We performed a comparison between Perimeter 81 and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Perimeter 81 offers single sign-on, multiple networks, a user-friendly interface, fast and secure VPN, reliable connection, privacy, efficient customer service, mobile and desktop support, a lightweight mobile app, and implementation of SD-WAN and zero trust access. pfSense is praised for its ability to block IP addresses, user-friendly dashboards, open-source nature, scanning and filtering capabilities, stability, customization abilities, cost-effectiveness, availability of plugins and add-ons, simplicity, flexibility, and scalability. Both options provide a range of useful features for users.
Perimeter 81 has room for improvement in terms of specifying various sites, incorporating a separate login option for bypassing website logins, allowing customization of interface colors, enhancing the user interface, providing notifications for session timeouts, and enhancing network traffic distribution. pfSense could benefit from the addition of instructional videos, a more user-friendly web interface, stability improvements, integration with a mobile app, and enhanced reporting and graphing features.
Service and Support: Perimeter 81 receives positive feedback for their efficient and useful customer service, while pfSense's support garners mixed opinions, with some users praising it and others noting its limited assistance and reliance on online communities.
Ease of Deployment: Perimeter 81 is praised for its straightforward and user-friendly initial setup, although it may become more complex in a hybrid environment. pfSense is generally easy to set up, but some users recommend clearer guidance or a configuration wizard for improved usability.
Pricing: Perimeter 81 has a flexible setup cost based on specific needs. In contrast, pfSense provides a free open-source solution and offers paid support. The pricing for pfSense varies depending on the setup.
ROI: Perimeter 81 offers the opportunity for a favorable return on investment through various benefits such as lower supply expenses, enhanced engineering, decreased repair costs, and improved product stability. pfSense is highly regarded for its cost efficiency and significant savings, making it a valuable option for businesses operating with limited financial resources.
Comparison Results: Perimeter 81 is the preferred product over pfSense. It is praised for its easy and intuitive setup process, single sign-on capabilities, multiple networks feature, user-friendly interface, fast and secure VPN, and efficient customer service. Perimeter 81 offers a more user-friendly and efficient experience according to the reviews.
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"It blocks the vulnerabilities that can negatively impact us."
"It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"The GUI is easy to understand."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"It is a very good solution for enterprises that need a VPN for their employees. It is the best way to provide a remote work facility to employees at a very low cost. Other solutions that I have had in the past were very expensive. Enterprises don't always have that kind of money to invest."
"The solution is fairly scalable when it comes to integrating with other applications and data sets."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"Good basic firewall features."
"The ease of use not only translates to quick adoption rates - it also ensures that our employees remain compliant with our cybersecurity protocols, enhancing the overall security posture of our organization."
"Distributing the agent was very simple, allowing us to enforce security posture on our devices (i.e. S1, Disk-encryption, etc.)."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Perimeter 81 provides a very secure and non-disruptive experience."
"The feature that I have found to be most valuable is the reputation that the company has regarding privacy. Nowadays, this is critical, especially when you do all of your work online."
"The solution provides us with an easy way to configure and join the VPN with Perimeter 81."
"Their split tunneling feature has been very valuable to our company since implementing the Perimeter 81 solution."
"It keeps us all accountable and ensures secure internet connections while we all work remotely."
"The reports are very basic."
"It claims it does DLP, but the degree and level of controls are very basic."
"They've become quite expensive."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"We are at the moment looking to use it as a proxy service so that we can limit what websites people go and view and that sort of thing. That's an area I've struggled with a little bit at the moment and it could be a bit easier to set up."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"It could use a little bit of improvement in the reporting."
"Could be simplified for new users."
"Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"I'd like to find something in pfSense that is more specific to URL filtering. We have customers who would like to filter their web traffic. They would like to be able to say to their employees, "You can surf the web, but you cannot get access to Facebook or other social media," or "You can surf the web, but you're not allowed to gamble or watch porn on the web." My technicians say that doing this kind of stuff with pfSense nowadays is not easy. They can implement some filters using IP addresses but not by using the names of the domains and categories. So, we are not able to exclude some categories from the allowed traffic, such as porn, gambling, etc. To do that, we have to use another product and another web filter that uses DNS. I know that there are some third-party products that could work with pfSense, but I'd like the native pfSense solution to do that."
"It would be nice to have a notification sound when Perimeter81 disconnects, as I sometimes don't notice when the icon shows that it's disconnected, and I end up wasting time waiting for my browser to load a page that shows an error, usually error 404."
"I would suggest adding more networking and security features that allow more customization within their platform."
"If I were to be nitpicky, I would ask that Perimeter 81 offer the option for us to change the color of the graphical user interface, like maybe pink or green or so on."
"I don't know if it is technically feasible, however, if the Desktop App could be used as a Web App or a Chrome Extension it would be very nice."
"There are a few areas where the solution could be improved. For instance, we sometimes encounter connectivity issues, which can be problematic. Recently, I experienced a connectivity issue while trying to move to Azure. Connectivity issues can be quite frustrating."
"I have found that the log-in/out process takes quite some time."
"Currently, I am not able to define a different country or location, which can result in negative experiences as the tool is being recognized by websites and this can make it difficult to access them or force me to disable the program temporarily."
"One of the more negative experiences using Perimeter 81 is the fact that I am logged off after a pre-determined amount of time which cuts off access to some of my company's resources."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Perimeter 81 is ranked 11th in Firewalls with 22 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Perimeter 81 is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Perimeter 81 writes "Great SAML and SCIM support with the ability to deploy site-2-site tunnels with specific IP restrictions". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Perimeter 81 is most compared with Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Cato SASE Cloud Platform, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Cloudflare Access and Cisco Umbrella. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Perimeter 81 report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
