The plugin has a free edition that is pretty functional and works great in most small network environments. Compared to the paid versions, it has some limitations, but most are features that are only required by complex networks that deserve a paid version subscription.

Before comparing the different available versions, let’s check the hardware requirements.

Hardware requirements

As IPS does, Zenarmor also uses the Netmap framework to inspect and filter network packets, so don’t enable it in the same configured network interfaces, as you would in IPS mode by going to Services | Intrusion Detection | Administration – Interfaces.

Reports are something else that Zenarmor has that demands more memory and CPU than a stock OPNsense installation. It is based on Elasticsearch, which requires significant memory and CPU power to process data and transform it into meaningful graphs. The plugin installation does a hardware requirements...