Well hello there! Guess it’s only natural to follow both LTT and LTS lol.
I would also agree regarding the Cisco ASA’s, I do not like them. Between ASDM and their firepower offering it feels like nothing has changed in 20 years.
I’ve changed over the years from Smoothwall > M0n0wall > pfsense. Now I have USG as my perimeter firewall which just handles generic stuff at home, and my lab uses pfsense.
I’ve tried Sophos UTM - my initial testing I found the UI slow and clunky. I tested it again a year later, had enough improvements that I’d like to put it infront of my DMZ or something similar.
At work we went from a Cisco ASA 5520 to a Cisco ASA 5525… I hate it. I really do not like the ASDM interface nor do I like the Firepower offering.
I tested Palo Alto’s firewalls prior to my manager deciding on that 5525, and loved it. A little bit of learning, but got familiar with it very quickly.
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There is an outfit in Towson MD that uses Palto Alto and Splunk for analysis of network events. Palto Alto great product but is pricy , geared to the big enterprise.
Dude if you think Palo Alto is expensive, splunk is way more expensive. When we were looking at Palo Alto we were looking at their low-level stuff like the PA-800 series. Think we were quoted $6k which is what we spent on the lower-performing 5525. It was either $6k or $12, but somewhere there abouts.
O yeah Splunk is not for the low budget enterprise. Powerful but pricey.
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Mostly we use MikroTik for our customers because they offer many different hardware choices. I am not big fun of using old PCs for deploying firewalls, so MikroTIk hardware is suitable from SOHO to Large industries.
MikroTIk RouterOS is exactly the same on all devices ans as brwainer said, It’s an Swiss army knife for networking.
We also use Sophos XG series, but Sophos is like Untangle or Fortigare. It require subscription, in order ti use advance functions (Web Protection, Application Protection, etc).
Howdy to you as well!
Ughhhh ASDM is the worst - especially with the bug that certain versions of ASDM can’t view the live events from certain firmware versions. I try to use the CLI on ASA’s as much as possible.
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When I say old PC one or two gens down and often overkill for internal use. Deploy with Intel NICs they work fine for protecting VM hosts. Evaled Sophos Barracuda Untangle (going to take another look at untangle) but I like pf-Sense it works fits my clients needs just keeps on “trucken”.
I have been using pfsense for as long as i can remember, it is a rock solid product that has never given me any trouble. I run it on consumer hardware and over the years have only had network card faults that have caused any issues. As better second hardware becomes available in my business the machine gets an upgrade.
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At home I used to use Astaro which is now Sophos UTM. About 2 years ago I switched pfsense. At the moment it is running on an old Dell with a core2duo E4400. At some point I want to change the hardware over to something in a 1u form factor, maybe finding a used Barracuda or Watchguard. I am still investigating that.
At work, we mainly use Juniper and Palo Alto.
Been running pfSense at home now for a couple years on a spare Intel i3 system. A big thanks to Tom for his guides!
At work, I believe we’re running Fortigate (not the network guy there)
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For many years, I have been using Zyxel USG Devices for most small businesses and for my home office. I must be the only one.
Running pfsense in VM the last couple of years.
Back in the day I used to run smoothwall.
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I really like PC Engines APU2’s. They are quite affordable and work really well with PfSense.
I have used Zyxel PoE switches. Can’t say I even knew they had a USG line. Sounds relativity unknown.
In the USA yes, in Asia no. Meaning they are well known in Asia. I like using Zyxel. The American Support staff will help you with any config. They will tell you how to config their products if you don’t know how. They have outstanding support and that is why I use them.
After using DD-WRT for many years at home I decided to migrate to pfSense 6 months ago. It’s been a great experience. As for hardware I got one of these: IBOX-501 N13. It is working great for my needs.
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Smoothwall was my first exposure to a “build your own” style router/firewall too.
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how many watts does this device use?
According to the manufacturer 15W at moderate load and 20W at max. I never measured it myself. The power adapter provided has a 12V 5A output max.