Netgate pfSense Reviews

The GUI is an all in one solution that includes features such as DHCP, VPN, Squid, Firewall, etc.

I am using this product as a firewall for site-to-site connectivity and also, the Dynamic DNS (DynDNS).

As per my understanding VPN, Captive Portal user-level and MAC-level filtering need to be improved.

I have used this solution for the last one and a half years.

There were no stability issues.

There were no scalability issues.

I am using the community version so there is no need for any support.

Earlier, I was using FortiGate. Due to budget issues we moved to pfSense.

The setup is simple, if you have some Linux and firewall administration expertise.

We evaluated FortiGate, Cisco ASA and Palo Alto.

I would recommend joining the community and ask questions.

You should also read the installation and configuration documentation on the website.

Increasing customer satisfaction by not having to ask for license fees any time a new feature is needed. The redundancy and scalability is very nice too.

Most valuable is a 50/50 between no licensing (cough Cisco) and being able to actually repair a firewall instead of replace since pfSense can be loaded to any x86/x64 PC or Server.

The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things.

Rarely and almost always due to bad configuration or failing hardware.

No, pfSense can be installed on a decommissioned PC or a brand new 4U quad CPU server. If you need better hardware from the first install it's easy to either simply move the drive to the new firewall or backup/restore to new disks.

I've only ever used community-based support and it's very solid with thousands of knowledgeable people on their forums.

NETGEAR or Cisco. Switched because NETGEAR didn’t always offer the functionality and Cisco was very complicated and expensive.

Simple if you just want a firewall up and going to NAT your network. It can be as complex as you need it to be. Just run the install from an ISO and it's like any other out-of-the-box SMB router.

Unless they have specific requirements that demand a particular device, I always suggest pfSense specifically because of the absence of pricing and licensing.

Monowall, Tomato, DD-WRT.

Stop googling and head over to pfSense to download the ISO and get started. It will do almost everything the most expensive Cisco device will.

VPN has allowed me to deploy applications just for the organization and not to public servers.

The ability to create a VPN allows me to monitor branch offices from a central location.

A way to clean squid cache from the GUI.

Not at all.

We use the open source version and we chose the hardware platform.

For pfSense the valuable features are:

• High availability
• VPN (openVPN)
• Easy administration
• Extensibility (by modules)
• Easy backup/restore, independent platform not linked to a commercial vendor

We have been using the solution since version 2.1, which was three years ago.

We did not encounter any issues with stability.

We did not encounter any issues with scalability. It depends on the hardware, not the software.

I can't say. We provide our own support to our customers, as we are Linux, FreeBSD and IP specialists.

We used Watchguard and Endian, but pfSense is the most complete for layer 3 firewalls. We split the roles. We use pfSense only for the layer 3 and other products for proxy and reverse proxy (Diladele, Nginx) so we are not dependent of a constructor and easily update each part.

Setup is easy and done in a few steps.

You pay only the support and the price depends on the hardware not the functionalities.

The pfSense product is very powerful in layer 3 but you must add some products to match a viable commercial product which generally has all the functions integrated in one hardware system (proxy, antivirus, etc.).

For us pfSense is better for layer 3. We use MailCleaner for the mail relay, and Diladele for the web proxy. We like to split the functionalities for security reasons.

Use it to filter traffic and restrict browsing by profiles, use ACLs with Squid.
When using the load balancing functionality the performance is excellent, the best I could have 3 operators at the time.

Among the most valuable features I have found in PFsense are: Easy to deploy and easy to use, traffic graphics are excellent and tools that can be included as squid, snort, squidguard, ntop, pfblogNG, support wonderfully the purpose of generating PFsense.

Easy to deploy and easy to use, although the support of the community in the forums is excellent and there is always a solution

No, in fact I have one more than 4 years ago in production and it works perfect

No

Customer Service:

8

Technical Support:

8

Fortinet, TMG Microsoft, SonicWall, scalability, cost

After istalar pfsense the initial configuration is simple, and works without problems

The implementation was internally, clear before in production were made several laboratories

The power to use old hardware allows an exceptional ROI the investment is little just a few network cards

Of course, the tools he knew and those that are offered in the local market including FORTINET and SONICWALL

It is worth to enter the world of PFsense is rewarding to belong to an open-minded community that does not hesitate to share their experiences and knowledge

We just did not like its QoS interface.

We tested the solution for a very short period (one week), to compare it to Zeroshell. The idea was to decide which one to use. Our main focus was QoS.

No issues to deploy PFSense; it was straight forward.

PFSense sounded like the de-facto standard for simple SOHO solutions. We just did not like its QoS interface. For us, it seemed very "rigid" compared to Zeroshell. So we went back to Zeroshell because we considered that its QoS interface had much more flexibility and its latest version now even included nDPI too.

Initial setup was very straightforward; the interface is very self-explanatory.

Implementation was done in-house.

We also evaluated Zeroshell.

• Fail-over of between multiple ISPs
• Firewall
• Graphs
• Real time interface monitoring
• The web UI gives you an overview of everything you want to see
• For an open-source solution it has performed fantastically
• OSPF
• It contains loads of optional packages e.g Snort (IDS), asterix (PBX), network monitors etc.

We have pfSense across three sites where it manages the VPN and firewalls between them. Also, it has reduced costs drastically and has outperformed its expectations.

The load balancing can be improved as it uses tier levels to balance. For it to function most effectively, you often need to have the same bandwidth on the ISPs.

We've used it for six years.

There were no issues with the deployment.

There were stability issues with certain versions, but fixes were released and the right hardware helped.

We do have issues as the right hardware needs to be deployed in order to expand correctly in certain areas.

We use a vendor team, Shrike Technologies who have been excellent, and once a while I consulted the pfSense cookbook.

The online forum has lots of answers.

We previously used Monowall and switched because we needed more functionality.

We used a vendor team, Shrike Technologies whose experience was very high.

Pricing is fantastic, we have gold subscription which covers on-line backup of device configurations, premium support, webinars and lots more.

Proper planning is necessary in order to select the right hardware and configuration required (rules, services etc.).

Flexibility is the most valuable feature for us.

There's no expensive licensing costs, which helps us save money.

Also, its capacity and functionalities are great for our needs.

Whenever a new version rolls out, there are hidden bugs. That's why we normally run a version behind for a little while before rolling into the current build.

We've had no issues with deployment.

We've had no issues with stability.