VyOS review
A programmable self-hosted firewall platform for complex network environments.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
VyOS is an open-source network operating system for organizations deploying firewalling, routing, VPNs, and related network services on commodity hardware, virtual machines, cloud platforms, and edge environments. It suits network teams that want a programmable, self-hosted platform rather than a managed remote-access VPN service. The system provides a unified command-line interface and API, with support for bare-metal, virtualized, cloud, and edge deployments.
Its technical breadth is the main reason to consider it. VyOS supports stateful and zone-based IPv4 and IPv6 firewalling with NAT, along with IPsec, WireGuard, OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, GRE, VXLAN, and other tunneling technologies. Routing coverage includes BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, RIP, multicast routing, MPLS, and policy-based routing. High-availability and traffic-distribution features include VRRP, ECMP, stateful load balancing, and connection-state synchronization. Configuration commit, rollback, versioning, and archival add control for teams managing changing network policies.
Automation and deployment flexibility also stand out. REST and GraphQL APIs work alongside Shell and Python scripting APIs, while Ansible, Salt, Netmiko, NAPALM, Terraform, and cloud-init support fit infrastructure-as-code workflows. Integrations include AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, OpenStack, and Exoscale. The free rolling release is positioned for evaluation and non-critical use; paid subscriptions provide supported LTS releases, updates, and commercial support. Corporate covers unlimited on-premises deployments within one company, Global extends that model across subsidiaries and regions, and Alliance adds commercial deployment rights, a Next Business Day SLA for the first three tickets per month, a private engineering channel, and a dedicated Technical Account Manager. Choose VyOS for programmable network control and broad deployment options; choose another product if you want a fully managed VPN service.
VyOS pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Stateful and zone-based IPv4 and IPv6 firewalling with NAT
- Broad VPN, routing, tunneling, and cloud platform support
- REST, GraphQL, Shell, Python, and infrastructure automation APIs
- Where it doesn't
- Primarily self-hosted rather than a managed remote-access VPN service
- Free releases are intended for evaluation and non-critical use
- Corporate and Global plans provide best-effort support by default
VyOS fact sheet, pricing and score →
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