plus for pfsense, unless you want to be a beta tester or just play around.

                                        It's also easier to find guides and info on setup as well for pfsense. Pfsense also has packages (OPNsense don't) so you can add more functionality like squid, haproxy etc.

                                        I don't think there is much difference behind the scenes though when it comes to standard functions as both are running freebsd and using the PF packet filtering system from the openbsd project.

                                        We just use pfsense and call it a day. Don't have time to try every possible permutation of a firewall 🙂

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • S
                                          scotth
                                          last edited by

                                          Sorry. Was at a site meeting a vendor for an installation. I'm catching up.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • scottalanmillerS
                                            scottalanmiller
                                            last edited by

                                            pfSense's maturity and market presence definitely make a big difference. And they have that add-on UTM deal.

                                            S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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