Firewall appliances

In general, a computer appliance is a computing device with a specific function and limited configuration ability, and a software appliance is a set of computer programs that might be combined with just enough operating system (JeOS) for it to run optimally on industry standard computer hardware or in a virtual machine.

 

A firewall appliance is a combination of a firewall software and an operating system that is purposely built to run a firewall system on a dedicated hardware or virtual machine. These include:

embedded firewalls: very limited-capability programs running on a low-power CPU system,

software-based firewall appliances: a system that can be run in independent hardware or in a virtualized environment as a virtual appliance

hardware-based firewall appliances: a firewall appliance that runs on a hardware specifically built to install as a network device, providing enough network interfaces and CPU to serve a wide range of purposes. From protecting a small network (a few network ports and few megabits per second throughput) to protecting an enterprise-level network (tens of network ports and gigabits per second throughput).

The following table lists different firewall appliances lists.

Firewall	License	Cost	OS
Check Point	Proprietary	Included on Check Point security gateways	Proprietary operating system Check Point IPSO and Gaia (Linux-based)
FortiGate	Proprietary	Included on all Fortigate devices	Proprietary, FortiOS
Palo Alto Networks	Proprietary	Included on Palo Alto Networks firewalls	Proprietary operating system PANOS
WatchGuard	Proprietary	Included on all WatchGuard firewalls	Proprietary operating system
Sophos	Proprietary	Included on Sophos UTM	Linux-based appliance
Cisco Asa Firepower	Proprietary	Included on all CISCO ASA devices	Proprietary operating system
Cisco PIX	Proprietary	Included on all CISCO PIX devices	Proprietary operating system
Mcafee Firewall	Proprietary	Included on Intel Security Appliance	Linux-based appliance
Juniper SSG	Proprietary	Included on Netscreen security gateways	Proprietary operating system ScreenOS
Juniper SRX	Proprietary	Included on SRX security gateways	Proprietary operating system Junos
Sonicwall	Proprietary	Included on Dell appliance	Proprietary operating system SonicOs
Barracuda Firewall	Proprietary	Included Firewall Next Generation appliance	Windows-based appliance embedded firewall distribution
Cyberoam	Proprietary	Included Firewall Sophos appliance	Windows-based appliance embedded firewall distribution
D-Link	Proprietary	Included Firewall DFL	Windows-based appliance embedded firewall distribution
Endian Firewall	Proprietary	Free / Paid	Linux-based appliance
Opendium Iceni	Proprietary	Free / Paid	Linux-based, with optional web filtering / auditing.
IPCop	GPL	Free / Paid	Linux-based appliance firewall distribution
pfSense	ESF/BSD	Free / Paid	FreeBSD-based appliance firewall distribution
IPFire	GPL	Free / Paid	Linux/NanoBSD-based appliance firewall distribution
Untangle	GPL	Free / Paid	Linux/NanoBSD-based appliance firewall distribution
Zeroshell	GPL	Free / Paid	Linux/NanoBSD-based appliance firewall distribution
SmoothWall	GPL	Free / Paid	Linux-based appliance embedded firewall distribution
WinGate	GPL	Free / Paid	Windows-based appliance embedded firewall distribution
Calyptix Security	BSD	Free	OpenBSD-based appliance firewall distribution
Halon Security	BSD	Free	OpenBSD-based appliance
Vantronix	BSD	Free	OpenBSD-based appliance