Comparison of firewalls
Firewall appliances
Table:
Firewall

License

Cost

OS

Clavister

Proprietary

Included on all Clavister
NGFWs

Proprietary operating system cOS Core

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,

Based on the Linux kernel

Palo Alto Networks

Proprietary

Included on Palo Alto
Networks firewalls

Proprietary operating system PANOS

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

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

Based on the Linux kernel

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

Forcepoint NGFW

Proprietary

Included on all Forcepoint NGFW devices

Proprietary operating system

OPNsense

Simplified BSD / FreeBSD License

Free / Paid

FreeBSD-based appliance
firewall distribution

pfSense

ESF/Apache 2.0

Free / Paid

FreeBSD-based appliance
firewall distribution

Untangle

GPL

Free / Paid

Linux-based appliance
firewall distribution

Zeroshell

GPL

Free / Paid

Linux/NanoBSD-based appliance
firewall distribution

SmoothWall

GPL

Free / Paid

Linux-based appliance
embedded firewall distribution [4]

Consulting the accompanying table and the supporting text listed.

State the answer to the question: What is the OS of the firewall that has 550+ employees across the Earth ? Return your answer as JSON: {"answer": "YOUR ANSWER"}. Do not introduce information beyond the provided sources.

A software license is a legal instrument ( usually by way of contract law , with or without printed material ) governing the use or redistribution of software . Under United States copyright law , all software is copyright protected , in both source code and object code forms , unless that software was developed by the United States Government , in which case it can not be copyrighted . Authors of copyrighted software can donate their software to the public domain , in which case it is also not covered by copyright and , as a result , can not be licensed . A typical software license grants the licensee , typically an end-user , permission to use one or more copies of software in ways where such a use would otherwise potentially constitute copyright infringement of the software owner 's exclusive rights under copyright .
An operating system ( OS ) is system software that manages computer hardware , software resources , and provides common services for computer programs . Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time , mass storage , printing , and other resources . For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation , the operating system acts as an intermediary between programs and the computer hardware , although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and frequently makes system calls to an OS function or is interrupted by it . Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer - from cellular phones and video game consoles to web servers and supercomputers . The dominant desktop operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 82.74% . macOS by Apple Inc. is in second place ( 13.23% ) , and the varieties of Linux are collectively in third place ( 1.57% ) . In the mobile ( including smartphones and tablets ) sector , Google Android 's share is up to 70% in the year 2017 . According to third quarter 2016 data , Android 's share on smartphones is dominant with 87.5 percent with also a growth rate of 10.3 percent per year , followed by Apple 's iOS with 12.1 percent with per year decrease in market share of 5.2 percent , while other operating systems amount to just 0.3 percent . Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors . Other specialized classes of operating systems , such as embedded and real-time systems , exist for many applications .
Comparison of firewalls
Proprietary software , also known as closed-source software , is non-free computer software for which the software 's publisher or another person retains intellectual property rights - usually copyright of the source code , but sometimes patent rights .
Check Point is a multinational provider of software and combined hardware and software products for IT security , including network security , endpoint security , cloud security , mobile security , data security and security management . As of 2019 [ update ] , the company has approximately 5,000 employees worldwide . Headquartered in Tel Aviv , Israel and San Carlos , California , the company has development centers in Israel and Belarus and previously held in United States ( ZoneAlarm ) , Sweden ( former Protect Data development centre ) following acquisitions of companies who owned these centers . The company has offices in over 70 locations worldwide including main offices in North America , 10 in the United States ( including in San Carlos , California and Dallas , Texas ) , 4 in Canada ( including Ottawa , Ontario ) as well as in Europe ( London , Paris , Munich , Madrid ) and in Asia Pacific ( Singapore , Japan , Bangalore , Sydney ) .
Check Point IPSO is the operating system for the 'Check Point firewall ' appliance and other security devices , based on FreeBSD , with numerous hardening features applied . The IP in IPSO refers to Ipsilon Networks , a company specialising in IP switching acquired by Nokia in 1997 . In 2009 , Check Point acquired the Nokia security appliance business , including IPSO , from Nokia .
Linux ( /ˈlɪnəks/ ( listen ) LIN-əks ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel , an operating system kernel first released on September 17 , 1991 , by Linus Torvalds . Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution . Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries , many of which are provided by the GNU Project . Many Linux distributions use the word Linux in their name , but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software , causing some controversy . Popular Linux distributions include Debian , Fedora , and Ubuntu . Commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server . Desktop Linux distributions include a windowing system such as X11 or Wayland , and a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma . Distributions intended for servers may omit graphics altogether , or include a solution stack such as LAMP . Because Linux is freely redistributable , anyone may create a distribution for any purpose . Linux was originally developed for personal computers based on the Intel x86 architecture , but has since been ported to more platforms than any other operating system . Linux is the leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers , and the only OS used on TOP500 supercomputers ( since November 2017 , having gradually eliminated all competitors ) . It is used by around 2.3 percent of desktop computers .
Fortinet is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale , California . It develops and markets cybersecurity software and appliances and services , such as firewalls , anti-virus , intrusion prevention and endpoint security . Fortinet was founded in 2000 by brothers Ken and Michael Xie . The company 's first product was FortiGate , a firewall , later adding wireless access points , sandboxing , and messaging security . By 2004 , Fortinet had raised over $ 90 million in funding . The company went public in November 2009 , raising $ 156 million through an initial public offering . In 2016 , Fortinet released its Security Fabric architecture that included integration and automation with other network security devices and third-party vendors . The product was later adapted to include multi-cloud , IoT , and SD-WAN capabilities .
Palo Alto Networks , Inc. ( NYSE : PANW ) is an American multinational cybersecurity company with headquarters in Santa Clara , California . Its core products are a platform that includes advanced firewalls and cloud-based offerings that extend those firewalls to cover other aspects of security . The company serves over 60,000 organizations in over 150 countries , including 85 of the Fortune 100 . It is home to the Unit 42 threat research team and hosts the Ignite cybersecurity conference . The company 's mission statement is Cybersecurity partner of choice , protecting our digital way of life . In 2018 , Palo Alto Networks was listed 8th in the Forbes Digital 100 . In June 2018 , former Google and SoftBank executive Nikesh Arora joined the company as Chairman and CEO .
Sophos Group plc is a British security software and hardware company . Sophos develops products for communication endpoint , encryption , network security , email security , mobile security and unified threat management . Sophos is primarily focused on providing security software to the mid market and pragmatic enterprise from 100- to 5,000-seat organizations . While not a primary focus , Sophos also protects home users , through free and paid antivirus solutions ( Sophos Home/Home Premium ) intended to demonstrate product functionality . It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index . [ citation needed ]
Sourcefire , Inc was a technology company that developed network security hardware and software . The company 's Firepower network security appliances were based on Snort , an open-source intrusion detection system ( IDS ) . Sourcefire was acquired by Cisco for $ 2.7 billion in July 2013 .
Cisco PIX ( Private Internet eXchange ) was a popular IP firewall and network address translation ( NAT ) appliance . It was one of the first products in this market segment . In 2005 , Cisco introduced the newer Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance ( Cisco ASA ) , that inherited many of the PIX features , and in 2008 announced PIX end-of-sale . The PIX technology was sold in a blade , the FireWall Services Module ( FWSM ) , for the Cisco Catalyst 6500 switch series and the 7600 Router series , but has reached end of support status as of September 26 , 2007 .
Juniper Networks , Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale , California . The company develops and markets networking products , including routers , switches , network management software , network security products , and software-defined networking technology . The company was founded in 1996 by Pradeep Sindhu , with Scott Kriens as the first CEO , who remained until September 2008 . Kriens has been credited with much of Juniper 's early market success . It received several rounds of funding from venture capitalists and telecommunications companies before going public in 1999 . Juniper grew to $ 673 million in annual revenues by 2000 . By 2001 it had a 37% share of the core routers market , challenging Cisco 's once-dominant market-share . It grew to $ 4 billion in revenues by 2004 and $ 4.63 billion in 2014 . Juniper appointed Kevin Johnson as CEO in 2008 , Shaygan Kheradpir in 2013 and Rami Rahim in 2014 . Juniper Networks originally focused on core routers , which are used by internet service providers ( ISPs ) to perform IP address lookups and direct internet traffic . Through the acquisition of Unisphere , in 2002 , the company entered the market for edge routers , which are used by ISPs to route internet traffic to individual consumers . In 2003 , Juniper entered the IT security market with its own JProtect security toolkit before acquiring security company NetScreen Technologies the following year .
ScreenOS is a real-time embedded operating system for the NetScreen range of hardware firewall devices from Juniper Networks .
The Junos operating system ( Junos OS ) used in Juniper Networks high-performance network devices creates a responsive and trusted environment for accelerating the deployment of services and applications over a single network .
SonicWall , originally a private company headquartered in Silicon Valley , and a Dell subsidiary from 2012 to 2016 , sells a range of Internet appliances primarily directed at content control and network security . These include devices providing services for network firewalls , unified threat management ( UTM ) , virtual private networks ( VPNs ) , and anti-spam for email . The company also markets information subscription services related to their products . The company solutions also serve to solve problems surrounding compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA ) and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard ( PCI-DSS ) . On March 13 , 2012 , USA Today said that Dell had announced its intent to acquire SonicWall , which then had 130 patents and 950 employees . Dell 's acquisition of SonicWall became official on May 9 , 2012 . On June 20 , 2016 , Dell sold SonicWall ( part of its Dell Software ) to private equity firm Francisco Partners and Elliott Management .
Barracuda Networks , Inc. is a company providing security , networking and storage products based on network appliances and cloud services . The company 's security products include products for protection against email , web surfing , web hackers and instant messaging threats such as spam , spyware , trojans , and viruses . The company 's networking and storage products include web filtering , load balancing , application delivery controllers , message archiving , NG firewalls , backup services and data protection .
Microsoft Windows , commonly referred to as Windows , is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families , all of which are developed and marketed by Microsoft . Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry . Active Microsoft Windows families include Windows NT and Windows IoT ; these may encompass subfamilies , e.g . Windows Server or Windows Embedded Compact ( Windows CE ) . Defunct Microsoft Windows families include Windows 9x , Windows Mobile and Windows Phone . Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20 , 1985 , as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces ( GUIs ) . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world 's personal computer ( PC ) market with over 90% market share , overtaking Mac OS , which had been introduced in 1984 . Apple came to see Windows as an unfair encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa and Macintosh ( eventually settled in court in Microsoft 's favor in 1993 ) . On PCs , Windows is still the most popular operating system . However , in 2014 , Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android , because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones . In 2014 , the number of Windows devices sold was less than 25% that of Android devices sold . This comparison , however , may not be fully relevant , as the two operating systems traditionally target different platforms .
Cyberoam Technologies , a Sophos Company , is a global Network Security appliances provider , with presence in more than 125 countries . The company offers User Identity-based network security in its Firewalls/ Unified Threat Management appliances , allowing visibility and granular control into users ' activities in business networks . For SOHO , SMB and large enterprise networks , this ensures security built around the network user for protection against APTs , insider threats , malware , hacker , and other sophisticated network attacks . Cyberoam has sales offices in North America , EMEA and APAC . The company has its customer support and development centers in India and has 550+ employees across the globe . It has a channel-centric approach for its sales with a global network of 4500+ partners . The company also conducts training programs for its customers and partners .
D-Link Corporation ( Chinese : 友訊科技 ) is a Taiwanese multinational networking equipment manufacturing corporation headquartered in Taipei , Taiwan . It was founded in March 1986 in Taipei as Datex Systems Inc .
Endian Firewall is an open-source router , firewall and gateway security Linux distribution developed by the South Tyrolean company Endian . The product is available as either free software , commercial software with guaranteed support services , or as a hardware appliance ( including support services ) .
Forcepoint , previously known as Websense or Raytheon|Websense , is an Austin-based company owned by U.S. defense contractor Raytheon and private equity firm Vista Equity Partners . It develops and markets cybersecurity software to prevent employees from viewing inappropriate or malicious content , or leaking confidential data . It also sells firewall , cloud access , and cross-domain IT security products . Forcepoint was founded in 1994 as an IT reseller called NetPartners . It was renamed Websense in 1999 and went public the following year . Vista Equity Partners acquired Websense in 2013 for $ 906 million , taking it off the public market . Raytheon acquired an 80% interest in Websense in April 2015 for $ 1.9 billion . Afterwards , Websense acquired network security vendor Stonesoft from Intel and renamed the combined company Forcepoint .
OPNsense is open source , FreeBSD-based firewall and routing software developed by Deciso , a company in the Netherlands that makes hardware and sells support packages for OPNsense . It is a fork of pfSense , which in turn was forked from m0n0wall , which was built on FreeBSD . It was launched in January 2015 . When m0n0wall closed down in February 2015 its creator , Manuel Kasper , referred its developer community to OPNsense . OPNsense has a web-based interface and can be used on i386 and x86-64 platforms . Along with acting as a firewall , it has traffic shaping , load balancing , and virtual private network capabilities , and others can be added via plugins . In November 2017 , a World Intellectual Property Organization panel found that Netgate , the copyright holder of pfSense , had been using the domain opnsense.com in bad faith to discredit OPNsense , and obligated Netgate to transfer the domain to Deciso . The Netgate party tried to invoke the fair use clause and claimed that the domain name had been used for a parody website ; it was rejected on the basis that free speech does not cover registration of domain names .
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses , imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software . This is in contrast to copyleft licenses , which have share-alike requirements . The original BSD license was used for its namesake , the Berkeley Software Distribution ( BSD ) , a Unix-like operating system . The original version has since been revised , and its descendants are referred to as modified BSD licenses . BSD is both a license and a class of license ( generally referred to as BSD-like ) . The modified BSD license ( in wide use today ) is very similar to the license originally used for the BSD version of Unix . The BSD license is a simple license that merely requires that all code retain the BSD license notice if redistributed in source code format , or reproduce the notice if redistributed in binary format . The BSD license ( unlike some other licenses ) does not require that source code be distributed at all .
FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution ( BSD ) , which was based on Research Unix . The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993 . In 2005 , FreeBSD was the most popular open-source BSD operating system , accounting for more than three-quarters of all installed BSD systems . FreeBSD has similarities with Linux , with two major differences in scope and licensing : FreeBSD maintains a complete system , i.e . the project delivers a kernel , device drivers , userland utilities , and documentation , as opposed to Linux only delivering a kernel and drivers , and relying on third-parties for system software ; and FreeBSD source code is generally released under a permissive BSD license , as opposed to the copyleft GPL used by Linux . The FreeBSD project includes a security team overseeing all software shipped in the base distribution . A wide range of additional third-party applications may be installed using the pkg package management system or FreeBSD Ports , or by compiling source code . Due to its licensing , much of FreeBSD 's codebase has become an integral part of other operating systems , such as Apple 's Darwin ( the basis for macOS , iOS , watchOS , and tvOS ) , FreeNAS ( an open-source NAS/SAN operating system ) , and the system software for Sony 's PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 .
pfSense is an open source firewall/router computer software distribution based on FreeBSD . It is installed on a physical computer or a virtual machine to make a dedicated firewall/router for a network . It can be configured and upgraded through a web-based interface , and requires no knowledge of the underlying FreeBSD system to manage .
The Apache License is a permissive free software license written by the Apache Software Foundation ( ASF ) . It allows users to use the software for any purpose , to distribute it , to modify it , and to distribute modified versions of the software under the terms of the license , without concern for royalties . The ASF and its projects release their software products under the Apache License . The license is also used by many non-ASF projects .
Untangle is a subsidiary of Providence Strategic Growth based in San Jose , California , which provides network management software . Untangle NG Firewall is used by nearly 40,000 organizations worldwide .
The GNU General Public License ( GNU GPL or GPL ) is a widely used free software license that guarantees end users the freedom to run , study , share , and modify the software . The license was originally written by Richard Stallman , former head of the Free Software Foundation ( FSF ) , for the GNU Project , and grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the Free Software Definition . The GPL is a copyleft license , which means that derivative work must be distributed under the same or equivalent license terms . This is in distinction to permissive software licenses , of which the BSD licenses and the MIT License are widely-used less-restrictive examples . GPL was the first copyleft license for general use . Historically , the GPL license family has been one of the most popular software licenses in the free and open-source software domain . Prominent free-software programs licensed under the GPL include the Linux kernel and the GNU Compiler Collection ( GCC ) . David A. Wheeler argues that the copyleft provided by the GPL was crucial to the success of Linux-based systems , giving the programmers who contributed to the kernel the assurance that their work would benefit the whole world and remain free , rather than being exploited by software companies that would not have to give anything back to the community . In 2007 , the third version of the license ( GPLv3 ) was released to address some perceived problems with the second version ( GPLv2 ) which were discovered during the latter 's long-time usage . To keep the license up to date , the GPL license includes an optional any later version clause , allowing users to choose between the original terms or the terms in new versions as updated by the FSF . Developers can omit it when licensing their software ; the Linux kernel , for instance , is licensed under GPLv2 without the any later version clause .
Zeroshell is a small open-source Linux distribution for servers and embedded systems which aims to provide network services . Its administration relies on a web-based graphical interface ; no shell is needed to administer and configure it . Zeroshell is available as Live CD and CompactFlash images , and VMware virtual machines . Zeroshell can be installed on any IA-32 computer with almost any Ethernet interface . It can also be installed on most embedded devices and single-board computers such as Raspberry Pi and Orange Pi .
FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution ( BSD ) , which was based on Research Unix . The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993 . In 2005 , FreeBSD was the most popular open-source BSD operating system , accounting for more than three-quarters of all installed BSD systems . FreeBSD has similarities with Linux , with two major differences in scope and licensing : FreeBSD maintains a complete system , i.e . the project delivers a kernel , device drivers , userland utilities , and documentation , as opposed to Linux only delivering a kernel and drivers , and relying on third-parties for system software ; and FreeBSD source code is generally released under a permissive BSD license , as opposed to the copyleft GPL used by Linux . The FreeBSD project includes a security team overseeing all software shipped in the base distribution . A wide range of additional third-party applications may be installed using the pkg package management system or FreeBSD Ports , or by compiling source code . Due to its licensing , much of FreeBSD 's codebase has become an integral part of other operating systems , such as Apple 's Darwin ( the basis for macOS , iOS , watchOS , and tvOS ) , FreeNAS ( an open-source NAS/SAN operating system ) , and the system software for Sony 's PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 .
Smoothwall is a Linux distribution designed to be used as an open source firewall . Smoothwall is configured via a web-based GUI and requires little or no knowledge of Linux to install or use . Smoothwall is also a private software company based in the UK who specializes in the development of web content filtering , safeguarding and internet security solutions , which also maintains the SmoothWall open source project .