Best Network Operating Systems (NOS) with a Free Trial

CacheGuard-OS transforms a virtual or bare metal machine into a powerful and easy to handle network appliance. It's a Linux based Operating System built from scratch and especially designed to Secure and Optimize the network traffic. Great care has been taken by CacheGuard-OS developers to select the best of the best Open Source technologies to integrate into CacheGuard-OS. The result is a robust and trustworthy solution that can be up and running within minutes. CacheGuard-OS integrates Open Source software such as but not limited to OpenSSL, NetFilter, IProute2, StrongSwan, ClamAV, Apache, ModSecurity, Squid and Open Source developments made by CacheGuard-OS developers.

Democratizing how we access networks through a universal router and open source software. Our vision at VyOS is to dramatically change how we access networks so that we can all build the solutions we always dreamed of, without restrictions, limitations, or prohibitive costs. We fundamentally believe that internet access is as vital to our human development as air, food, water, and healthcare. Built by engineers for engineers, VyOS is an open source software company that democratizes how we access networks so that the many, not the few, benefit from building solutions without limitations and prohibitive fees. We do this as VyOS through our open source software and virtual platforms. Stateful firewalls, zone-based firewall, all types of source and destination NAT (one to one, one to many, many to many). The entire codebase and build toolchain are available to everyone for auditing, building customized images and contributing.

NVIDIA offers pure SONiC, a community-developed, open-source, Linux-based network operating system that has been hardened in the data centers of some of the largest cloud service providers. Pure SONiC through NVIDIA removes distribution limitations and lets enterprises take full advantage of the benefits of open networking—as well as the NVIDIA expertise, experience, training, documentation, professional services, and support that best guarantee success. NVIDIA provides support for Free Range Routing (FRR), SONiC, Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI), systems, and application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC)—all in one place. Unlike a distribution, SONiC doesn’t require reliance upon a single vendor for roadmap additions, bug fixes, or security patches. With SONiC, you can achieve unified management with existing management tools across the data center.

OcNOS is a robust, programmable and innovative operating system, featuring a single software image that runs across the entire portfolio of Open Compute platforms from leading network device vendors. This guarantees consistent operations, workflow automation and high availability, while significantly reducing operational expenses. OcNOS borrows heavily from the popular ZebOS line of products, which provides a rich feature density and robustness that has been built up over the years and validated in thousands of diverse customer networks. OcNOS provides industry standard CLI, supports all standard MIBs and other standard operation and management tools. Its integrated centralized management and provisioning layer allows for transaction-based configuration and device feature modelling. The management layer has support for Netconf, REST APIs besides custom CLI generation capability. This allows an OcNOS system to be configured, managed and controlled by Network Management System.

Cisco NX-OS is a robust data center operating system engineered to enhance network agility, scalability, and security. It offers a flexible architecture that supports technologies like Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) with Ethernet VPN (EVPN), enabling seamless scalability and efficient traffic management. The system simplifies network operations through accelerated provisioning and comprehensive management facilitated by the Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC), complemented by open APIs for streamlined automation. Security is bolstered with end-to-end network segmentation and encryption protocols, including MACsec and RADsec, ensuring data integrity and protection. Additionally, Cisco NX-OS is optimized for high-performance tasks such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, featuring non-blocking networks and ultra-low latency switches to effectively handle demanding workloads.