I’ve been using PFSense for years, and it’s been pretty great, but I also have some friends who are homelabbers that like their Unifi setups.
What do you guys prefer, and why?
Unifi is great
Got 3 sites now all managed in one place
I do. It’s nice. Just earlier I used teleport to remote in and setup a docker container, while out. It’s certainly the biggest advantage to me, having a one click/tap VPN connection to a network. It’s helped me out several times at home and work.
Has teleport started working on Linux yet? Or is there a way to use teleport from Android to the Linux compy?
I use UniFi for switches and AP, it doesn’t make sense to use something else for gateway, not even the AmpliFi or EdgeRouter product lines. Single pane of smooth glass to manage everything in one place.
Pfsense got some bad blood for doing shady things to make opnsense look bad. Beyond that, Unifi management is easy to set up and less to mess around with and has auto updates if you keep the contoller up and enable it.when I used opnsense and pfsense even, I left it out of date since I wasn’t following for updates, and it was a lot more micro managing than I wanted to on a router even though I knew how.
Got time? Want to learn networking? Want more advanced configs? Go wih opnsense/pfsense
Want to have time to do other things? Unifi
Edit: also not sure if pfsense or opnsense does, but unifi has the best rated local integration with controller and home assistant. Easy reboot of PoE devices, monitoring PoE power usage, transmission rates on ports, automation, enabling scheduling WiFi networks or security settings, presence detection by tracking peoples phones connected to the WiFi, etc.
Ubiquiti has had outages in the past that meant you couldn’t manage the equipment right in front of you.
Even discounting the potential security implications of that kind of management, the rage I would feel in that situation is enough that I while my AP is nice, works great, I will never use any of their gateways.
I’m using a 2.5g protectli with OPNSense now, and it’s easy to manage, and all local.
Oh interesting. So you can’t manage Ubiquiti devices without an Internet connection? TIL
You can manage them as long as you have access to your controller. If you’re using the controller hosted in their cloud, then you’re beholden to their outages. Some gateways cannot use your own controller, so be mindful when selecting your gears.
Ah got it. I was looking at the UDM Pro. Is that a router and a controller? If so, I should be able to access locally I’d hope
Ruckus APs and Opnsense have been solidly reliable for me for 5y now. No random fucking with unifi bugs (like having my WPA enterprise SSID punting users out onto the management vlan at random instead of the Kerberos assigned VLAN for that user, thanks unifi) and fantastic wireless coverage has me completely satisfied with my infra choices. Also, Ruckus unleashed handles controller duty on the primary AP rather than requiring a management container, that’s also a plus.