untangle vs opnsense + sensei

[tlchappell]

Howdy folks,

I was looking at buying a untangle home sub vs going with opnsense + sensei. It seems like price point is about the same at a $1 per device for filtering. Mostly wanting to compare the web filtering between the two and wondered if anyone had any opinions . Currently have two kids at home and was looking to setups some rules to curb browsing habits when I am not around. I was using Pfsense but netgate has left a bad taste after a few issues over the years so looking to jump ship.


I know answers might be biased since this is an untangle forum and that is fine . Any advice/suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks!

[irwinnick]

Recently started with Untangle. Works fine for me.. just like you, I have been using the Web monitor to see how much time my kids spend online. I get detailed logs for IPs and everything.. particularly for games they play. I haven't used the other two so cannot comment on that.

[donhwyo]

After many years of using Untange I bought the home license when it first came out. Mostly for the support. I have only used it once before it disappeared. So if I was going to choose support would be a main consideration. The forums here are quite good (thanks Sky and others) maybe even better than official support. I know nothing about "opnsense + sensei". It may be based on bsd as Pfsense is. If so I am more comfortable with debian, choose what you prefer.

Untangle is slow to take debian updates and suggestions. Who knows how long it will take to get to bullseye? Look at https://untanglengfirewall.featureupvote.com/. Some requests have hundreds of votes and no comments from Untangle. Like https://untanglengfirewall.featureup...ort-for-dhcpv6 or https://untanglengfirewall.featureup...ncy-management.

So choose what's important to you. Don't forget to use the full feature 14 day trial. It can run well as a vm if you are good at that.

Let us know how it goes.

[sky-knight]

Bullseye isn't even two weeks old yet! And it only took a few months to get into Debian 10.

As for the OP, they are very different things. OpnSense + Sensei works well, but it doesn't really afford any more power or control than OpnSense + DNSFilter... or piHole, or any number of other DNS based filtration solutions.

So after you see the granularity you can get out of WebFilter in comparison, while reading through Untangle's unified reporting which is several orders of magnitude better than the "logging" available on any other platform, much less OpnSense... Well, that's where you'll see the Untangle value.

And yeah, the price is the same, $1 / device / year... but Untangle's Home Protect Plus is 150 devices, whereas Sensei stuffs you in at 100 devices. But if all you want is Web Filter, you can get Home Protect for $50. The real rub there is the 50 device limit... which brings us to another thing Untangle does that no one else does... BYPASS RULES.

With Untangle you get to pick what devices consume a license thanks to those things... you can't do that with anything else either.

So it all boils down to what you need, and no one can answer that for you. But cost? Cost isn't even a consideration here. Value? Bah that's easy, Untangle hands down.

[donhwyo]

Bullseye isn't even two weeks old yet! And it only took a few months to get into Debian 10.

You have been around long enough to remember how long it took for some versions in the past. Buster is still supported so not a big deal. Bullseye might be easier to upgrade than the older versions. Some other projects I use like proxmox are on it already. Uses less memory and feels snappier. So I look forward to the upgrade.

Since we can no longer see the jira who knows if they are even thinking about it.

[sky-knight]

You have been around long enough to remember how long it took for some versions in the past. Buster is still supported so not a big deal. Bullseye might be easier to upgrade than the older versions. Some other projects I use like proxmox are on it already. Uses less memory and feels snappier. So I look forward to the upgrade.

Since we can no longer see the jira who knows if they are even thinking about it.

Oh yeah! But that's also part of the reason why v10 was a nuke and rebuild instead of upgrade... getting the platform reworked so that it was more OS agnostic. That work has continued, so while it's an effort to get Untangle on a new OS, it's no longer the near act of Congress level mess it used to be.

The lack of Jira has made me fear this product is going closed source... but I'll reserve the panic for after the pandemic when a company the size of Untangle can afford to breathe again. In the meantime, Git is still there: https://github.com/untangle/ngfw_src

[donhwyo]

The lack of Jira has made me fear this product is going closed source...

I think you dug out what has bothered me for a long time.

Git is still there: https://github.com/untangle/ngfw_src

Jira was easier to follow. Guess I will have to learn git someday.

[sky-knight]

I think you dug out what has bothered me for a long time.



Jira was easier to follow. Guess I will have to learn git someday.

Jira is a ticketing system, Git is a source control engine. Anyone can get all the code off git and fork Untangle, it's all right there. Technically that repo is a ton more valuable.

[tlchappell]

Bullseye isn't even two weeks old yet! And it only took a few months to get into Debian 10.

As for the OP, they are very different things. OpnSense + Sensei works well, but it doesn't really afford any more power or control than OpnSense + DNSFilter... or piHole, or any number of other DNS based filtration solutions.

So after you see the granularity you can get out of WebFilter in comparison, while reading through Untangle's unified reporting which is several orders of magnitude better than the "logging" available on any other platform, much less OpnSense... Well, that's where you'll see the Untangle value.

And yeah, the price is the same, $1 / device / year... but Untangle's Home Protect Plus is 150 devices, whereas Sensei stuffs you in at 100 devices. But if all you want is Web Filter, you can get Home Protect for $50. The real rub there is the 50 device limit... which brings us to another thing Untangle does that no one else does... BYPASS RULES.

With Untangle you get to pick what devices consume a license thanks to those things... you can't do that with anything else either.

So it all boils down to what you need, and no one can answer that for you. But cost? Cost isn't even a consideration here. Value? Bah that's easy, Untangle hands down.

Thanks @sky-Knight. I think I made a double post by mistake as you kind answered this already in a different thread. But I really appreciated your taking the time to look at it again !

If you have a moment though I have another question

Think on my trial I am right at 50 known devices with around 25 online at any given time. Six of those are security Cam items and 10 are IOT. I think I can probably Bypass those right ? The Cams are locked into their own Vlan with no access to anything else on the network. Also if you bypass something is it still protected from the outside world? Like that does not put it into some kind of DMZ correct? If So then I think the 50$ sub would probably be fine for me? I don't think I need web filtering on those items...I don't suspect my security cams will be downloading porn. My trial is up Tuesday I think so I plan on picking up a sub. So far I have been really digging untangle.

[sky-knight]

Bypass means none of the rack applications see the traffic. Basically "Untangle" doesn't see the traffic. Only the kernel processes it. If you have a VLAN made out of cameras that aren't meant for the world, create filter rules to prevent that, then bypass them. They won't count toward your licensing then, yet still be isolated.