VyOS is a fully open-source, enterprise-grade network operating system based on Debian Linux, providing routing, firewall, and VPN functionality for bare metal, cloud, and edge environments. It offers a complete networking stack that competes with commercial router platforms while remaining free and transparent under the GPLv2 licence.

Originally forked from Vyatta in 2013 after the project was acquired by Brocade, VyOS has grown into a mature platform with a strong community following. It uses a familiar CLI syntax inspired by Juniper JunOS, making it accessible to network engineers. VyOS is available as a free community edition (VyOS Stream) updated quarterly, and a LTS edition with paid support subscriptions from VyOS Networks. It runs on x86_64 hardware and major cloud platforms including AWS, Azure, GCP, and VMware.

Key Features

• Advanced routing — OSPF, BGP, RIP, and ISIS with route maps, prefix lists, and policy-based routing
• Stateful firewall — Zone-based firewall with connection tracking, packet filtering, NAT (source, destination, masquerade, 1:1)
• VPN server — IPsec site-to-site and remote access, OpenVPN (server/client), WireGuard, L2TP, and SSTP
• VXLAN and EVPN — Network virtualisation overlay and Ethernet VPN for multi-tenant data centre networks
• Load balancing — WAN load balancing with failover, ECMP, and policy-based routing for multi-link scenarios
• DHCP and DNS — DHCP server and relay, DNS forwarding, and dynamic DNS client
• VLAN and bridging — IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tagging, bridge interfaces, and QinQ
• High availability — VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol) and connection state synchronisation for active-passive failover
• CLI scripting and automation — Complete CLI for manual configuration plus commit-confirm, rollback, and operational scripts
• RESTful API — Full API for programmatic configuration and monitoring integration
• Configuration versioning — Commit-based configuration management with rollback to any previous version
• Cloud-native deployment — Official images for AWS, Azure, GCP, VMware ESXi, Proxmox VE, and KVM

Why Use It

VyOS fills the gap between consumer-grade router firmware and five-figure commercial routing platforms. It gives you a proper JunOS-style CLI without the hardware lock-in, running on commodity x86_64 hardware or cloud instances. All routing protocols are included — no feature licensing, no per-protocol unlocks. The commit-confirm model means you can safely experiment with network changes without risk of losing remote access.

Use Cases

• Cloud router — Deploy as virtual router in AWS, Azure, or GCP for VPC-to-VPC and hybrid cloud connectivity
• Branch office gateway — OSPF/BGP peering with corporate network and IPsec VPN back to headquarters
• Internet edge router — BGP peering with ISPs for multi-homed internet connectivity
• Data centre spine-leaf — EVPN and VXLAN deployment in virtualised data centre fabrics
• Network lab — Full routing stack for practicing BGP, OSPF, and VPN configurations without hardware
• ISP and service provider — MPLS-ready routing platform for last-mile and aggregation

Platform

x86_64 (Intel 64 / AMD64) · Debian Linux-based · ISO for bare metal/VM, cloud images (AWS, Azure, GCP), virtual appliance (OVA, QCOW2) · ARM support planned

Licence

GNU General Public License v2 (GPLv2) — fully open source with optional commercial LTS support subscriptions

Website

vyos.io · Community: vyos.net