Which Routerboard will run smoothwall?

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

Are any of the routerboards capable of running smoothwall?

I was looking at the RB450G <— will this do it?

Cheers

2

Why not just the RouterOS which comes on it, it is very capable !

Nick.

3

Spot on cordleztoaster!

When will someone answer that question. Indeed why not just RouterOS ? I to would like to know the differences, so I can make a decision. I to am stuck between 450G which has enough RAM to run Smoothwall and the flash to in stall it. (although Smothwall Express, the free version implies it will only install to a hard-drive and flash install is only available on the pay version?)
Or go with the 750G which is short on RAM and also my have an issue with Smoothwall install.

4

I’m back.

There is a common suggestion in the various forums that you will probably out grow Smoothwall Express and move to “PFSense”, which has Cisco capabilities (without handing over the bucks). apparently the only thing missing with PFSense are “per user graphs”; Which can be added via other software.
So the real question might be; How does RouterOS compare to PFSense. In the big picture, I guess I’m trying to establish where the line is between a 450G; Which may have expandability to these options. And the 750G which is a bargain, as long as my client doesn’t outgrow it the month after I install it. Does RouterOS have “per user graphs” or can I “add in” such an available piece of open source software ?

Thanks
Terry

5

There have been a few threads on the pfSense forum discussing pfSense vs RouterOS. My take (having used both) is that:

  • pfSense runs only on commodity hardware and is more extendible than RouterOS
  • RouterOS runs on (much) lower cost hardware for equivalent performance

I’d say that you’re better of with RouterOS and RouterBoard hardware if it meets your needs. With pfSense you can do things like run an OpenVPN server on UDP, install a caching proxy server (Squid) or load balancer (HAProxy) etc. The flip side is that you need much more expensive hardware - I replaced my x86 firewall with a much higher performing RouterBoard unit (a throughput of over 10x higher) that cost less than 20%. It did mean giving up on my Squid proxy and my OpenVPN server, but I just moved those to other hardware.