OPNsense
Open-source FreeBSD-based firewall and routing platform with a modern GUI, intrusion prevention, VPN support, and a plugin ecosystem.
About OPNsense
OPNsense is a FreeBSD-based, open-source firewall and routing platform designed for ease of use and security. It provides a modern, responsive web GUI for managing stateful firewall rules, traffic shaping, captive portal, intrusion detection and prevention (Suricata), VPN (IPsec, OpenVPN, WireGuard), DNS filtering, and high-availability setups.
Forked from pfSense in 2015, OPNsense differentiates itself with a modern MVC codebase, weekly security updates, a hardened base system, and a transparent plugin architecture. It runs on commodity x86 hardware and virtual machines. Licensed under BSD-2-Clause, it is free for all use including commercial deployments.
Key Features
- Stateful firewall, traffic shaping, captive portal, and DNS filtering
- Intrusion detection and prevention (Suricata) with rule updates
- VPN support: IPsec, OpenVPN, WireGuard, and ZeroTier
- Plugin ecosystem with weekly updates and modern web GUI
Self-Hosting Notes
FreeBSD-based OS. Install via ISO on bare metal or VM. BSD-2-Clause license. 4.6k GitHub stars. Plugin system for extensions. Weekly security updates. Forked from pfSense in 2015 with a focus on modern codebase and faster release cycles.
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