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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

"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."
"It's very easy to configure."
"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."
"CLI: Junos CLI is very easy to use, and it is also very easy to find back items in the configuration and to change them."
"It is a complete security bundle. The cloud-based Sky Advanced Threat Prevention feature is very valuable. I am 100% satisfied with the performance of the Juniper firewall. It has a very good throughput. It works very fine. We use our firewall as a site-to-site VPN or Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN). In both cases, it has a very good and optimum performance. Their service support is very good in India. I get really good support from the Juniper team."
"The most valuable features of the Juniper SRX Series Firewall are the user-friendly UI, and accessing the solution is simple."
"The deployment is quite easy and fast."
"It integrates well with Fortinet and Palo Alto."
"Once a customer starts to use Juniper products, they never switch to another brand."
"Juniper has the "recovery safety feature", so if you perform a "commit confirmed" and the new configuration disconnects you. then there is no "confirmed" command with X mins (default = 10 mins). It automatically reverts (recovers) to the previous configuration. This is handy for when you do not want to make that trip down range just to reboot a router."
"The most valuable features are the security cloud ACP and KPP features."
"The most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities."
"The technical support is very good."
"The solution is user-friendly and easy to configure."
"It is a very good solution. I like the dashboard. I can see what is going on and manage it as I like it."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"OPNsense is easy to scale when running on the hardware."
"What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
 

Cons

"Technical support for this solution can be improved."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"I need user-behavior analytics, to find threat scenarios from inside the organization, insider attacks. That would be very helpful for us. In addition, I would like next-generation features for small and medium businesses. These businesses require UTM, all in one product. Fortinet must include it."
"Backup can be improved."
"I would like to see endpoint control and endpoint testing security."
"It did not improve our safety because the IDS does not detect some attacks, but our anti-virus software did."
"I would like them to add a dashboard because it's difficult to operate."
"I would like to have a better web UI for administration. Juniper could simplify the web UI and make it more compatible with mobile devices."
"It's unexpected that market support is very limited now, and SRX firewall will become obsolete and reach end-of-life."
"To compare with Fortinet, Juniper needs to improve their security features."
"The Juniper product has to improve in terms of innovation."
"The capacity can be limiting. We have outgrown its capacity. You can only scale up to a certain extent, depending on the device purchased."
"OPNsense struggles to handle large volumes of voice traffic, indicating scalability issues in that specific use case."
"The reporting part could be better."
"The interface of the solution is an area with shortcomings."
"pfSense has better performance and quicker updates."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
"Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"We did not like the fact that you have to configure everything with the graphic user interface. We have used other firewalls, such as FortiGate, that you can configure via code. OPNsense is not easy to integrate. When you are deploying via GitHub or another source repository, this is not possible. That's one thing we didn't like much."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For medium and enterprise organizations, FortiGate is more affordable."
"Its price is affordable and lesser than Cisco. Cisco is expensive. In terms of licensing, there is only one issue. If a customer's license has expired a month ago and they do the renewal after one month, Fortinet renews the license from the start of the previous month. The activation of the product is done from the previous month, not from the date of renewal. The customers usually shout and complain that because they are paying today, the renewal should start from today. The support contract renewals or licensing should be renewed from the date of renewal, but Fortinet starts from the day it had expired. It is a loss for customers. They might have had some problems because of which they did not take the license one month before. Fortinet should work on this. Cisco doesn't do this. Cisco always starts from the day they apply for the license."
"The price is fair for what we get with FortiGate."
"Price-wise, it's at a good price point for our market."
"These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive. Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is the lowest in the market."
"The price is fine."
"The pricing is flexible."
"Pricing is good. Most of the costs are in the UTM (IDS/IPS, virus scanning, etc) subscription."
"It is not that expensive."
"Pricing is very good, not expensive."
"The prices are very good as compared to other vendors."
"We were able to lower our overall operating costs over a three year period by 25%, mostly recovered from maintenance/support costs."
"This is a cost-effective solution because the price is very reasonable, and some of the features are available at no extra cost."
"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."
"The pricing is very inexpensive which is the main reason I bought the solution. One device costs around 50 EUR through the University's vendor who is modernizing our network."
"It is open source and free."
"We are not paying any licensing fees. OPNsense is completely free for us."
"It is free."
"I would rate the pricing three out of ten."
"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, especially considering the availability of a free community edition."
"The solution is not expensive."
"It's a free solution."
"We are using the paid version."
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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.