PfSense vs. OpenWRT?
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I recently bought a router with plans to install OpenWRT but I have also heard about pfSense. Can anyone here tell me how the two compare functionality-wise? I realize the hardware difference. Thanks!
Example annoyance: the other night I found one of my pc's unresponsive (crashed?) and yet the port led was blinking. It would have been nice to be able to inspect a firewall log to see what that port activity was.
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OpenWRT is for home usage.
pfSense for more professional environments.Functionwise they are a completly different league.
On pfSense you can install a wide variety of packages to a add new functionalities.However a blinking port-LED doesn't mean this computer is generating traffic.
I simply means that the NIC has power and there are frames being processed by this NIC.
This happens without a working computer. -
pfSense works great for the home, too. :-)
The main different is the target hardware. <x>WRT/Tomato and friends are meant to run on APs and tiny embedded platforms that don't have much in the specs department (low storage, low ram, small ARM or similar CPU).
pfSense runs on x86/x64 hardware and has a lot more features because the hardware is a lot more capable.
That said, you can do plenty with WRT for the home, and some small businesses, and pfSense can do the same and more. It's really a question of what hardware you have available and what your needs are.
At home I use both, pfSense as my edge router, doing multi-wan, VPNs, etc, and I use Tomato on my WAP.</x>
