No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

OPNsense pros and cons

Vendor: OPNsense

4.1 out of 5

46 reviews
95% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

OPNsense offers affordability with its open-source model and user-friendliness with simple VPN setup. It supports high availability, Dual WAN, and strong security features such as firewalls and intrusion prevention. However, it faces stability issues, steep learning curves, and integration challenges with virtual servers. Performance can lag with high traffic, and poor documentation hinders usability. Despite these drawbacks, it delivers effective network management and cost efficiency.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

OPNsense is appreciated for its affordability and open-source nature, providing cost-effective solutions.

It offers a straightforward VPN connection setup, making it more user-friendly compared to other options.

OPNsense supports high availability and advanced features like Dual WAN capabilities.

The tool includes powerful network intrusion detection and prevention systems, reducing network attacks significantly.

Its firewall, VPN, and DNS-level filtering functionalities are highly valued for security and management.

CONS

OPNsense has issues with stability and reliability, as it can sometimes freeze often, especially the interfaces.

There is a steep learning curve, and users need additional training before effectively using OPNsense.

OPNsense lacks integration capabilities with virtual servers and struggles with large-scale deployments.

The performance of OPNsense can be improved as it struggles to handle large volumes of voice traffic.

There is a lack of clear documentation and technical documentation, making it difficult to navigate many options.

OPNsense Pros review quotes

Moutaz Sheikh Alard

ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Sep 9, 2025

OPNsense impacts my projects and home network positively because its cost-effectiveness is perfect for lab and enterprise setup without expensive licensing, and the flexibility, easy VLAN and DMZ configuration supports different zones such as web servers, mail servers, and log servers.

Read full review

HF

Senior Solutions Engineer at a educational organization with 201-500 employees

Sep 18, 2025

YouTube provides video explanations, and that brings you to speed, instead of sitting down and reading a 200-page document on the product.

Read full review

Mahmoud Suleiman

Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 11-50 employees

Sep 7, 2025

We saved up to half a million Egyptian pounds, which is nearly $100,000 yearly on licensing or subscription using this kind of software, and the network attacks reduced by approximately 60% after using that, even without customizing the custom configuration yet.

Read full review

Free Report: OPNsense Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about OPNsense. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.

893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Richard Chamberlain

Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Sep 4, 2025

OPNsense definitely gives me peace of mind and helps my workflow because of the network isolation, as I can have multiple subnets without having to worry about one affecting the other.

Read full review

PM

IT Manager at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees

Mar 10, 2026

Based on my experience, the main benefits OPNsense provides for me are due to the limitation in getting financials to implement the most marketable solutions available in the market, which pushed me to find other open-source-related or cheaper solutions, and that is how I came upon OPNsense and pfSense, but OPNsense was the choice in this decision, providing a simple but also effective solution on a low budget.

Read full review

DK

Dhirender Kumar

IT Executive at M.V.electrosystems

Mar 20, 2026

I find everything valuable in OPNsense; the configuration and reporting aspects are what we require, reporting on user access and data consumed is fascinating in OPNsense, and the configuration offers a clear idea of everything that I have configured in DHCP.

Read full review

reviewer1027455

Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

Nov 15, 2024

OPNsense is very stable, easy to upgrade, and maintain.

Read full review

CA

Chirosca Alecsandru

Owner at Networks srl

Jul 26, 2024

I mostly rely on the solution's network intrusion detection and prevention system, along with other systems, CMs, and log management.

Read full review

Network and Programming Specialist at Twentytwo Integration

Jun 11, 2024

The tool's integration is more like a button press.

Read full review

Akram Zaki Hussein

System and Network Administrator at El Sadat City Language School

Sep 22, 2023

The DNS-level filtering is impressive for thwarting time scanners.

Read full review

Show 10 more reviews (out of 43)

OPNsense Cons review quotes

Moutaz Sheikh Alard

ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Sep 9, 2025

The documentation should be clearer because I faced some difficulties navigating many options.

Read full review

HF

Senior Solutions Engineer at a educational organization with 201-500 employees

Sep 18, 2025

Pricing in my opinion is just too expensive. It makes no sense. It moves in the direction of a monopoly.

Read full review

Mahmoud Suleiman

Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 11-50 employees

Sep 7, 2025

OPNsense can be improved by making it more user-friendly, as its current UI is not that user-friendly when compared to paid software such as Sophos.

Read full review

Free Report: OPNsense Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about OPNsense. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.

893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Richard Chamberlain

Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Sep 4, 2025

OPNsense could be improved with a better wizard, as when I first installed it, it seemed difficult to know where to go.

Read full review

PM

IT Manager at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees

Mar 10, 2026

I confirm that I am currently still working with OPNsense and still using their product. However, because of the hardware that I am using, sometimes it ends up freezing quite often, especially the interfaces, most of the busy interfaces.

Read full review

DK

Dhirender Kumar

IT Executive at M.V.electrosystems

Mar 20, 2026

To use Intrusion detection and Antivirus Plugin it is necessary to configure proxy; without a proxy, you cannot use the ClamAV antivirus plugin.

Read full review

reviewer1027455

Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

Nov 15, 2024

OPNsense struggles to handle large volumes of voice traffic, indicating scalability issues in that specific use case.

Read full review

CA

Chirosca Alecsandru

Owner at Networks srl

Jul 26, 2024

SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) is integrated into some restricted service providers for OPNSense.

Read full review

Network and Programming Specialist at Twentytwo Integration

Jun 11, 2024

pfSense has better performance and quicker updates.

Read full review

Akram Zaki Hussein

System and Network Administrator at El Sadat City Language School

Sep 22, 2023

Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine.

Read full review

Show 10 more reviews (out of 43)

Product Categories

Product Categories

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Fortinet FortiGate vs OPNsense

Netgate pfSense vs OPNsense

Sophos Firewall vs OPNsense

Cisco Secure Firewall vs OPNsense

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs OPNsense

WatchGuard Firebox vs OPNsense

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs OPNsense

Cisco Meraki MX vs OPNsense

Azure Firewall vs OPNsense

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs OPNsense

SonicWall TZ vs OPNsense

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs OPNsense

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs OPNsense

Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs OPNsense

KerioControl vs OPNsense

See all alternatives

Product Categories

Product Categories

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Fortinet FortiGate vs OPNsense

Netgate pfSense vs OPNsense

Sophos Firewall vs OPNsense

Cisco Secure Firewall vs OPNsense

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs OPNsense

WatchGuard Firebox vs OPNsense

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs OPNsense

Cisco Meraki MX vs OPNsense

Azure Firewall vs OPNsense

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs OPNsense

SonicWall TZ vs OPNsense

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs OPNsense

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs OPNsense

Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs OPNsense

KerioControl vs OPNsense

See all alternatives

Related questions

166

What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?

33

Can you recommend any good documentation on OPNsense NGINX plug-in (WAF rules)?

213

Why is pfSense's firewall better than OPNsense's?

139

What do you recommend for a corporate firewall implementation?

210

Comparison of Barracuda F800, SonicWall 5600 and Fortinet

225

Sophos XG 210 vs Fortigate FG 100E

154

Which is the best network firewall for a small retailer?

222

When evaluating Firewalls, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?

169

Cyberoam or Fortinet?

536

Fortinet, Palo Alto or Check Point?