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Pfsense, Opensense and OpenWRT - what's the deal? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/selfhosted

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hiya, just getting into networking and recently completed my Tp-link Omada stack, which I'm very pleased with. Have heard great thing about all three mentioned services above, but struggle to understand which to go for. Do they have different use cases? Is one easier than the other? Which one is recommended to begin with?

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[–] chronicledmonocle 67 points 5 months ago (1 children)

pfSense = Firewall and router system based on FreeBSD. Has both open source and commercial versions. Built for SMB to Enterprise uses. Extremely powerful with all of the bells and whistles you'd expect from a professional firewall product.

OPNSense = Basically pfSense with a different UI. It's a fork of pfSense. Much of the same capability, but is built by a smaller company.

OpenWRT = Replacement firmware for embedded devices (as well as x86). It's open source WiFi router firmware that runs on tens of thousands of devices. Many vendors will even base their custom firmware on OpenWRT and put a different skin on it (GL.iNet, for example).

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Perfect, thanks for summing it up for me! <3

[–] TCB13 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

That explanation is misleading because:

OpenWrt does firewalling and routing very well;
If you’ve a small / normal network and OpenWrt will provide you with a much cleaner open-source experience and also allow for all the customization you would like;
There are routers specifically made to run OpenWrt, so it isn't only a replacement firmware.