OpenVPN Access Server (5 Connected Devices) / Self-Hosted VPN

OpenVPN Access Server  is our main solution to ensure that the VPN is properly connected at the client's location so that they are able to access our system, as we have a platform for inventory invoice management.

Just as there are typical firewalls in a system, such as Cloudflare  1.1.1.1, I use OpenVPN Access Server  to allow access from specific IPs and block access to specific IPs in my invoice management platform.

OpenVPN Access Server has positively impacted my organization by helping us design a reliable infrastructure and even providing definite SLA metrics to our clients.

We have different SLA levels such as L0, L1, L2, and L3 in a typical IT scenario. Some clients need immediate access within 24 hours, while other clients, depending on their SLA levels, need support within one to two days. There are also some clients who are low priority and need support within five days or a week. This is how we organize our SLA structure. The high-priority clients who are hosted on our private server need immediate resolution, or a penalty is applied.

The best features OpenVPN Access Server offers are the secure access to the portal and the ability to stop irrelevant IPs from accessing our system.

The secure access feature and blocking irrelevant IPs help my team on a day-to-day basis by protecting us. The unnecessary load on the servers is avoided in the first place. The regular backups that are taken are also easily available for our clients. Even the support team feels updated with all such features.

OpenVPN Access Server needs improvement as it requires definite marketing in the East Africa region so that many people have access to it. It should also be available offline and not always dependent on the internet. It should have AI-based observability metrics as well.

From the user experience perspective, OpenVPN Access Server should be more user-friendly in the East Africa market where I am located. It should be easy to use and compliant with local norms. From the technical perspective, it should not be heavily dependent on the resources of the PC.

I have been using OpenVPN Access Server for the past three years.

Others who are looking to use OpenVPN Access Server should evaluate the proper feature benefits and costing as per their use cases.

From the user experience perspective, OpenVPN Access Server should be more user-friendly in the East Africa market where I am located. It should be easy to use and compliant with local norms. From the technical perspective, it should not be heavily dependent on the resources of the PC.

I found this interview to be good, but it can be improved with a more manual touch. My overall review rating for this product is 9 out of 10.

My main use case for OpenVPN Access Server  involves managing secure remote access for our internal teams and technical engineers who need to connect to our private cloud infrastructure. We rely heavily on established secure connections so the team can certainly access the database, internal applications, server dashboards, and the web admin UI makes it straightforward to manage user cases and integrates well with our existing authentication setup, which gives us significant time savings on the IT support side.

A quick specific example of how my team uses OpenVPN Access Server  day to day includes the admin web UI being at the top of the list because it makes managing user access and subnets incredibly simple without having to use the command line. Another standout feature is the built-in client portal that allows users to log in and download their configured profile, saving our IT team considerable manual setup work. Lastly, the authentication flexibility helps us regularly, specifically how smoothly it integrates with our Active Directory and multifactor authentication, which enhances our IT support experience on a daily basis.

OpenVPN Access Server has positively impacted our organization by providing a high, reliable, stable environment, especially for remote work. We handle critical infrastructure, and having a secure gateway that does not drop connections unexpectedly is a huge win, greatly improving our security posture without adding administrative headaches, as engineers and technical teams can securely connect to private cloud resources and databases from anywhere without a hitch, ensuring that our operations workflow runs smoothly around the clock and offering total peace of mind regarding remote access security.

Regarding specific outcomes, the clear impact of OpenVPN Access Server has been a massive drop in VPN-related support tickets. We previously handled profile issues, broken connections, and credential setups manually which used to be a daily headache for the IT team. Those tickets have now dropped by seventy percent to eighty percent, roughly because of the self-service client portal. It saves significant time on user onboarding as it used to take administration about twenty to thirty minutes to generate and securely send configuration files, but now, thanks to Active Directory integration, it takes hardly two to three minutes, resulting in considerable hours saved weekly and monthly.

The main feature of OpenVPN Access Server that stands out to me is the admin UI, and it is very well integrated with the Active Directory multifactor authentication, which provides the kind of enterprise-grade security we have been looking for, and we are very happy with that.

The admin web UI makes managing user access and subnets incredibly simple without having to use the command line. Another standout feature is the built-in client portal that allows users to log in and download their configured profile, saving our IT team considerable manual setup work. The authentication flexibility helps us regularly, specifically how smoothly it integrates with our Active Directory and multifactor authentication.

The main area for OpenVPN Access Server improvement is its pricing model, as the concurrent user license gets expensive quickly as the organization grows, so more flexible pricing options would be a huge plus for AVIARC. Another area I would specify is the configuration disconnect, as the admin UI handles about ninety percent of what you need, but when it comes to advanced routing customization, tweaking specific variables requires dropping back into the command line interface. It would be great to see those deeper configurations integrated into the web portal for ease of use, along with support for newer, lighter protocols like WireGuard built straight into the platform for better performance and efficiency.

I have been using OpenVPN Access Server for about three and a half to four years.

OpenVPN Access Server demonstrates absolute stability with no issues regarding its reliability, scalability, or other concerns.

OpenVPN Access Server scales very well from a technical standpoint. You can easily upgrade the underlying hardware resources or spin up additional nodes in a cluster configuration to handle a massive surge in concurrent users. The only real constraint to its scalability is financial, as the concurrent user licensing model leads to expenses increasing quickly as you scale up to support larger teams, meaning while the software handles growth seamlessly, your budget is the main thing you need to plan around.

I would rate customer support nine out of ten. The ticketing system is responsive, and the technical team knows the product inside and out. Moreover, due to the massive community around VPNs, you can almost always find immediate answers in their forum documentation without needing to open a ticket.

Installing and setting up OpenVPN Access Server is very easy, especially compared to the community edition of OpenVPN. In our environment, we deployed it without a manual script or built-in installation from scratch, simply pulling a pre-configured image directly onto our virtual machine. The initial setup wizard guided us through core settings like admin password configuration and a primary network interface through the terminal, from where we immediately transitioned to the web UI to handle the rest of the configuration, which included setting up routing paths and subnets. It took less than an hour for the fully functional server to be up, which is a massive time-saver for our engineering team.

My advice to others looking into using OpenVPN Access Server is to map out your user access groups and routing subnets before configuring the server, as the tool makes enforcing least privilege incredibly easy, but it is smoother with clearly defined access policies on paper first. I would also recommend taking full advantage of the two free concurrent connections to test out the SAML or Active Directory integrations completely before purchasing licenses, allowing you to prove the workflow and see how much time it can save your IT team before making a financial commitment. I would rate this product an eight out of ten overall.