how about a OPNsense comparison as well?

Great video hope in future gaving mikrotik router's explaining i think they do decent work Appreciate your works and videos

One of the best breakdowns of networking eq selection I've seen! Thank you!

pfsense+ was the version that was for homelab, and they said from the get go was going to go under their tac lite license for $129, but was initially free. The main feature that people liked with it, was boot environments which is essentially zfs snapshots, so you can restore after breaking something really quickly. pfsense CE, is still free, and it's 99% the same software. You can just restore your pfsense+ config, to pfsense CE, and carry on

can you make a video talk about the setting on the unifi firewall? i just get the unifi DreamMachine SE, thanks

There seems to be quite a few forum posters out there that recommend OPNSense after the wireguard situation.

You should also take a look at Synology's offerings. They are obviously most well known for their NAS lineup..but they have some really solid wifi and routing gear. I run a synology setup at my house and it works really well. As a professional network engineer/architect..my standards are pretty high and my need to tinker is always a priority..and the synology stuff definitely checks the boxes for me as a home user. I think it would be a very good fit for smaller businesses as well..though admittedly I wouldn't spec it out for anything larger than SOHO/doctor's office/similar applications unless the data flows were pretty limited in complexity to keep the ACLs/policies reasonable. Anyway...just a data point to consider. Have a good one!

Unifi is great but for my edge device I run a Netgate 8200 Max. With backing unifi switched and AP's. Their network controller (running in a container) is becoming more and more like the UDMP dashboard. To me this is the best of both worlds. I much prefer the "native" HAproxy over having to side load it onto the UDMP. I started running pfsense on my own hardware, to the UDMP for 2 years and now back to Pfsense on their own appliance and couldn't be happier.

For home, this Xmass holiday I will be spending time on PFSense on a 4port 2.5Gb miniPC, Omada AP, 2.5Gb Managed switch and 3 VLANs to improve security

How about Firewalla hardware? comments?

We skipped over the fact that this video didn't start with "how's it going y'all?" So how's it going! :D

The UDM is not only a firewall it;s a controller and it can contain a HDD for Unifi protect app that i use with camera and G4 Pro doorbell , so it's much more capable then a firewall , it also contains a 8 port switch , so this comparison it luke compare apples with pears

Once a UDM can do dynamic routing (OSPF,BGP) and clean up that mess of firewall rules creation...I am fully onboard and ditching my Netgate.

pfsense, cheaper to run, has a great built in reverse proxy, much easier to create firewall rules, and generally has lots of great features. I even have a backup one setup in proxmox ready to go incase my main baremetal one craps out. Just move the cables, turn on the system, and I'm back up and running.

what about firewalla? trying to figure out opnsense vs unfi vs firewalla

I opdated our NG4100 one time.. all VPN stop working, and i only find a solution by SSH into it, and reset it.... :/ but good firewall, hard to setup

Good video overall, but one thing that I think is worth also mentioning is that the mandatory cloud-accessibility of unifi firewalls is a security nightmare waiting to happen. Anyone, anywhere, can potentially log into your firewall. Once they do they own you. Even putting security aside, the fact that these things are managed via their cloud UI means that you are completely beholden to Ubiquiti - if they decide to start charging for any of this, you're SOL. If they decide to deprecate your current firewall model, you're SOL (because it will then stop checking into the cloud UI due to old firmware, and also then no longer be accessible). Also, like you mentioned, stability is a problem with Unifi. Imo even random "netgear" type firewalls are a much better choice for home users given the fact that they aren't externally accessible to the entire world by default like unifi firewalls are. Businesses and more security-conscious home users should be using pfsense/opnsense/sonicwall/etc.

What do you think about MikroTik routers?

I'm a network engineer working as consultant for government. You know what? I ordered a UDM SE. I'm dumping my opnsense (was fortigate before) for this UDM. I know it's not as powerful but it will do 99% of what I need for my network/lab. Network application 8 added a lot of stuff I needed. I already have APs and switches from Unifi so it's nice to have the full stock. Would I install unifi stuff for companies bigger than SMB? Absolutely not. For SMB and home, yes

Question for those who went pfsense, what did you do for WiFi?

Watchguard only here, the t35cw is pretty nice, configuration is super easy to migrate whenever needed and NBD replacement plus good visualization of traffic

OPNsense!

I actually know pfsense more because I have been working with it for a while. I don't know anything about the unifi router.

Unifi is good for a neutered it just works approach. Pfsense is a superior firewall.

but then what about opnsense?

Unfortunately, ubiquiti routers are a bit expensive (comparatively) in Europe. The regular dream machine is about $320 (excl sales tax/VAT) and the pro is about $400 which is closer at least (although VAT/sales tax is 23-25% though so for prosumer use it’s a bit heft I think).

Firewalla is the best!

I would have compared to a Protectli running PFsense.

I’m just a simple home user but I find pfSense firewall way easier to configure than Unifi. I used to have a Edreouter X and I just couldn’t get my firewall rules to work. Sure I got internet access but I had big problems to create a separate IoT VLAN that my main LAN could connect to but not the other way around. Then I saw some videos about pfSense and suddenly everything made sense. I could understand what I was doing and make my own rules instead of just trying to copy some others work. And from what I've seen in videos, the Unifi firewall rules seem to be confusing as well. The user interface plus pfBlocker was the main reason that I switched from a Edgerouter to a Netgate 3100 and I haven’t regreat that a single moment.

The change pfsense made with the CE versus Plus was always documented. Most users who jumped on the Plus and did not read about it was shocked. The fee is part of keeping the CE and Plus going rather than allowing it to stagnate. I do not view it as sus, but accept you do. Good video with information about the 2 platforms. They are closer together but still different.

Great video. I had pfsense on own hardware and dumped it after they pulled the rug on pfsense+. Got a UDM-Pro on Black Friday sale and am excited. Can you do a follow up video on unbound+pihole the gets external DNS (ex cloud flare) over TLS or something secure? Thanks @SpaceRexWill

So you like Pf Sense 🤣

I run away from everything that has subscriptions, I like to buy hardware not rent it.

I was an Unify user. I had the smaller router and there controller. To my suprise Unify went full cloud mode meaning that there will be some sort of subscription. I skipped the router cause it was a hassle to go around the subscription thing. Now looking for an new router that has opensource software on it.

PFSense , is free ..

Using firewall and router as one word/item just isn't correct, even when not talking "massive"... A modem sits between the internet and your local network... More routers in one network, yes but you are not talking about a small business here but a rather large when when saying things like this. yeah, not feeling good about the video, and that's only watching the first 3 min

90m to set up High Availability?!? Seriously? Maybe 5m. Once you set up the Master configs are sync'd on each change. 90 minutes???

Nowadays it pays to use your isps' router, if anything goes wrong with it, they fix it. Had a netgear and it croaked after 8 months and also created RF interference on my speakers.