Top 5 Best Linux Firewalls

Comments on this entry are closed.

• Nackox February 15, 2010, 7:35 am

  These are the most heard firewallas I guess, and iptables, is sure the best knowledgeable in the lista, but right now I’m testing Vuurmuur (on Debian). Its really a nice and simple frontend to netfilter and a powerful firewall manager built on top of iptables

  ∞
• saymoo February 15, 2010, 8:42 am

  Sorry, but this list is rubbish. Most of the list are not firewalls, but firewall managers.
  E.g. Shorewall, UFW, and IPCOP, make USE of NETFILTER/IPTABLES, and only provide a gui of some sort to configure the real firewall (again NETFILTER/IPTABLES).
  Without IPTABLES those three won’t function, and are dull gui’s without use. IPTABLES however does function on it’s own (config file no gui needed).

  So, clear those three out, and then you have a list with firewalls. ooh wait.. PF is not available under Linux, only under BSD’s. So clear that one out too..

  so the only firewall left on the list is IPTABLES, not much a list. Unless you count and add IPCHAINS to the list. (pre iptables firewall)

  Facts are facts

  ∞
• morgan February 15, 2010, 3:05 pm

  The best good console based gui for iptables I have seen is

  Vuurmuur:-

  http://www.vuurmuur.org/trac/wiki/Features

  Screenshots – http://www.vuurmuur.org/trac/wiki/ScreenShots

  I use it to share an ADSL modem (ppp0) with the rest of the house, it has most of the advanced features that fwbuilder gives you, but no need for X or any need for iptables knowledge.

  ∞
• rizlox February 17, 2010, 12:11 pm

  I quote saymoo, and also why the hell Checkpoint is in the list? It is totally closed, very expensive product, yes it’s based on linux like thousands of commercial products but I don’t see the point including in the list… Also the management console runs only on windows!

  ∞
• Gael February 18, 2010, 2:36 am

  I agree with saymoo and rizlox, this is not a good list as what is listed here are front end to edit netfilter and none open source or strictly linux firewall …

  ∞
• Arlequín February 18, 2010, 8:58 am

  Hello,

  I use Arno’s IPTABLES Firewall Script at home.

  Regards.

  ∞
• TejasDMT January 12, 2011, 7:05 am

  You have mentioned Checkpoint and IPtables where is the ASTARO linux based firewall in this listing. Easy to compatmentalize and has NAT, IDS and Packet rules in place as well. Free for HOME use although would be willing to pay a small annual fee to keep full benefits. Web interface to manage and has excellent throughput. Home users or small business could use a border router with ACLs and/or a Netgear (or eqivalent) in front of Astaro system which would almost provide enterprise equivalent system at very moderate prcing. Couple this with Windows Firewall or other on local workstation and you would have a reasonable secure environment ot work with.

  ∞
• kurt April 11, 2011, 8:55 am

  I’m using GBWare it is not bad

  ∞
• Danny January 15, 2012, 9:56 pm

  I agree. So far you have only listed one true firewall. Iptables. The rest are just GUIs that use iptables for those who do not understand the iptables source.

  ∞
• buruguduystunstugudunstuy February 29, 2012, 2:55 am

  since there have been a mention of ClearOS, why not throw Zentyal in there. Untangle one hell of a beast, btw.

  ∞
• Mark May 28, 2012, 12:24 am

  Ipcop’s current stable version is 2.0.4

  ∞
• edwin July 16, 2012, 6:57 pm

  is there any suggestion of firewall that suitable for school.

  ∞
• Vermuth March 12, 2013, 6:44 pm

  Thanks, very interesting

  ∞
• steve August 22, 2014, 1:29 pm

  This blog is result of how Linux philosophy affect users and then the same users produce something like this appearance ! The whole Linux philosophy is wrong ! Put the user in control and not other way around ! Who says that app in Linux can not sniff record and do some other nasty tasks ? Yes Linux is secure in terms how can not be exploited and crashed like windows can be but all other threats are still the threat anyway and some firewall that monitors system app behavior and block unwanted connections is required ! We have strong distro firewalls but on the other hand we do not have single strong firewall on Linux Desktop OS ? Why not ? Not needed ? I don’t agree i like be in control of system not other way around ! Something like Comodo firewall would be very god solutions ! And description of Linux app is weird and crazy when using synaptic package manager with bunch a library’s that only confuse ! Give simple name of app and description so the user will know what it is ! Like i said the whole philosophy of Linux is weird !!! On win i know exactly which app is doing what and how is networked to internet and backwards ! On Linux something like that is not needed ? So why then distro firewalls ??? Do not trust absolute no one ! Who said that NSA isnt developing some Linuxes and then post it as virgin OS for free to user ? And others also ? Where is control in user hands ? Do we rely must become developers to be secure ? I do not trust Win and win app so i control every corner of win and i like to do so that in Linux also !!!

  ∞
• YO March 14, 2015, 6:22 am

  Actually Douane is probably the best firewall fir GNU/Linux, since it blocks ALL traffic by default, and allows you to choose what you are willing to let through.

  ∞
• Bud April 7, 2015, 12:06 am

  Mac OSX is now using pf for its firewall.

  ∞