pfSense Alternatives: Firewall Solutions for your Network

hey everyone welcome back to virtualization how 2 I'm Brandon Lee and today we're diving into an exciting topic for all you network and H laab enthusiasts out there we are exploring pfSense Alternatives if you're currently using pfSense as your firewall and routing solution no problem with that it's a great solution but maybe you just want to try something different or maybe you want something that's a little better suited for your use case we're going to look at five solutions that you might want to throw in your home lab and play around with so let's get [Music] started first off pfSense it's a fantastic op Source firewall solution built on top of free BSD it's widely used in home lab environments and production environments however there are various reasons that you might want to consider an alternative maybe you're looking for a different user interface uh maybe you need different Hardware support or you need Advanced security features that are not found in pf sense today we're going to explore five powerful Alternatives that can be a great fit for your network so let's take a look at the first one first up we have open sense did you know that open sense is actually a result of a split from the original pfSense developers it's built on free BSD just like pfSense and offers features like realtime traffic shaping intrusion detection and easy to manage firewall rules open sense is highly customizable it's got a strong focus on security features but there is a con or downside to that compared to pfSense it has an intuitive web interface and an active Community making it a solid Choice both if you're a beginner with network firewalls or you are an advanced user you don't have to search far to find blog posts YouTube videos and other documentation in the community on open sense so it's greatly supported from that standpoint now let's talk about some of the pros of open sense first up open sense is highly customized has that userfriendly interface that some arguably like better than pfSense has the active Community Support that we've already mentioned you can also run it on a bare metal or you can run it inside of a virtual machine cons to open sense can be that it's fairly complex for beginners limited commercial Port another con of open sense compared to pfSense is that they are a bit slower to introduce security updates compared to pfSense however the interface again some feel is better than pfSense and there are other aspects of the solution that you might find a bit more intuitive next we have untangle untangle in case you were not aware is now owned by Arisa networks untangle is designed for ease of use it's really simple to get up and running quickly you can throw an untangle box in bridge mode and just inline start filtering traffic it also integrates with the Arista Cloud for backups and support and provides comprehensive network security solution I really like the interface uh back in the day it was more so a network rack that you would just simply add the modules that you would want to start filtering your network or processing that Network traffic now they've kind of got a more dashboard type experience now with that modular approach of the untangled Network firewall solution it allows you to add and remove features as needed and that one of the things that really attracted me to the solution in the very beginning it's really great for nonprofits and education environments however with Arisa networks and some of their other features and functionalities they have definitely tried to broaden out their feature set and make them more applicable in other use cases now let's talk about the pros and cons of untangle one of the biggest pros of untangle is the easy user interface most if they are not comfortable with firewall interfaces or configurations and again that flexibility to run it as a virtual Appliance or in a physical Hardware bare metal installation now again it has that modular software approach that allows you to customize which is not something that a lot of the other firewall Solutions allow you to do and if you're in that nonprofit or education sector and you want to take this into a business realm then it really has a sweet spot there now let's talk about the UniFi security Gateway and appliances like udm Pro UniFi products are extremely popular among home users and home lab enthusiasts in that prosumer market even they are delving into the more Enterprise environments and trying to uh get some market share there and they offer a range of security features uh that appeal to many and they've really got this down to a science when it comes to configuration having a tool as an interface that you can control all of your appliances that are unify and have that quote unquote single pane of glass so I think from that perspective uh the udm appliances or security gateways they are a great solution especially if you are invested in the UniFi ecosystem and that makes it easy to control and monitor your entire network sack so if you have UniFi switches if you have UniFi access points if you have a udm pro if you have the UniFi protect solution you're going to be able to log into a single interface and control all of those Solutions and have visibility to those Solutions in that single interface and you're not going to get that with other firewall solutions that don't have that integration like you see with UniFi now let's talk about the pros and cons certainly a pro is the integration with other ubiquity products for that unified Network management it also offers basic firewall functionalities along with deep packet inspection and and this can be cost effective especially if you're in a home lab or you're in a small to mediumsized business or very small Enterprise environment that could be a great solution now what about cons well there are arguably limited advanced security features compared to some of the other Solutions it relies heavily on the UniFi ecosystem which might be a limitation for some users and they may not have other UniFi products so the whole benefit of having that single paint of glass is diminished quite a bit also you can't run it as a virtual Appliance these are Hardware solutions that we're talking about from ubiquity and stand those up in your network to serve that purpose fourth on our list is the sofos UTM home edition this solution brings Enterprise level security to your home network and offers features like antivirus web filtering and intrusion prevention one of the first solutions that I ran in my home lab environment was the sofos home firewall and I can't remember what they called it some years ago but but this has now rolled into the sofos UTM home Edition and it's extremely easy to use but it also surprise me with all the advanced features that it supported and it's a great option for those that really want to delve into more Enterprise security features for their home lab or small business or other environments now let's talk about pros and cons with the sofos UTM home edition there are many security features that are available for free for home users and I was really surprised at what you get with this solution you can also run this on your own Hardware or you can run this in a virtual machine you get regular updates you get strong Community Support you've got really great web filtering and malware protection as you know the DNA of of sofos antivirus all of those security things are built into this solution now what about cons well configuration can be somewhat complicated you can do so much that can be intimidating for certain users performance also with this solution will be limited to a limitation that is baked into the UTM Home Solution so with UTM home I believe you're limited to four cores and 8 gigs of memory finally we have the microti router OS if you love tinkering and customizing your network setup router OS offers a ton of nerd knobs that you can send turn in your home lab microti router OS in case you haven't heard of it before it's a cost effective solution that you can download for free you can run it on your own Hardware you can also turn an old PC or other device into a powerful router firewall device essentially router OS provides extensive routing and networking features if you want a solution that has the ultimate customization and configuration capabilities the microtic router OS is certain certainly one to play around with now it also has firewalling capabilities that you can leverage however I think router OS is going to be much less userfriendly if you simply want a firewall solution that just has a pretty interface and can do web filtering and some other intrusion prevention capabilities now let's talk about pros and cons of microtic router OS Pros are that it is highly customizable to a fault in fact and capable of running on various hard platforms it's coste effective with a wide range of capabilities and it has strong routing and networking features out of the box and you're going to most likely find anything you want to do will be possible in router OS now what about the cons it has an extremely steep learning curve router OS is not for the faint of heart it can be complicated and challenging to configure there are quite a few sources of documentation as well but it can still be difficult to find exactly what you need to do you will need to use windbox most likely for configurations windbox is this tool that microtic releases allowing you to configure router OS and be able to have an easy way to connect to multiple devices however again that learning curve and the complexity of router OS can be intimidating and offputting for those that might be looking for something that would be a replacement for pfSense also I want to put this out there as a solution that you may want to explore I think there are all also great Enterprise firewall solutions that provide Next Generation features that you can take advantage of be aware of programs such as the one like Palo Alto has where you can purchase lab units that allow you to have Enterprise hardware for much cheaper than you can buy these units retail other vendors no doubt have similar offerings so check around and you'd be surprised at what's available out there I know I'm running a lab version of Palo Alto firewall it is absolutely fantastic and I was able to get that relatively cheaply one of the downsides of pfSense and other solutions that we've listed is that they are not truly considered a Next Generation firewall solution as to get true layer 7 filtering application identification and other features may require various plugins that are third party or running in parallel with the core features of pfSense and some of the other Solutions so getting your hands on these Enterprise grade firewalls can be a great way to learn these Technologies at home and have the benefit of a Next Generation firewall that may be a great alternative to something like pfSense so there you have it five powerful alternatives to pfSense each with its own unique strengths and features whether you're looking for ease of use Advanced security or extensive customizations there's probably a solution out there for you so thanks for watching if you found this video helpful please give it a thumbs up subscribe to the channel and hit the notification Bell icon to get get notified about our latest videos let me know in the comments which firewall solution you're considering or if there's another solution that you think would be a great fit for this list stay safe out there guys keep on home labbing and I will see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: VirtualizationHowto

Views: 8,351

Keywords: pfsense, firewall, open source firewall, pfsense alternatives, opnsense, untangle, sophos utm, mikrotik, unifi

Id: pBMQ97o_9B0

Length: 12min 26sec (746 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 03 2024