OPNsense vs. pfSense CE in 2023, what are your thoughts?

[Miner]

I am new to pfSense, and now considering OPNsense. Recently dove head first and bought a device with 4 interfaces. Am planning to use pfSense CE. In the past have used Cisco RV345 and similar (RV130, RV220) SOHO routers. And I am used to having a separate wireless AP, based all the excellent discussions in here over the years.

I read in the different reddit forums people have a dislike for pfSense. Comments such as ‘don’t trust the future of pfSense,’ and ‘reddit forum is moderated by NetGate they delete criticisms’, and “Moved from pfsense because of their arrogance.” The first two are generalizations, and the third is a very recent thread, via this link. These seem to be somewhat exaggerated, from what little I have read so far.

One concerning thing I see is from the OPNsense IPv6 forums, almost everything involving a bug report and patch/fix revolve around a person named franco. He seems to a one-man operation who analyzes, reports back, and posts patches on bugs, and hopefully in all that he finds time for testing fixes. I’m specifically commenting on IPv6 issues here, I haven’t looked in detail at any of the broader issues being reported on the OPNsense forums, and for that reason along I may be getting a too-narrowly focused opinion of this.

I’ve read a few threads on here on this very topic, all from 2021. I’m asking here for the latest thinking now that two+ years have elapsed.

Thoughts, opinions?

 

[Tech9]

Thoughts, opinions?

Use whatever you like better.

I'm using pfSense for both home and business needs on Netgate appliances. This is what I like better.

 

[Tech Junky]

Take your shiny new box and just use Linux. There's a debate about the two sense options though.... https://www.snbforums.com/threads/alternative-to-pfsense-opnsense.84714/

Being locked into either sense for me is a non starter as I like to have little restriction on what I can make things do. If you're a noob to networking then the guided approach makes things easier and based on discussions recently I would go opensense. Pfsense is BSD based and poses some hw issues.

Going with Linux though tends to be more compatible with various hw you might use. If you want to expand beyond simple router and firewall functions it opens the door to just about anything you could potentially want it to do.

 

[GHammer]

I took the plunge and converted from ASUS running Merlin to a pfSense router/firewall a month or two ago and I couldn't be more pleased.
You no longer need to run the CE edition, a free for home/personal use registration is available.
I have had zero issue with IPv6 in my install.
Why not OPNsense? For me, I had a number of issues with IPv6 a year or so ago. I received 'helpful' answers like "You shouldn't use IPv6" and ran into the same "1 person takes care of it" and since I couldn't interest him, the issues were never resolved. That could have changed with new builds, but pfSense seemed to be better supported and I went with it.
If you aren't needing to WFH or some such, install both for a fortnight and see which performs best for your needs.

 

[liukuohao]

My personally take about pfSense CE vs Opnsense:
1) Opnsense
- less community users but it is getting popular as the days go by.
- lots of plugins.
- May contains bugs that is not being fully addressed.
- Regulary updates.

2) pfSense CE
- Lots of community users but lack of the bells & whistles comparing to Opnsense.
- less plugins.
- if you google, there is a lot of tutorials that can guide you to set up.

 

[ddaenen1]

I run pfSense+ 23.01 (free license) and very happy about it. I cannot be bothered about all the noise there appears to be in the system. It does exactly what it is supposed to do and up until today, not have had even a single issue.

 

[coxhaus]

I run pfSense+ 23.01 (free license) and very happy about it. I cannot be bothered about all the noise there appears to be in the system. It does exactly what it is supposed to do and up until today, not have had even a single issue.

So, what happened?

The pfsense 23.01 has drivers for my 10 gig NIC card. I switched to my 10 gig card today. The nice thing about pfsense 23.01 it is running the latest drivers because it is later version which is FreeBSD 14. The drivers don't exist in pfsense 2.6 for my 10 gig card.

 

[Thomas01]

If you're a noob to networking then the guided approach makes things easier and based on discussions recently I would go opensense. Pfsense is BSD based and poses some hw issues.

I have decided to go with OPNsense for the reason above.

 

[ddaenen1]

So, what happened?

Not sure i understand the question. What i meant with "noise in the system" is the whole feud between Netgate and OPNsense.