Netgate pfSense Reviews

I have two installations at schools as firewalls. The biggest drivers for using pfSense were cost-effectiveness and functionality. It offers higher functionality for its cost.

The benefits are fairly obvious at the beginning. There's no specific time frame required. The flexibility and consistency of the product are what draw me to it, regardless of the size or capacity of the operation. It's easy to deploy.

Arguably, the use of products like Suricata for intrusion prevention could help prevent data loss.

It gives a single pane of glass for each individual device, but not across multiple devices. pfSense could catch up with other market providers by offering a view across multiple devices, but the current interface is fine. It is just we have to individually manage each one. 

There are two versions of pfSense, the paid "Plus" version and the free "Community Edition." I use the "Plus" paid version. 

The way pfSense handles system updates is pretty good. The updates are virtually transparent to any downtime. I've had pfSense boxes running for 200 to 300 days with no downtime. From a software standpoint, pfSense is about as bulletproof as it comes.

pfSense provides visibility that enables us to make data-driven decisions. Its reporting is effective. The data is effective in making decisions based on traffic. It is not just one feature, it is how we manage data traffic. It provides adequate information to make decisions based on traffic. 

I have used pfSense in virtualized environments, just not on AWS.

It allows me flexibility in hardware size and capabilities while maintaining the exact same interfaces and controls. 

I also like the fact that based on its operating system, it has applications that can be added, such as IDS/IPS and filtering.

I would like to see a single pane of glass for multiple devices.

From a service provider standpoint, it is a bulletproof operation to deploy. Aside from being able to manage and monitor multiple devices from a single pane of glass, that would be the only thing I would change.

I've used pfSense, probably for the last two or three years off and on.

It's one of the most bulletproof solutions out there. I can't recall a problem where the system locked up or had any issue that required intervention to get it started back up again. 

Aside from possibly a hardware failure, I haven't had any problems. And that's not the software.

Scalability is one of the reasons why it's a good product. You can utilize it in a budget-friendly way as well as a full-on enterprise. pfSense is almost infinitely scalable. Obviously, hardware is the dictating factor.

I have never had a reason to contact customer service and support. 

I've used Unifi products, DrayTek products, and Meraki products.

From a capability standpoint, I would put pfSense at the top of functionality. DrayTek comes close; however, it lacks the add-on applications. So, I would put pfSense at the top. 

I build the machines myself. Their hardware is not overly special, and I think it's overpriced, so, I build my own.

It's easy to deploy them, but then I've worked with them for a while. If I reflect back at the very beginning, there is a bit of a learning curve, but I don't think it's that steep. Overall, it's fairly easy.

It's fairly easy to add and configure features in pfSense, though it depends on the application. So, it is moderately easy. Some are simple, while others require a lot of preplanning and time to configure.

One person can deploy it, but the deployment time varies because it depends on the network design. It can be up and running in ten or fifteen minutes, but configuring it for the network design may take longer.  

Not much maintenance is required from the end user. Netgate pfSense do a very good job of keeping the application and operating system up to date by itself. Occasionally, applications require updates that need manual intervention, but for the most part, updates can almost be automated.

pfSense's pricing or licensing model is very affordable. Netgate hardware is a bit overpriced, but the software itself is arguably underpriced.

I have not come across a more effective product. Unifi products are inexpensive but not feature-rich by any stretch of the imagination. From a pure feature standpoint, hands down, I would argue that Meraki is as capable and comparable in features, but the cost is prohibitive for most small businesses.

From a pure feature-function standpoint, pfSense has the best total cost of ownership, once it's installed, I don't have any problems with it. If taking into account the software licensing, the hardware, and the amount of time it takes to manage, I'm not sure there's a better TCO on the market.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

I am in IT. I use pfSense for my personal use. I use it to practice networking and understand how networks work. I apply all the networking-related things that I have learned to pfSense at home.

I also use it to isolate my IoT network from my regular network and from the devices I use for the cameras.

The main reason for implementing pfSense is that I like playing games. With pfSense, I can place quality control over the traffic traversing over the WAN connection or the Internet. I am able to prioritize and limit some devices to allow me to have a better connection to the Internet than some devices in our house.

pfSense is a flexible solution. It has features for setting devices into groups. I was able to group up the devices in our house to be able to set some restrictions on some devices and have full restrictions on other devices. It allowed me to control my kids' devices to limit access to the Internet to a certain time. It automatically stops on the Internet for those devices when that time comes.

pfSense gives a single pane of glass management in regard to the network. I was able to control everything in my network, which is good.

I use pfSense Plus. I got third-party hardware, not with pfSense, but I purchased the license to have a pfSense Plus version. That hardware went down a few days after I bought the license. I created a ticket, and the engineer allowed me to move it to another device because I had just recently purchased it. Thanks to them, I was able to have less downtime because I did not have extra money to purchase another license. I was able to bring it up as fast as possible. The backup and recovery of the configuration is very pretty easy. I just reuploaded the file and updated two lines of code, and that was it. Everything worked.

Everything works well. My streaming is working fine. My kids do not complain about any lags. I can play my games without having any issues. I do not experience any lags. When my wife is working, she does not have any problems downloading or uploading files back to her work. We are pretty happy with the performance.

For me, the firewall is most valuable because I can play around with the firewall. That is the best asset for me. I can limit what I want to limit, and I can open what I want to be open.

I like the versatility of pfSense. Compared to other products I have used for home and small businesses, this is the easiest to understand. It has enterprise features compared to, for example, Ubiquiti UniFi. Their router is limited to some features, whereas with pfSense I can do, for example, routing and dual WAN. I also have several VPN options. 

It has a lot of features, but I wish there were even more features. Some of the features I am looking for are still not there in pfSense, like, for example, content control. Because I have kids, I want to control the content or what they watch. There is a feature in pfSense called pfBlocker, but it is limited. If I set that up, it is blocked by an IP address. Sometimes my devices are borrowed by my kids. They are able to get a full connection to the Internet, but their devices are limited. If content blocking is added to pfSense, it would be great. If I can block content by a user, that will be a preferred solution.

The frequency of feature releases can be better. We have been waiting for some of the features for a while, but they have not been released. I know they prioritize what is used in the enterprise area, and then they provide some features for regular consumers like me. If they can balance that 50:50 and focus equally on the enterprise and consumer suggestions, it will be great.

The interface and support are perfect for me. I saw a post on their blog that they will be moving to the Linux operating system. Hopefully, they would have better wireless because the wireless for pfSense is horrible or horrendous. If they move to Linux, hopefully, they will improve it.

I have been using pfSense since 2020. It has been four years now.

It is very stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.

It is scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

We are a family of five. Five of us are connecting to the pfSense Internet.

They are great. They are perfect for me.

Positive

I have used TP-Link and Ubiquiti EdgeRouter. In regards to features, the two are on par. They are way behind pfSense. pfSense is way ahead of these two in terms of what it could offer. In terms of security, TP-Link is very bad, EdgeRouter is in the middle, and pfSense is way ahead. In terms of performance, TP-Link is worse, and EdgeRouter and pfSense are neck to neck. I prefer pfSense over others.

I installed it on third-party hardware. The longest period of initial configuration was when I deployed it for the first time. After that, it is very fast because I can back up my config and restore it if I break something.

It took an hour or two for all the installation and configuration.

In terms of maintenance, it requires regular updates. That is the only maintenance that it needs. I also need to monitor if any known or zero-day bugs are found in pfSense. I am watching that because pfSense is the device facing the Internet, so I need to be always alert about any zero-day bugs. I also need to be mindful of the configuration to not accidentally expose any ports. These are the three things required in terms of maintenance.

In four years of using it, that payment of 189 dollars per year has already paid off. Over these years, I only experienced it going down two or three times, which is less than 1% downtime per year.

It is cheap. If you are a technical person, it is a pretty cheap solution because first of all, the Community Edition (CE) is free. I am in Australia, and my pfSense license is about 200 dollars. It is not bad because it is per year and not per month. It is cheap compared to other solutions.

I am not using the hardware. I am using the software. It is very cheap. It does not cost me a lot. The only cost is just the one-year payment. If I need extra hardware, I need to purchase that from the third party whose hardware I am using.

I would recommend pfSense to others. I already recommended it to my boss, and he is using it now. He is loving it as well. It is easy to use, and there are a lot of resources available. If you have any problem, someone would have already encountered that problem and found a fix, so it is easy to fix based on that. It is very reliable. The downtime experience is very low. It is almost zero.

I would rate pfSense a ten out of ten.

We use pfSense as a small business firewall and as a VPN gateway. 

PfSense provides us with a cost-effective but reliable network appliance. We have a standard networking device that lower-end help desk people can use effectively. It's less complicated. We moved from another platform that although the hardware was reliable, the software wasn't particularly reliable, and it was difficult to use.

It helps our operations because it's a standard platform anyone on our help desk can use. Every site will be pretty much the same. Once cloud management comes out, it'll be even better. 

PfSense is fairly simple to configure and has a good administration interface. It's built on pfSense, so I know it'll be reliable. It is quite flexible, and adding and configuring features is pretty easy. There's a lot of support for add-ons, and we can do a lot of stuff with it, so it suits our needs perfectly.

It secures against data loss pretty well. Plus only has a few additional features over the Community Edition. We mainly use Plus because it comes with the Netgate hardware.

The only feature I want to add is cloud management. I'll be an early adopter of that one. We're ready for that feature, and it's one of the few missing things, so that'll be excellent when it comes.

Another thing that's primarily an issue for us is that Netgate may soon stop production of the 1100. That's what we use for our telephony gateway. It doesn't need to be high performance, but it does need to be low cost. If they stop it and make the 2100 the lowest, that will be problematic for us. We will need to start using something else because it will become too expensive for our purposes. 

Effectively, we are using it as just a VPN gateway, and 1100s are great for that. What's annoying is that we cannot buy the 1100s directly because we're not a partner, and it isn't approved for connection to Australia, so we need to buy it through a company that went out and got it approved. We lose a bit of margin doing it that way. We can buy 2100s and above directly, but we must go through a reseller to get 1100s.  

I have used pfSense for two years.

I rate pfSense nine out of 10 for stability.

Netgate pfSense is scalable.

I rate Netgate support seven out of 10.

Neutral

We have used some other hardware, but the software was a dog. It's pretty difficult. We've also used some UniFi solutions, which are good, but they haven't sorted out the VPN component, so we'll continue using Netgate. Once they work out the kinks in their software, they'll possibly have a compelling solution. 

However, if Netgate stops selling the 1100, that could be quite problematic for us, and we'll probably go with Ubiquiti because it's too expensive to use 2100s for VPN appliances. 

PfSense is straightforward to deploy once you know what to do. It's a one-person job and takes a couple of hours. After deployment, it requires upgrades, but that's it.

The total cost of ownership is good because you buy it upfront and don't need to pay a subscription fee. We've spent a bit more, but we pass that along to the customer. In the end, everyone wins because they get a reliable solution, and we get something much easier to manage. 

I rate pfSense five out of five for pricing. It's fairly priced. We wouldn't buy it if it weren't. There are cheaper firewall options, but they aren't as reliable and easy to manage. Of course, there are also more expensive ones.

No ongoing subscription fee is nice because many of them are small businesses that don't want to pay for an ongoing subscription. It's always being updated, so that's good from a security perspective.

I rate Netgate pfSense seven out of 10. I would recommend it to others.

I work for a small business. We have a number of different remote sites, so I use the solution as my primary firewall. I use it as a way for my remote sites to connect back to the main office via VPN.

The VPN features are the most valuable aspects of the solution.

It's pretty flexible. It does everything I need it to do. My use cases are somewhat limited.

I do like how easy it is to restore if you lose a router. I lost a firewall over the weekend at one of my remote sites. As of right now, I'm setting up a new piece of hardware and restoring it. It couldn't be more simple.

There are features in pfSense that help me to prevent data loss. It's relatively easy for me to back up what I need. I've created a pretty simple script that I run on a computer inside of my network that reaches out to all of the different pfSense firewalls that I use. It grabs a config file. And that's pretty simple. It's a script that runs daily. I could probably even run it weekly. It simply reaches out and grabs these things and backs them up. Data loss is not something that I'm really concerned about as long as I have a good backup, which I do, and I check it regularly.

It’s easy to add features to pfSense and to configure them. I don't add a lot to pfSense with regard to the package manager that it comes with. That said, the packages that I do use are easy to install, easy to update, and easy to configure.

I witnessed the benefits of pfSense immediately. I have what I consider an enterprise-class firewall and routing stack at a pretty reasonable price.

pfSense gives you a single pane of glass type of management. You can see pretty much most things inside of the firewall, everything from bandwidth charts to DHCP leases - anything you've set up with regards to DNS. It's got pretty good logging features. I wind up sending most of the Syslog information from pfSense to third-party logging software. That’s why I'm not really using it to peer through logs. However, to do quick checks, I'll use it. The UI is pretty similar to Netgate. It makes a lot of sense.

pfSense provides features that help minimize downtime. The high availability configuration allows me to mitigate downtime. I've worked with their deployment team to set that up and also set up the LAN. Regardless of whether or not I lose a firewall or an Internet connection, my connection to the Internet remains pretty resilient.

The visibility in pfSense helps optimize performance. I'm primarily using it to see how our bandwidth is being utilized. Outside of that, I'm not using pfSense to visualize a ton of data. I offload pfSense data to third-party software that I use to visualize things that are happening on my network. If I just pop in and take a quick glance at what might be going on in my network, it's sufficient.

I'm hard-pressed to think of a needed additional feature. It would be nice to see which packages are officially from pfSense and which are from a third party in the package manager.

I've been using the solution for more than a decade. 

The stability is rock solid. 

I haven't really had to scale my deployment. My deployment was for an in-place network. My network hasn't changed much as I've redeployed the pfSense over the years.

The speed of response is good. It was well within the SLA. 

They were incredibly helpful. They answered follow-up questions in a timely manner. I was very pleased. I have had to use it very minimally. However, I was very pleased with how it worked.

Positive

I may have used something different a decade ago. Since then, I've been using pfSense. We're a small business. I do have some Cisco hardware, however, I'm not using it on my edge network. It's mostly just for switching.

I typically buy the hardware myself for the installation. I have one or two pfSense appliances. One is sitting on a rack as a backup unit in case I need it. I have a couple in the field. At the end of the day, if I'm going to buy the appliance, I get a year or two of CE. I'd much rather just buy the hardware myself and purchase a CE or get a Plus license.

It's incredibly easy to deploy. Even for a new engineer, it would be pretty simple. 

I am in the process of restoring one. It took me 20 minutes to flash the image to a thumb drive, install it on the device, boot the device, restore the configuration backup, and have it up and running. I'm familiar with the hardware that I purchased, and I take and test good backups. That said, the process is incredibly easy. It takes very little time to deploy something that has failed. 

With regard to a new setup, it's impossible for me to answer broadly; however, even then, it's not a long time. It just depends on how sophisticated a given user's network is.

There is very little maintenance outside of updating the software. 

I deployed devices to our remote sites myself. I used Netgate Professional Services to help deploy a high availability stack at our main office, and they were outstanding to work with.

Anybody not using it, at least at the small or medium business level, is crazy. There's a significant return on investment. We're getting a pretty state-of-the-art device that runs OpenVPN and some other VPN software. It's not Cisco. It's not Juniper or any of the others out there. However, I keep my ear to the ground with regard to vulnerabilities generally out there, and it seems like there are far more vulnerabilities that you hear about day-to-day in their competitors than in their software. At the enterprise level, there may be some more sophisticated and purpose-built solutions. That said, pfSense meets all of my needs. I can't imagine it not meeting the needs of anybody in a business my size and slightly bigger or slightly smaller.

The licensing is fair. 

I'm a pfSense customer.

There are two versions of pfSense. The plus version, which is paid, and the community edition, which is free. I primarily use plus.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

We use Netgate pfSense to deploy to our customers.

Netgate pfSense has a lot of different applications you can use for VPN and multi-way traffic. It's very simple as far as firewall rules and NAT rules go. It's an overall solid application and product. We don't really have too many RMAs, and there are no monthly fees associated with it.

Netgate pfSense is extremely flexible due to the nature of the multi packages that you can use for different VPNs. You can do the same thing in multiple different ways, and it's very handy when you're trying to troubleshoot problems.

You can add packages to pfSense with Snort and pfBlocker to keep hackers out. We've been using pfSense by creating rules that only allow our IP addresses into those devices. That way, they are never open to the outside world, and we've been doing that for almost 20 years.

Netgate pfSense has a high-availability application called CARP that allows you to put two devices in failover mode.

The visibility that pfSense Plus provides helps us optimize performance because that's all in the updates they push out.

We use pfSense Plus on Amazon EC2 VMs, and it's been pretty good and fairly quick in testing.

The solution should provide a single pane of glass and a management console for all devices.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for 20 years.

The solution is fairly stable unless there's an environmental issue.

I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for scalability.

We have previously used SonicWall. SonicWall has all the packages prebuilt. With Netgate pfSense, you have to download and install the packages and then configure everything. These include antivirus and anti-spam, which you have to turn on, but they cost money.

It's really just a configuration setup. SonicWall and Netgate pfSense are two very different firewalls. It's very difficult to compare them other than monthly and yearly licensing versus buying at once.

The solution's initial setup is super easy. I've taught several people with little knowledge of how to do it, and it's been very simple to explain and set up.

From start to finish, the solution's deployment can be done by one person in probably an hour.

I think Netgate needs to charge a nominal fee for the actual software so that it gets paid for because a lot of people skirt the licensing and use the community edition. Netgate should charge something nominal like $50 a year for the community edition to deter people from using it for everything.

Depending on the specifics, adding and configuring features to pfSense could take three or four hours for a RADIUS server with a VPN or less than two minutes to set up a NAT rule.

We were embedded with pfSense in 2023. It took us some time after we deployed the solution to see the benefits.

I have 236 devices in production. Some of the cheaper models are more susceptible to power outages, which cause them to fail. However, some of the more robust models are expensive, but they last for many, many years, and there's very little interaction that we have to do with them.

The only maintenance the solution needs is just updates to the device as required.

New users should do some basic research before configuring Netgate pfSense. There's lots of information about the tool on the web, and it's very easy to get the answers to your questions because somebody's already probably run into that issue. There are tutorials on basic configuration on YouTube.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I use pfSense as a firewall for a university client with 10,000 to 12,000 users. I'm a consultant to the client, and they haven't introduced the product to their IT team. They are only starting to train themselves and use it to secure their environment from end to end. 

One of the biggest benefits is cost savings. It has reduced operating costs compared to Sophos by more than 50 percent. PfSense Plus helped us minimize downtime. I can configure it for high availability, and the machines are simple and reliable. The Netgear devices work well. They stay up. I built a cluster, and they work seamlessly. 

I like how affordable and flexible pfSense is. I can achieve the protection I need in a flexible manner. I enjoy using pfSense. It's effective and solid.

Two key areas need improvement: the traffic profile and better centralized management. It would be great if we could have a single pane of glass for managing multiple appliances running in different locations. Sophos has much better centralized management, but you're paying an arm and a leg for it.

The management is good, but it's quite basic. If I have multiple instances deployed, I can't manage the information like I would when I use something like Sophos Central to manage multiple devices in different locations. 

The portal is still not well-tuned. There are still issues regarding implementation and its effectiveness. But besides that, everything else is great, from the purchase to implementation, setup, etc. Only the portal needs a lot of work.

I rate pfSense 10 out of 10 for stability.

I rate pfSense 10 out of 10 for scalability. It's highly scalable. 

I have not contacted Netgate support yet, but I've heard that the technical support is excellent. I can't afford it.

We were using Sophos but switched due to the price. I was looking for a more affordable firewall solution, which brought me to pfSense. I sought something to replace our existing device. We needed something to do the same thing I was doing, including firewall, IPS, etc., but that wouldn't cost me as much as Sophos did.

PfSense isn't very easy, but if you know what you're doing and know what you're looking for, you can get it done. It's technical compared to Sophos. It's not difficult. It's just more technical.

PfSense was straightforward. The infrastructure is complex, but the implementation was straightforward for me. Maybe that's because I've had years of experience in IT infrastructure deployment. 

The deployment time depends on the features you want to implement. It took me about a week. The initial setup took less than two hours, but it took me about a week to finish the tune-up. I mostly deployed it by myself. I just looked up online videos from experts and understood what to do next. After deployment, it requires the occasional firmware update. That's it.

I rate pfSense 10 out of 10 for affordability. The company did the price review of Sophos and just took it out of the wall. Most of our clients have recommended Netgate. The total cost of ownership is excellent. It makes a lot of sense for SMEs. I pay a little bit on top. The Netgate infrastructure is much easier to approach. 

I rate Netgate pfSense eight out of 10. I recommend it to others. It's affordable and not that difficult to set up or manage. You need to be certified to use Sophos, but we don't need any specific certifications to own or manage pfSense.

We use our Netgate appliance in our office and resell Netgate appliances and services.

We realized the benefits of pfSense immediately. For example, we needed to connect two ISP connections to use them simultaneously in the office without separating the network. We immediately saw the benefit upon installation. Otherwise, we would have two different connection lines and need to separate the users between the two networks. With pfSense, we could get that benefit instantly. 

Some applications also deliver benefits over time in addition to the immediate benefit on the routing side of an installation. Eventually, you will see other benefits in creating certain policies that apply to users, such as the firewall's filtering capabilities.

In terms of data loss, the ability to create policies that would be a step toward intrusion prevention or malware blocking would be a secondary benefit. As I understand, pfSense per se is Netgate and we have a data loss feature in itself. As a layer of protection, then that creates a layer of protection against data loss.

PfSense offers single-pane-of-glass management. When you log into the system, you immediately see this dashboard, which shows the resources and utilization of the pfSense device. The most important information is in that dashboard. In our case, we have a standby monitor where IT support would look at it. If something is created there, that gives them an idea of how that something is set up. 

The pfSense Plus edition has features that prevent downtime, such as load balancing. We can automatically route traffic to another ISP should the primary or the secondary be down. It's the most important feature for some of our clients. It prevents downtime because it will automatically route to the active connection. 

We have to go through a step that gives you visibility into certain alarms that indicate a possible security issue. That feature provides visibility into potential network security issues. We run servers with applications that are critical to office operations. When monitoring the network, the server is the priority.  Having clear protection ensures productivity because sometimes issues inside the application impact the use inside the office and those outside the office. PfSense is able to add a layer of protection to these application servers.

The most valuable feature is the routing capability. We're primarily using the appliance as a router to provide DNS and multi-WAN routing. Flexibility is also critical. The solution provides flexibility in terms of creating firewall rules. It's extensive, which means you can create several rules with different elements involving firewall policies.

It's easy to add features to pfSense. When I started, I didn't have a networking background, but I was able to follow the materials and learn through hands-on practice. The interface is easy to navigate and understandable.

The intrusion protection system is provided by a third-party provider that's verified by pfSense. It would be best to have an option for IPS because when you deploy pfSense to a SOC, you have to subscribe to another IPS provider.  The IPS should be a default feature. On the other hand, that's also the benefit of pfSense because you can also acquire another IPS solution. 

We started using Netgate in 2016, so we have used it for almost nine years.

I can only think of one instance where stability would be a problem, and that's the power supply. We have tested the hardware for a single power supply, so if it was deployed in a location where the power supply is unstable and without the proper UPS, then it will cause problems. That is not due to pfSense per se. It requires a redundant power supply on the end user side to provide sufficient UPS or some sort of backup. On the software side, I don't recall a major incident where the software got corrupted.

Sometimes, it could get corrupted in the course of maintenance. For example, if the logs are not cleared, and the storage becomes full over time. 

The hardware is not scalable. Normally, we ask clients to project where they will be in two or three years and advise them to buy a model that fits their requirements. If you already have fixed hardware but you haven't factored in the number of users, you will hit a wall. PfSense has some scalability, but it depends on your hardware. 

I rate Netgate support 10 out of 10. When you acquire Netgate hardware, you gain access to online support. We've had some issues that couldn't be resolved, so we had to raise a ticket to online support. The feedback was quick, and we didn't have any major issues left unresolved because the online support was effective.

Positive

We deployed certain prescribed network equipment, like the Fortinet firewall. We started using pfSense Community Edition because it's free and highly available, but we saw the benefit of the commercial version, which is more stable, so we decided to upgrade to that. 

When we started, we were already using the community version. It took some time because we have some IT personnel. Sometimes, when we have just hired an IT staff member, and we introduce them to pfSense, I see that they can easily adapt or understand the features and how to manage the firewall. They can install the community version and play with it. The installation is easy and staff can learn it hands-on.

We deployed it in-house, but when we hire some IT support, we require them to have some exposure to pfSense. The pfSense community edition is pretty popular, so we don't have much use for consultants. We provide the service because we understand pfSense.

PfSense is easy to maintain. You only need to modify the configuration when there are additions to the network or you need to change the firewall rules. Other than that, the features and systems don't require much maintenance. 

In the Philippines, most users are small or medium-sized enterprises. Small businesses also need a level of protection, so sometimes, what they need is basic protection. For example, they must protect their ports so they cannot be scanned from outside and layered protection and filtering. They would like something without a recurring cost, which pfSense can provide for basic features. 

PfSense offers solid value for small and medium enterprises, so it's highly applicable. It serves our purpose even in our use case. We have certain critical applications that must be protected, and the pricing is good for us. The good thing about pfSense is that it supports layer three or IPSec VPN at no additional cost. That in itself is a good feature for small and medium enterprises, and we can deploy VPN at no additional cost. We can deploy other applications, adding a layer of VPN without much expense.

I rate Netgate pfSense eight out of 10. 

I use the solution in two ways. I deploy it commercially and I use it in my home lab as well. 

It's very easy to deploy. It's nice when you've used something for a while. You get comfortable with all of the benefits. I know what I'm doing. I'm very familiar with the product.

The addition of packages makes it very customizable. The flexibility is very good. Not all firewalls out there have that. Typically, you are tied into three or four different plugins. pfSense, however, allows you to add more than the standard handful others offer. 

It's easy to add features and configure them.

They do improve it consistently, which makes me want to return to it over and over as a solution. 

It just introduced, with the latest revision, the ability to save your backups incrementally as well as go back and make changes. I can go back to a particular backup, and that's quite useful.

The solution does prevent data loss. You can pick up your configuration files consistently, whether you want to do it daily, monthly, hourly, et cetera.

Users can manage everything under one single pane of glass. 

I also use pfSense Plus. It provides good features that help minimize downtime. The updates come quicker to Plus, which is helpful. It also helps optimize performance. Having the pane of glass offers consistency in terms of finding things. The UI is very intuitive.

Updating some of the packages can be a bit difficult. It's hard to stay on top of them all. There also might be a bit of a lag on updates.

If they could get to something like Meraki, where I could remotely log in and not have to deploy a package to do that, that would be nice to have. 

It would be helpful if they had more documentation. Some online details seem out of date and you have to spend a lot of time going through forums to uncover what everyone else is doing.

I've been using the solution for probably ten years. 

The stability is very good. I'd rate it nine out of ten. 

Most of my clients who are users are under 50 users. I handle mostly SMBs. I'd rate scalability eight out of ten.

Technical support is awesome. I haven't dealt with them a ton, however, every time I do, via email, within an hour, they've responded. 

Positive

I've used Cisco Meraki over the years. It's a bit different. There's also a cost factor. 

I've also tried OPNsense. I didn't like the look of it after using pfSense for so long. 

The initial deployment is straightforward. It's awesome. I always bench test it before deployment. I do it through my office, not on-site, to go through the various variables that could make things go sideways. 

The implementation only takes about a day. I can manage the process by myself. I don't need a team. 

A majority of my deployments are for home users.

There's not a lot of maintenance. You just want to keep packages updated when the time comes. 

I have witnessed an ROI from a remote perspective. I'm able to remote in for some users and fix any problems that way.

The solution is fairly priced. The total cost of ownership is pretty good. They do offer appliances as well and those are quite cost effective. 

I'm a consultant. 

I'd advise new users to learn at home first and play with pfSense just to get used to it. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

I use the solution in my company since we operate as a managed services provider that provides security solutions to our customers. I was looking for a device that had the required features my customer wanted, and that fit their budget, so Netgate pfSense is a product that clearly fits this space. Our company has started to deploy the tool for our customers.

In terms of the benefits of the tool for my organization, I am not an end user of the product. My customers use the tool, and what they have been able to achieve using Netgate pfSense is that they are better able to control their spending on internet services. Without Netgate pfSense, users can just take up the whole bandwidth from the network and make it difficult for other people to work, but with the bandwidth control feature, including the built-in functionalities in the solution, you can control what individual IP addresses on the network can do, thereby bringing in more control. My customers have even told their other MSPs how they need to increase their bandwidth, whereas what they needed to do was just control what they already had in Netgate pfSense. Controlling the bandwidth has brought savings to my customers, and it also helped them to have a better user experience with the internet services that they were purchasing.

The solution's most valuable feature is that it is a highly configurable tool. The tool has a lot of options, so there is literally nothing you cannot do with it, but you have to know your way around the product.

The problems my company's clients wanted to resolve by implementing Netgate pfSense were that they wanted a provision for enterprise network security, static control over load balancing, and failover. This area is typically the use case for our customers.

If I assess Netgate pfSense's flexibility, I would say that it is a highly configurable tool, which means there are many options. It has a lot of flexibility in terms of configuration. You can write different rule sets for different traffic types and scenarios. On the same firewall, you could have lots of variety in how you want to handle traffic.

If I want to add features to Netgate pfSense, I would say that because the structure is modular, there is an app store where you can download whatever feature sets you want but are not included by default in the tool. The tool also supports many third-party plug-ins. It is possible to add features to the tool.

Netgate pfSense provides a single pane of glass for management with a customizable dashboard. You can customize the dashboard. Any handy modules you want are possible on a dashboard with a single-view window where you can see what is going on, and it is customizable.

The single pane of glass management feature has an impact on operations since it simplifies management because, typically, my company is not on the customers' premises, so we need to have remote access to the firewall. The people who are doing the back-end monitoring have a single view, which makes operations easy because, with one single glance, you can tell if there is a challenge or not in the tool.

Netgate pfSense Plus is what came on the device that my customers purchased by default.

In terms of whether Netgate pfSense Plus helps minimize downtime, I would say that the main difference between Netgate pfSense and Netgate pfSense Plus is the availability of enterprise support. When I have issues or bugs, I have someone to go to and say that something is not working and ask what we can do about it, after which I can get a response. When it comes to Netgate pfSense and Netgate pfSense Plus, the software is almost the same. One of the versions comes with enterprise backing, so I have some support and OEM support instead of relying on the community. I have a proper company I could talk to about any challenges my customers and I may have. The support does help reduce the downtime. I haven't actually had any downtime with the tool on my customers' end. I haven't had any downtime using the tool.

In terms of whether Netgate pfSense provides visibility that enables my company's clients or me to make data-driven decisions if we don't speak of specific use cases, I would say that it is typically a next-generation firewall that does bandwidth control and provides IPS and IDS features. For instance, if my customers wanted to have an idea of how much internet traffic they are using, then Netgate pfSense would give you graphs that you can export and do further analysis. I don't think the tool's use cases are tied to data or data analysis.

I can’t get any area where improvements are needed in the tool off the top of my head. I haven't had any challenges I couldn't resolve between myself and the support. Maybe Netgate needs to see if a medium-level Netgate pfSense Plus can be created for smaller organizations.

Most of what I need is already in the tool. If there is any need associated with it, I will be sure to report it to the support team.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for two and a half years. My company serves as an MSP for Netgate pfSense.

The only area to consider is that sometimes when there is an upgrade, there may be some changes. But when you have uploaded a stable version of the firmware, the operating system, I think it is a very stable tool. I have not had any issues around stability. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I deal with clients in areas such as residential, government organizations, and medium-scale businesses. I have one customer in each category, which includes small, medium, and large businesses.

Normally, when it comes to the size of hardware before you make a purchase, due diligence is required to see that the device would be able to handle the current requirements and have some room for growth. With the solution itself, I don't see the need to discuss questions related to its scalability because that would be a function of the hardware and the size of the network where you are deploying the tool. Typically, if you have a huge network, you need to make sure that you have the equipment that can handle that volume of traffic from the on-site. The scalability aspect is not really a good assessment criterion to use to measure the tool. If I put things into a certain context and say that we have a network that has around 100 people, then you don't put up a device that can manage 100 people. Instead, you need to get a device that can manage 150 to 200 people, and then you can create room for growth. If you don't follow these steps, you will have to change the device after some time.

The solution's technical support team is okay. They respond quickly. I have only had the need to place two support calls in all of my dealings so far, and they were able to figure out my issues and resolve them very quickly. I rate the technical support a seven to eight out of ten.

Positive

In our company, we typically deploy a mix of security products that we prefer. At our organization, we have Sophos, Fortinet, and Netgate pfSense. Sophos, Fortinet, and Netgate pfSense are pretty standard. Netgate pfSense has all of the features that Sophos and Fortinet have, but what is more, it can be used without having to have separate licensing. Netgate pfSense really beats the other tools hands down in terms of price because there are no individual license costs for the features that you want to use. In Sophos, certain features require separate licensing. Netgate pfSense's advantages over other tools in price make it a top choice over the others. In our company, we have some customers who are particular about products, and for such customers, we provide them with what they request. For those who don't mind trying something different, Netgate pfSense is our default choice.

The product's initial setup phase is straightforward. The complexities in the deployment are produced by customers who do not know exactly what they want. Some customers have requirements, and my company needs to sit with them and streamline certain areas. The integration and the configuration are not the challenges associated with the tool.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

Typically, if all the configuration information is available, the tool can be deployed in a maximum of two to three days. One can have the standard installation done. The deployment procedure can be done assuming one day for the configuration and the second day for rack mounting. The process is quick when the customer has all of the information they want configured in hand. For some of them, the tool is typically deployed over a period of a few weeks because they don't know or have not decided how they want to implement a particular feature. Still, it would not be a delay from Netgate pfSense's end but rather a delay from the customer side.

I would not call it a cheap tool, but it is very cost-efficient. I don't see any product that gives you the same functionality within the same price brackets offered by Netgate pfSense. There is hardly any need to go to the open-source firewalls, especially with the ones that are coming back, and there are no enterprise security products in the price range that Netgate pfSense falls under.

If I assess the total cost of ownership of Netgate pfSense, I rate it as an eight or nine out of ten.

I don't use Netgate pfSense Plus on Amazon EC2 VMs, and I haven't had a customer who wanted to deploy the tool on the cloud. Most of them purchase and install their hardware directly from Netgate.

The maintenance of the tool's equipment is done once or twice a year just to blow out some dust and make sure it looks physically okay, which is nothing outside of what the regular network devices require. It doesn't require any special maintenance.

I would recommend Netgate pfSense because it is one of the products that my company markets to our customers.

As I have existing customers that use the solution, they serve as a reference point for my new customer. I tell others that I have deployed Netgate pfSense in a few official organizations, their use, and the problems that it has solved for them. I have case studies to speak about. If someone wants to go for a proof of concept, it is something that is doable.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We use pfSense as the primary firewall for our data center. 

We have a high availability setup, so we have had no downtime. PfSense gives us metrics about how the firewalls perform in terms of CPU, memory, etc., but I don't think it tells us how to address it. If we have an issue, we can always open a support ticket.

I find pfSense easy to use and configure. We have a high-availability pair, so if one has issues, it will failover to the other automatically. Overall, it's been pretty easy to build VPN tunnels and functions like that.

I don't think pfSense is as good about monitoring as it could be. There are logs, but they're kind of hard to get to. You need to send it to a log monitoring system. It's good about monitoring and learning this. You'll get an alert if there's an issue with the firewall itself, but it's not detecting security attacks. 

PfSense has the bare necessities essentially, but it isn't an advanced firewall that protects against layer 7 attacks or DDoS. It's not on the same level as Palo Alto, for instance. You can add some higher-level security features, but it doesn't do that out of the box. Maybe there's another functoin we can add to it, but it feels like it's not catching more advanced attacks.

We've used pfSense for around five years.

The stability has been great. We've rarely had any issues that have caused a failover. When we do, the failover has made it. I don't think we've experienced any real impact from it that caused any product issues. 

While we've added more IP addresses and traffic, there are some limits to its scalability. We've run into this before with graphical issues. We opened a ticket about that, and they said they found a bug that they were looking into. 

I think we're going to get close to reaching a limit with the mid-to-lower-end models at some point. The scalability is good but probably not great.

Their response has been excellent. Sometimes we've opened a ticket, and we've gotten a response back right, other times it took an hour or so. They're responsive now. 

In terms of the quality of their answers, they have been good to great. 

Positive

At previous companies,  I have worked with Cisco and Palo Alto firewalls. Palo Alto is probably a better firewall because it does more blocking. It's also quite a bit more expensive. For what you get, a Netgate pfSense solution is a highly cost-effective firewall.

It was in place when I joined the company, so I wasn't involved in the deployment. It requires some maintenance, like adding new firewall rules or VPN connections. We also upgrade it once or twice a year. 

Including the support costs and the hardware, I think pfSense is reasonably priced. It's very affordable. The total cost of ownership is favorable. We've had a hardware device that lasted over five years, and they're still doing well. We're able to buy at least software support for them.

I rate Netgate pfSense seven out of 10. If you have an enterprise environment, I recommend having two for high availability. Make sure you purchase and keep up with the software support in case there are any issues. Those are the two biggest things that helped us out.