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Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs OPNsense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
318
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Juniper SRX Series Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
23rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (5th)
OPNsense
Ranking in Firewalls
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Juniper SRX Series Firewall is 1.5%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 12.3%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable
In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.
MURALI NIDAMANURI - PeerSpot reviewer
Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain
We have used Juniper SRX Series Firewall in airports and multiple other industries The most valuable features of the Juniper SRX Series Firewall are the user-friendly UI, and accessing the solution is simple. The pricing strategy of the vendor could improve. I have been using Juniper SRX Series…
Eddy Ramirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Good interface and firewall capabilities and overall easy to use
The security has improved as we can isolate the network. We can do attrition prevention via a tool that comes with the solution. We can have a VPN solution in place for those that work from home, outside the network, in a secure manner. We also like that it offers good authentication. It offers radius-based authentication, which has been useful for the company. The main platform is under the Open VPN firewall. The solution has high availability. When we have different ISPs, we can actually load balance those links or actually put some priority or even classify the traffic that might go into one ISP or another.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"The most valuable feature of the solution revolves around SSL VPN."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"The most valuable features are the policies, filtering, and configuration."
"I'm looking forward to FortiGate's dashboard features, insights, application oversight, and monitoring, which could help us significantly."
"I like that Juniper SRX is easy to use, scalable, and stable with good performance."
"Great as an inter-segmentation firewall or border or arch-firewall."
"The virtualization feature is the most valuable feature. Sometimes customers are requesting a private connection using mobile data when they are connecting to remote sites."
"We did not have problems with scaling, as we have less than 500 users in our organization."
"I've found the security features, such as IDS and the VPN most valuable."
"On a scale from one to ten, one being the worst and ten being the best I'd give Juniper SRX an overall rating of eight because of its' competitive price."
"It provides good routing and high performance of the data center."
"The most valuable feature is the virtualization because it can be used for customers who are using the mobile data network to request a private connection to a remote site."
"OPNsense is easy to scale when running on the hardware."
"It's more secure and more reliable."
"One of the most valuable features is the network checking. Additionally, the firewall and web filtering functionalities are highly useful."
"It has firewall and VPN capabilities, which are very valuable features."
"We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"The system in general is quite flexible."
"We have found pretty much all the features of the solution to be valuable."
 

Cons

"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"The SD-WAN functionality is a bit overly complicated and not fully documented."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"There are SD-WAN network monitoring, SD-WAN features, Industrial Databases, Internet of Things, Detection, etc., however, we do have not licenses for those features. We thought that if you bought a product, you should have all of the features it offers. Why should you need to make so many extra purchases to enable features? They should have one price for the entire offering."
"Their models for service providers could improve."
"The user interface is something that Juniper needs to improve."
"The solution could cost less. It's a bit expensive right now."
"The Juniper product has to improve in terms of innovation."
"The range of devices should be expanded to include those suitable for a small implementation. Juniper does not have any lower-priced SRX models, useful perhaps for a single ATM or a single bank branch."
"The workplace management console needs improvement. It should be a little bit more developed. Also, the interface needs a bit more improvement."
"It could have features that other products support like blade options and stand-alone endpoint security."
"It could improve areas which need high performance."
"The interface isn't so friendly user. But we have some technicians here who are quite confident with this tool. OPNSense could maybe add sets of rules so it's simpler to manage different groups with particular needs."
"An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense."
"The IPS solution could be more reliable."
"In terms of improvement, the performance could be enhanced."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"The user interface could be improved, and the DNS section should be more intuitive."
"There are a few weaknesses. For example, there is a lack of some features that I have in certain commercial products."
"The support for OPNsense is good because we have documents available on the internet. The support could improve a little."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as I'm aware, in our case, it's just a yearly pricing arrangement with no additional licensing costs."
"It scales well if you know what to buy from a physical box standpoint. They seem to offer something for every level."
"The pricing is fair."
"Its pricing is competitive with other solutions."
"The solution requires a license annually, it is not a user license, you can have as many users as your want. I must renew the license regularly per device."
"I think the price of Fortinet FortiGate is very reasonable."
"Its pricing is fine. It is on a yearly basis. Other than the licensing fee, there is no extra fee."
"If you compare Fortinet FortiGate with Sophos and other firewall products available in the market, this solution is affordable."
"The direct support with Juniper is expensive. When you stop using the solution and miss one year of payments, if you want the support back on a specific node, they ask you to pay for the year that you haven't used the node."
"I find the price to be reasonable for an enterprise-level solution."
"In terms of pricing, Juniper is in the middle. The most expensive firewall is Palo Alto. If a customer wants the cheapest price they should go for FortiGate. Juniper is in between these products."
"Palo Alto was nice, but much more expensive."
"This is a cost-effective solution because the price is very reasonable, and some of the features are available at no extra cost."
"Pricing is very good, not expensive."
"It is not that expensive."
"For a medium-sized organization, the cost for the licensing and implementation of Juniper SRX for 10 users would be about $300-400."
"It is free."
"I've used the free version. My computer with two network cards at home allows me to try as many different software options as I want. I did pay for the license, but it was for the Zenarmor license, which is the packet inspection tool. They use AI for packet inspection, which integrates with OPNsense and pfSense."
"The solution is not expensive."
"It's not expensive."
"It is open source and free."
"We are using the paid version."
"OPNsense is an open-source solution and it is free to use."
"OPNsense is a well known open-source tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Comms Service Provider
4%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What do you like most about Juniper SRX?
Juniper SRX Series Firewall is a stable solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Juniper SRX?
Customers always want cheaper solutions. Fortinet is a cheaper solution than Juniper.
What advice do you have for others considering Juniper SRX?
Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten because of the complexity of configurations and the maintenance.
What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?
Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and cl...
What do you like most about OPNsense?
What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?
I consider the pricing of OPNsense to be high when compared with other market products. However, as a free firewall p...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Juniper SRX
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
7-Eleven, AARNet Pty Ltd, Allegro Networks, alltours GmbH, Apollo Hotel Papendrecht, Armstrong Atlantic State University, Atlantech Online, Availity, Bajaj Capital, Baloise Insurance, BancABC, BAS Group, Black Lotus, Blue Box, Borealis, Carilion Clinic, Catholic Health System, CATV, Champlain College, Chinas Ministry of Railways, China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT), Cloud Dynamics, CloudSeeds, Cloudwatt, CODONiS, Colt Technology Services, Cork Internet Exchange, CSS Versicherung AG, CyrusOne, Danish Crown, Deloitte Belgium, Department of Energy, Divona Telecom, DQE Communications, DreamHost, European Government Agency, Expedient, Financial Market Information Services Provider, Fluidata, Fonality, Fox Sports, Global Financial Institution, Global Investment Bank, Global Investment Company, Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), Goethe University, HEAnet, High Performance Networks Inc., Hillenbrand
1. Deciso B.V. 2. iXsystems, Inc.  3. EuroBSDCon  4. Netgate  5. Claranet  6. Voleatech  7. Open Systems AG  8. Securebit AG  9. Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH  10. AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH  Additional customers include: T-Systems International GmbH, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone GmbH, 1&1 IONOS SE, OVHcloud, Hetzner Online GmbH, Strato AG, PlusServer GmbH, Host Europe GmbH, United Internet AG, 1&1 Versatel Deutschland GmbH, QSC AG, Bechtle AG, Cancom SE, Computacenter AG & Co. oHG, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH, Atos SE, Capgemini SE, Accenture plc, IBM Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs. OPNsense and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.