TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

FreeRADIUS

Score10 out of 10

4 Reviews and Ratings

What is FreeRADIUS?

FreeRADIUS is an open-source implementation of the RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) protocol, serving as a server for AAA (Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting) functions. It is designed to cater to organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises and service providers. FreeRADIUS finds extensive use in various professions and industries, including Internet Service Providers (ISPs), telecommunications companies, educational institutions, enterprise networks, and network equipment vendors, for centralized user authentication and authorization purposes.

Read more details.

Categories & Use Cases

Product Demos

Who Buys & Uses FreeRADIUS

FreeRADIUS does the job well and the price is right!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use FreeRADIUS to authenticate our users to wifi. It eliminates the issue of a shared password and the security flaws that follow that idea as employees come and go. Also by utilizing this system we can allocate the appropriate network resources based on the account that logs in. Since radius servers are widely accepted we are able to use this user database with a variety of services.

Pros

  • FreeRADIUS is easy to configure
  • It is fast a lightweight footprint on the server
  • FreeRADIUS works universally with other systems that support radius authentication

Cons

  • FreeRADIUS requires a 3rd party interface to make it easier to access (we use Daloradius) - it would nice if it was built in.
  • Installation and configuration are pretty easy and straightforward but does require connecting to a database which can be cumbersome.

Most Important Features

  • Lightweight
  • Fast
  • Easy to Use
  • Free!

Return on Investment

  • We previously used Microsoft Network Policy Server for our RADIUS authentication which works ok but was pretty clunky and requires Windows Server. Switching to FreeRADIUS brought our cost down to zero.
  • Because FreeRADIUS works natively in Linux it's easy to setup and works with all distros.
  • FreeRADIUS allows us to have user authentication for wifi which is much more secure than a simple shared password solution.

Other Software Used

WatchGuard Network Security, Splashtop Enterprise, IDrive, Salesforce CMS