Endian Firewall Alternative: Choose CacheGuard for a Complete Free UTM

If you are looking for an Endian Firewall alternative, you are probably in one of two situations. Either you are using Endian Firewall Community — the free, open-source version — and finding that its feature set is not complete enough for your needs without moving to the paid commercial product. Or you are evaluating Endian UTM — the commercial subscription version — and the pricing or feature gaps are pushing you to look elsewhere.

This article explains what Endian Firewall offers, where it falls short, and why CacheGuard is worth considering as an Endian Firewall alternative that delivers a complete, free, open-source UTM out of the box.

What Is Endian Firewall?

Endian Firewall has an interesting history. It is a fork of IPCop, which is itself a fork of SmoothWall — making it part of a long lineage of Linux-based open-source firewall distributions. It is developed by Endian, an Italian company based in South Tyrol, and is available in two distinct versions.

Endian Firewall Community is the free, open-source version licensed under the GPL. It bundles stateful filtering, VPN and IPS in one free package, making it a reasonable starting point for small deployments and homelabs. However the community version does not include support and not all features of the commercial version are available.

Endian UTM is the commercial product — a subscription-based UTM appliance that adds web and email filtering, advanced threat management, centralized management and vendor support on top of the community feature set. Pricing is based on a subscription model with different tiers determined by features, number of users and security requirements.

Why Organizations Look for an Endian Firewall Alternative

The community edition has feature gaps. While Endian Firewall Community provides solid basic security, it lacks several features that a modern UTM should include — most notably a Web Application Firewall, a reverse proxy and load balancer, and web caching. Organizations that need these features must either move to the paid commercial product or add significant complexity to their setup.

The commercial product is subscription-based. Endian UTM follows the same pattern as many commercial UTM vendors — subscription pricing based on features and number of users that adds ongoing recurring costs. For startups and small businesses operating on tight budgets, these costs can be difficult to justify.

Endian is increasingly focused on industrial OT security. Endian has shifted its primary focus toward IT/OT security for industrial environments. While this is a legitimate market, it means that Endian UTM’s development roadmap is increasingly aligned with industrial use cases rather than general SMB network security needs.

No built-in WAF. Neither the community nor the commercial version of Endian Firewall includes a Web Application Firewall. For organizations running web-facing applications, this is a significant gap that requires an additional solution.

No reverse proxy or load balancer. Endian Firewall does not include a reverse proxy or load balancer — features that are increasingly important for organizations hosting web applications or APIs.

CacheGuard as an Endian Firewall Alternative

CacheGuard delivers a complete, integrated UTM security stack in a single ISO — free to deploy on any hardware, actively maintained since 2002, with no subscription fees and no feature restrictions.

A completely free Endian Firewall alternative

CacheGuard-OS is completely free regardless of the number of users, devices or appliances you deploy. There are no licensing tiers, no subscription fees and no features locked behind a paywall. Everything is included from day one — no need to upgrade to a commercial product to access the full feature set.

Everything included out of the box

Where Endian Firewall Community has notable gaps and the commercial product requires subscription fees, CacheGuard includes a complete UTM stack built in and working together from day one:

• Stateful firewall with fine-grained traffic control rules
• IPsec VPN for secure remote access and site-to-site connectivity
• Gateway-level web antivirus powered by ClamAV
• Filtering web proxy with URL filtering capabilities — with LDAP/AD integration
• SSL inspection — called SSL mediation in CacheGuard — for encrypted traffic scanning and HTTPS caching
• Web Application Firewall powered by ModSecurity and OWASP Core Rule Set
• Reverse proxy and application load balancer with high availability mode
• Multi-WAN support with automatic failover
• QoS and bandwidth management
• Web caching to reduce bandwidth usage
• Centralized management via CacheGuard Manager for multi-site deployments

No plugins, no subscription modules, no feature tiers.

Built from scratch — not a fork of a fork

Unlike Endian Firewall which is a fork of IPCop which is itself a fork of SmoothWall, CacheGuard-OS has been built entirely from scratch since 2002 — as a derivation of LFS (Linux From Scratch). This means no inherited legacy code, no compatibility constraints from upstream projects, and a codebase designed from the ground up for network appliance security. The full source code is available on GitHub representing over 5,000 man days of research and development.

Endian Firewall vs CacheGuard: Feature Comparison

Who Should Choose CacheGuard as Their Endian Firewall Alternative

CacheGuard is the right Endian Firewall alternative for:

Organizations using Endian Community that need a more complete UTM feature set — particularly WAF and reverse proxy for web application protection — without moving to a paid subscription product.

Startups and small businesses that evaluated Endian UTM but found the subscription pricing or the industrial OT focus did not align with their general SMB network security needs.

Organizations running web-facing applications that need WAF and reverse proxy protection — features that neither version of Endian Firewall includes.

Organizations that value a clean, purpose-built codebase. CacheGuard is not a fork of a fork — it has been built from scratch since 2002 as a dedicated network security appliance OS, with no legacy code inherited from upstream projects.

MSPs and IT consultants who need a repeatable, cost-effective security solution they can deploy for multiple clients without per-device licensing or subscription management overhead.

Who Should Stick With Endian Firewall

CacheGuard is not the right choice for every organization. Endian Firewall remains a strong option for:

• Organizations that specifically need SSL VPN in addition to or instead of IPsec VPN
• Deployments requiring email antivirus and anti-spam at the gateway level
• Organizations that need intrusion prevention system (IPS) capabilities
• Industrial and OT environments where Endian’s specific IT/OT security focus adds genuine value
• Organizations already committed to the Endian ecosystem with existing support contracts

How to Get Started With CacheGuard

Getting started with CacheGuard as your Endian Firewall alternative is straightforward:

1. Download CacheGuard for free from cacheguard.com
2. Install on any x86/x64 bare-metal machine or VM with at least two network interfaces
3. Access the web interface and configure your network settings
4. Enable security features progressively — firewall, VPN, antivirus, WAF, URL filtering
5. Your network is protected in under an hour — at zero ongoing cost

The full source code is available on GitHub and the documentation covers every step in detail.

Conclusion

If you are looking for an Endian Firewall alternative that delivers a complete UTM security stack — including WAF and reverse proxy that Endian does not offer — without subscription fees and built from a clean, purpose-designed codebase, CacheGuard is a compelling choice.

Download CacheGuard for free and see how much you can save without compromising on security.

Questions about deploying CacheGuard? Visit the community forum at help.cacheguard.net or browse the full documentation at CacheGuard Documentation.