1. WireGuard is a VPN Protocol that is very lightweight and performs very well even on weak devices unlike much heavier OpenVPN. This is why many VPN Providers are offering WireGuard as an option since its usually much faster and consumes less battery on battery powered devices. WireGuard is also less prone to disconnections compared to OpenVPN. SBCs like in Raspberry Pi can give very good speeds on WireGuard whereas OpenVPN will struggle with encryption/decryption especially without AES-NI (found on newer CPUs).
2. OpenWRT is a Linux based firewall/routing software that is much more customizable compared to default consumer router software.
It's not as fancy as PFSense but it is very lightweight and can be installed on many regular routers. It unlocks many stuff in normal routers that is typically found in much more expensive routers such as IPS/IDS to look for harmful packets/stop attacks on network (though this is usually quite hard on weak CPUs), much higher control on WiFi like changing power to high levels not usually allowed in normal routers, fancier firewall rules, collecting network stats, VPN Support which might be disabled on stock software etc.
3. PFSense is FreeBSD based firewall/routing software, it is more suited towards x86/x64 CPUs unlike OpenWRT and has even more customizablity like newer Suricata IPS/IDS with much fancier graphs compared to OpenWRT's snort. While OpenWRT is suited towards really low end routers, PFSense is more suited towards full fledged computers. PFSense is most suited for things like OpenVPN,IDS/IPS because its usually installed on faster computers. Though there are ARM based routers/firewall which run on PFSense like SG-1100, these are typically suited for small networks and you can't run things like Suricata, OpenVPN without maxing the CPU.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
I would suggest going through these videos/channels as well:
Source
Source
Source
Source
2. OpenWRT is a Linux based firewall/routing software that is much more customizable compared to default consumer router software.
It's not as fancy as PFSense but it is very lightweight and can be installed on many regular routers. It unlocks many stuff in normal routers that is typically found in much more expensive routers such as IPS/IDS to look for harmful packets/stop attacks on network (though this is usually quite hard on weak CPUs), much higher control on WiFi like changing power to high levels not usually allowed in normal routers, fancier firewall rules, collecting network stats, VPN Support which might be disabled on stock software etc.
3. PFSense is FreeBSD based firewall/routing software, it is more suited towards x86/x64 CPUs unlike OpenWRT and has even more customizablity like newer Suricata IPS/IDS with much fancier graphs compared to OpenWRT's snort. While OpenWRT is suited towards really low end routers, PFSense is more suited towards full fledged computers. PFSense is most suited for things like OpenVPN,IDS/IPS because its usually installed on faster computers. Though there are ARM based routers/firewall which run on PFSense like SG-1100, these are typically suited for small networks and you can't run things like Suricata, OpenVPN without maxing the CPU.
Sources:
pfSense - Wikipedia
WireGuard - Wikipedia
OpenWrt - Wikipedia
I would suggest going through these videos/channels as well:
Source
Source
Source
Source
