| Strengths of OpenBSD: * security -- the code is audited and hardened to a greater degree than any other general purpose OS on the planet (embedded safety critical microkernel systems would be the exception) * routing suite -- one of the most well integrated open source routing suites out there (alternatives include BIRD and free range routing / quagga) * firewall -- their firewall is flexible, fully featured, and easy to configure. It has been adopted by other BSDs, but development and new features happen in OpenBSD first. Weaknesses of OpenBSD: performance -- security is valued over optimized code, so the OS will not be as efficient or handle as many connections as a Linux or FreeBSD server could * lack of ZFS Compared to OpenBSD, FreeBSD has a slightly worse firewall implementation (originally sourced from OpenBSD), better networking and computing performance, and ZFS. What type of device are you considering using OpenBSD or FreeBSD for? |