All posts
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Firewall Hardware Tiers: Celeron vs N100 vs i5 Mini-PCs
How much CPU does a home firewall actually need? A practical tiering of mini-PC silicon — older Celeron, Intel N100, and i5-class — mapped to real workloads like 1G/2.5G routing, WireGuard, and Suricata IDS/IPS.
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HAProxy vs nginx Reverse Proxy for a Home Firewall
Both OPNsense and pfSense can run a reverse proxy on the firewall itself. HAProxy and nginx solve the same homelab problem differently. A practical comparison for routing multiple internal services behind one public IP.
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pfSense vs OPNsense: Which to Choose by Use Case
Forget 'which is better.' The right firewall distro depends on what you're actually doing. A use-case-driven guide to picking pfSense or OPNsense for homelabs, small offices, VPN gateways, and appliance buyers in 2026.
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WireGuard vs OpenVPN on Your Firewall
WireGuard has become the homelab default, but OpenVPN is far from dead. A practical comparison of the two VPN protocols as you'd actually run them on OPNsense or pfSense — performance, NAT traversal, client experience, and when OpenVPN still wins.
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WireGuard on OPNsense vs pfSense in 2026: VPN Comparison
WireGuard is now the default homelab VPN, but the experience differs sharply between OPNsense and pfSense. A practical comparison of setup, kernel vs userspace, road-warrior config, and which platform makes WireGuard less painful.
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Best Homelab Firewall in 2026: OPNsense, pfSense, UniFi, MikroTik
A buyer's guide to picking the right firewall platform for a homelab in 2026. Covers OPNsense, pfSense, UniFi Dream Machine, MikroTik RouterOS, and OPNsense-on-Protectli — with decision criteria and budget tiers.
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OPNsense vs pfSense in 2026: Honest, Side-by-Side Comparison
We rebuilt the same network on OPNsense 25.x and pfSense CE 2.7 and pfSense Plus 24. Here is how they compare on UI, packages, performance, upgrades, and long-term project health.
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Protectli vs Netgate 2026: Which Firewall Hardware Wins?
Side-by-side hardware comparison of Protectli (VP2410, VP2420, VP4670) and Netgate (1100, 2100, 4100, 6100) firewall appliances. Specs, throughput, OS support, and value for OPNsense and pfSense homelabs.