I am going to intentionally exclude Unifi and Mikrotik along with the vendors like Cisco, Juniper, Aruba etc from this discussion as I don’t think they are relevant (especially since you can’t run them on your hardware).
- OPNsense: Considered the superior alternative to PFSense. Great firewall, routing capabilities, IDS and certificate authority, advanced features, can be a DNS server etc. Best option all around for x86, but BSD based - take note of available drivers. Don’t even think about running random WiFi antennas unless you confirm good support for them (use a distinct WAP).
- OpenWRT: built for consumer router + switch + WAP boxes on embedded hardware. Great OS and uses very little resources with many features, but doesn’t compete in features with OPNsense if you have x86.
- VyOS: Debian based router + firewall. Linux makes it easier for people to pick up the CLI but I’ve heard complaints about it being difficult to follow. Currently CLI only, at least without third-party solutions, but is powerful and competes directly with OPNsense for features for the most part. Edit: I made a mistake - LTS versions also have their source available for free, you’d just need to compile it with the instructions on their website. Seems to be stable.
- Debian + FRRouting + nftables + heavy SELinux for the paranoid/analogous alternatives on OpenBSD (the latter is considered more secure but YMMV, configuration plays a big part here).
- Freemium: Sophos free version for home use.
Which one of these do you run, and why? What have been your issues with one or the other, and what have you settled on? Any niche customisations that you might have made? I’m very interested to know!
Cheers
Edit: it would seem that OPNsense is a big winner in this space for stability. OpenWRT comes next because of it’s very light nature and ability to run on consumer routers.
IPtables on Debian because I like my life to be boring and unchanging.
Is that your firewall? I admit it’s a great idea but do you use something else for routing?
Yep. Firewall, routing, dhcp, dns, everything you’d expect from a gateway device. Plain Debian (or really any distro) can do it all. With a 1gbps bi-directional connection fully saturated it will run at about 10% cpu on my very crappy low power Celeron CPU.
Plus, there’s no web UI full of janky and insecure CGI scripts to exploit, and software updates are forever (well, until x64 is deprecated, so basically forever).
You have really piqued my interest. I have always thought about running my DIY Router + Firewall + switch but had never really spoken to anyone who had done it before (guides on the internet notwithstanding).
However, if I do something like this, it will likely be on OpenBSD. Now, I haven’t delved deep enough into the BSDs to know if it’s better than Debian since all distributions can be made as secure as we want. However, OpenBSD just has a better image in my mind in terms of security and some of their choices in the OS are to my liking.
