Netgate pfSense Reviews

I work in IT at a German insurance company, and I studied computer science. I also work in the network sector, so I know a lot about network solutions. I work with VPN solutions, Fortinet, and other products. For me, pfSense is a private home solution for my family. It's not the solution in my company.

I use pfSense as a firewall appliance, and the function is very good. But I think it's for users with more experience. It's not a solution for beginners.

If you are a professional, it's not difficult to add features to pfSense and configure them. But it is difficult if you are not. 

I utilize the core features. I have pfBlockerNG, SquidGuard, OpenSSL, and WireGuard. So, these are the core features I need.

The core benefits are that I can virtualize it with platforms like Proxmox or VMware, and I can buy third-party appliances. And Netgate offers a lot of hardware possibilities.

pfSense offers a lot of things that help to prevent data loss and intrusion, protect telemetry information, and so on. 

pfSense gives a single pane of glass management. But for me, it's not a problem because I have one appliance, but I think if you manage a lot of appliances, it could be better. It's important to be able to centralize management if I have 10 or 20 appliances.

I use pfSense Plus, it's called the "Zero-to-Ping" license [TAC Lite]. It's a very good solution, but it's a bit too expensive for private use. pfSense Plus is very good, but, for example, if I want to add another pfSense appliance for a cluster, it requires two licenses. For private use, if I want two licenses, it's very expensive.

pfSense Plus provides features to minimize downtime. One of the key features is ZFS. It's the file system. ZFS is very important for backups. I can make snapshots, and that is very good to make backups.

I am satisfied with the visibility that is provided by pfSense Plus. It is very good and optimizes performance because the hardware acceleration is very good for IPsec, SSL VPN, OpenSSL, and so on. This is very good support from pfSense.

The best feature is a function called pfBlockerNG. In pfSense, you can whitelist and blacklists for IP addresses or dangerous DNS sites. The top feature is the VPN. It's a very good SD-WAN solution and a very good VPN engine. It supports a lot of VPN techniques; it supports IPsec, SSL VPN, and WireGuard. It's the core feature of pfSense.

The flexibility is very good; we have a lot of possibilities. You can connect it with different WAN connections, whether you have a cable provider or fiber.

The feature list is good. For me, it's more important that we have fewer patches and better stability compared to OPNsense. I think OPNsense is too big. They support a lot of things, but pfSense is better. I think pfSense is better for stability.

The only thing that could be better is the hardware compatibility for LTE devices. This is a bit tricky for me; I wish the hardware compatibility were better for LTE devices.

I wish the FQ_CODEL limiters were improved. They're very good, but the FQ_PIE limiters don't work well. FQ_PIE limiters are important for cable modem connections. In Germany, we have a lot of cable providers for these interfaces, and the FQ_PIE limiters don't work well in pfSense.

I have been using it for eight to ten years. It has been a very long time. pfSense is very popular in Germany.

I use the latest pfSense Plus version.

The stability is very good.

I use it for my family, for maybe 20 or 30 devices. It's not a big environment.  

I utilize the pfSense forum and the community forum, and it's okay for me.

My preference in comparison with OPNsense is pfSense. I think it is better; it is stable.

The difference is that OPNsense has more features, but also has more bugs.

For me, pfSense is stable. It's better for my use case.

The deployment process is very good. For example, I can set up a new appliance and boot directly from a config file. This is very good.

It's very simple. I download new images, and during the boot process, if you make an image, you have a directory. In the directory, you make the config file, and then you can directly boot with the setup. You can boot a finished version. It's a good thing.

I use it on-premises. The on-prem version is very good. The software is good.

Maintenance depends on the features you use. If you have a proxy server with SSL introspection, sometimes it creates a small firewall size. If you have an easy firewall setup, then it's not so complicated. It depends on your environment and feature settings.

I did the deployment myself without the help of third parties or anything like that. It's very simple. I have enough skills because I studied computer science and work in the network sector. It's not a problem for me.

It took me ten minutes to deploy it. 

The ROI is good. pfSense is a very good solution, not only for home use, but also for middle-sized or larger companies.

In comparison with pfSense CE (Community Edition), pfSense Plus is a little bit too expensive. The pricing is a little bit high for private users. 

With the inclusion of the firewall, VPN, and router functionalities, the total cost of ownership of the pfSense Plus solution is very good because pfSense Plus has a lot of features. For the VPN features, it is good for the total cost of ownership.

I can recommend it if you are a professional or if you know what a firewall is.

It is a very good solution for the home sector, for companies, and for larger companies. I would recommend it to a lot of companies.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

I use pfSense for my home monitoring. It's used to build a subnet in my home environment to separate the IoT and my daily lab. 

PfSense can separate the network into subnets, which I can't do with an ordinary home router. It is relatively simple to add a multiple gigabit network port on the home router. For example, I can buy customized hardware with 6x 2.5 GbE. It helps me optimize performance. I use pfSense as my reverse proxy and have a single interface for managing all the SSL certificates using HAProxy.

The best feature of pfSense is that it can be installed on any customized hardware. I don't need to use Netgate hardware. I like the dynamic DNS update and firewall feature. Adding features is easy. If a feature is built-in, I can check it, install the package, and convert it. If it isn't built-in, I can't add it to pfSense. 

PfSense's interface could be improved. For example, the menu is ordered alphabetically instead of logically. The reboot button should be located near the shutdown, but it's in alphabetical order. Also, Netgear should create a home license for pfSense Plus for non-commercial use.

I have used pfSense since 2020, so it's been about four years.

I rate pfSense six out of 10 for stability.

I haven't tried to scale pfSense. I only use it locally. 

I rate Netgate support five out of 10. They are helpful for basic questions, but if I ask something more complicated, they refuse because I am not a higher tier of support. The response time is acceptable.

Neutral

I used OpenWrt before pfSense but for a relatively short period. PfSense is more feature-rich than previous solutions. 

Deploying pfSense is a bit complicated, but It's nothing I can't handle. It requires some maintenance, such as when they release updates.

PfSense saves me the time I would spend doing things separately. For example, building a VM to set the rear-end policy would take a lot of time. 

If it's not the free community edition, pfSense is relatively expensive for home use. It's okay for commercial use. The cost of ownership is low. I can save about a hundred dollars annually. 

I rate Netgate pfSense seven out of 10. I recommend pfSense for advanced users. It's a good solution if you want to learn more about networking in a company environment/. 

I primarily used the solution to replace Cisco, which was horrible. I wanted something super simple. We needed something that would make the change process within my network easier.

I started with a small trial when I wanted to replace my Cisco switches. I liked that this was open source and I was able to test a few things. The capabilities of configuration made it so that I didn't have to test other options and I could translate my configuration the way I wanted to.

It's easy to configure segments in a network and the routing is good. 

It is super robust. The flexibility is great. It's the main reason I switched off of Cisco. Everything is very intuitive.

I have a pretty complex network. With this, I can do some segmenting. I can have specific firewall rules to make my network as secure as possible.

It's so easy to use. I use the VPN features a lot. It's great.

It's simple to add features. There's lots of documentation and Youtube guides to help you. I did not need specialized training thanks to this knowledge base. As long as you have a background in networking, it's pretty straightforward.

You can add other software packages to pfSense.

Between the free and paid versions, I do not see something that would make one better than the other. However, I bought the pfSense appliance to ensure I had a nice piece of hardware to save and protect my network.

pfSense does provide good visibility into my network so that I can make data-driven decisions. If I need to troubleshoot anything, I can go and look at the data, the statistics, and the graphs. I don't do this daily; I do it only if I notice strange behavior. 

It helps us optimize performance - especially in terms of internet use.

While the software is great, they could work on improving the hardware. The interface is a little bit sluggish. When I installed it on a random computer, the performance was pretty crisp. However, on the device itself, it's slower. I'd like to see them decrease storage and increase speed. With storage, you can always add more. However, you cannot make CPUs faster. 

I've used the solution since September 2022.

I've never experienced any crashes. It's quite stable. 

It's a pretty beefy appliance. That said, thus far, I have no need to scale. At the time, I went with the biggest offering they had in terms of appliance size. 

I've only contacted technical support in order to get a device replacement. I've never experienced any issues. 

I previously used Cisco. It was difficult.

The initial setup is moderately easy. I struggled a bit. It's a bit tricky at first.  However, within a couple of months, I had a really good setup. Now, it's working flawlessly. The deployment took a few months. The first month was a lot of troubleshooting. By the second month, I was fine-tuning. By the third month, it was completely up and running. 

There isn't too much maintenance. The device is almost maintenance-free. Every once in a while, there are updates. The backup is automatic after configuration. I don't have to worry about that.

I handled the setup by myself. 

The pricing is good. I'm not locked into any kind of subscription. Since I bought the appliance, I have it until it breaks. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

I wouldn't recommend pfSense to somebody who has no limited network. While pfSense, for me, was pretty easy to set up, it does have so many features that you could easily get confused. I would recommend it to anybody with experience as a network engineer, not just a beginner. 

Our most common use cases are for our corporate firewalls, and currently, I'm using it as our school firewall. So it's our perimeter firewall. So, we're running three firewalls on our network. 

So we have separate networks each because we have, like, different use cases. So we're running three at the moment.

We've been running it for six years now, and so far, it's been good.

Netgate pfSense has been utilized to create and manage VPNs within our organization. So we're running pfSense with VPN on one of our private cloud providers. So we're using IPSec VPN on that.

For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution. 

We were using an open-source endpoint solution for that. So we're integrating that with the one we have on pfSense. 

The ease of use. Like, it's easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise. For me, it's quite easy and friendly to use.

We have a set of rules so that it can manage all of our rules. We have a complex network here in our school. We have a lot of rules running, so it's really easy to match all of those rules using pfSense.

Integrating pfSense with other products was a bit tedious at first. We researched and tested for about a month, so it was not too hard but not instant.

For the third-party packages, I'd rather have it built-in, like a core feature of pfSense, part of the core model. This feature of pfSense would be great, instead of relying on a third-party module.

I have been using it for six years. 

It's about 95% stable, not perfect, but quite reliable.

If I needed to scale it and merge our pfSense machines into one, I'd prefer a dedicated hardware appliance instead of running multiple x86 servers on the firewall.

We have around 4,000 endpoints. 

I reached out to support for an unusual CPU usage issue after an upgrade. They were responsive, and even though I ultimately found a solution, they were helpful in diagnosing.

Positive

We used Fortinet. We opted for pfSense because of budget limitations. pfSense was a more affordable solution for our requirements.

pfSense is easier to manage and offers modularity for features. With FortiGate, everything is there, but we might not need everything, and too many features can be challenging.

The initial setup is very straightforward and intuitive. 

We use the pfSense software directly and install it on our rack servers. So, we're adding three instances of that.

I handle all the deployment processes. I am the core manager for the entire infrastructure, so I manage and deploy everything.

I consider how many users and gigabytes we expect on the network and try it on a test network first to validate before actual deployment.

Just my core team members manage the whole deployment, so that's enough for us.

Migrating the old one to the new one took around a month because we have many rules, and the new Netgate was quite different.

From the maintenance perspective, it is not difficult at all. 

While configuring or maintaining pfSense, we had high CPU usage on one firewall, but the GPAC subscription provided a good response. The support team was helpful, and we resolved it in a few hours. So, we had good support because of the support subscription. 

We just have the yearly support subscription.

I just found pfSense online. I just tried it out on a home lab and found it worked well enough for us. So, just started out, like, searching online and responded and tried it.

I would advise you to try to estimate your network first and do a test network just to have a proof of concept of what you want to run and check the routes you want to run against your network, making sure that your requirements are valid before deploying it.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

THe solution is used as a primary gateway with two lease lines of 450 Mbps total. Around 200 users are under it. 

There is no server or database in the environment. Users use only the internet extensively. We have three separate locations in the same building. Web filtering, IDS/IPS are the obvious requirements. Squid and Snort open-source packages are installed. 

Our organization is ISO 27001 certified. 

An active directory was implemented to control IAM. Synology NAS with RAID for file sharing and off-premise data backup on the cloud. We have mostly L-2 switches to connect nodes. 

Endpoint security product is another layer of security there. 

The Netgate 6100 Max Model is equipped with pfSense Plus software. We configured it last week and replaced the Mikrotik router. There are many improvements, including more visibility, more control over Internet usage, and a robust VPN (no license required). 

There are multiple lease lines and load balancing, reserve or restrict bandwidth based on traffic priority, and user data transfer quotas.

We have almost no complaints about low speed, choking of the internet, or link problems. Now we can see and observe connections logs also. Usage reports are another improvement. 

It's an ideal gateway solution for small and medium businesses, i.e., around 300 devices can be easily handled. 

We received a simple router, however, there are various tools/software to install to activate the full feature of pfSense plus products such as Squid for proxy, Snort for IDS/IPS, Squidguard for content filtering, etc. You can find many open-source software under the package manager tab on the dashboard of pfSense. 

Traffic shaping and load balancing are excellent features. 

pfSense Plus software is a powerful firewall, router, and VPN solution that leverages a number of highly-regarded open-source projects. The software competes effectively with far more expensive commercial alternatives and is used by hundreds of thousands of businesses, educational institutions, and government agencies all over the world. Leading secure-networking features and capabilities include:

Ad blocker (pfBlockerNG)
Captive Portal
CARP/HA
DNS Server
DHCP Server
HTTP transparent/web/reverse proxy (Squid)
IP/Country block list (pfBlocker)
IDS/IPS - Snort
Packet capture/inspection
Port forwarding
QOS/rate limiters
Software load balancer (HA Proxy)
Traffic monitoring
Traffic logging, statistics, and graphs
Traffic shaping
VLAN
Wake-on-LAN
Website blocker (pfBlocker)

and many more packages. Just install and play with it.

There must be a wizard section as per the use case. For example, if we need a simple firewall there must be an auto-install of most required packages. In the same way, if we need a more strict firewall, then different configuration settings.

There must be a more easy-to-use GUI.

More documentation should be available within the package manager.

A visible ON/OFF button must be there and can be easily configured as required. 

An additional non-us electrical plug must be inside the box.

There should be an option to upgrade RAM (i.e. 8GB to 16GB). It can enhance the capacity of the proxy server. 

I bought this solution 15 days back and configured it last week. 

It's an enterprise product and very stable. 

The solution is very easily scalable. 

As of now, we have not taken support. 

Positive

We were using a simple Mikrotik router with the limited capabilities of a firewall. 

It's not straightforward to set up. That said, it is not complex. Just use Netgate documentation and get help from YouTube resources.

We implemented it via an in-house team. My system admin configured it with the help of available documentation. 

The solution offers matchless ROI. There is no license for the VPN and no annual fees. It is a simple product. 

The product is very cost-effective and has no requirement for additional licenses.

The setup is not easy. Users need more technical expertise to configure it. This is not advisable for non-IT users. 

We checked Sophos and Sonicwall. Due to more configurable options and lower prices, and even no requirement of licenses, we decided to move to pfSense. 

This is the best solution with very impressive cost-effectiveness. 

We use Netgate pfSense as a firewall solution for small and medium-sized businesses.

Netgate pfSense offers firewall protection, VPN access, and a range of monitoring tools.

Adding features to pfSense is easy to do through the wizard.

Netgate pfSense is well documented, and the interface is easy to use when we consult the documentation.

Netgate pfSense was recommended, so the benefits were immediate.

It provides a single wizard. Some third-party tools out there allow us to manage remotely. It also helps us optimize performance by enabling us to turn features on and off.

With the inclusion of firewall, VPN, and router functionality, we love pfSense's total cost of ownership. 

The most valuable features are the alerting and local monitoring.

We are a security shop. It would be very useful if we could place pfSense appliances in customer environments and remotely manage them.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for four years.

Netgate pfSense is relatively stable. It has been running for four years now without any issues.

The scalability is limited without upgrading the appliance.

The technical support offers great quality and good response times.

Positive

The initial deployment is not a plug-and-play out of the box. It takes a little bit more than that. For us, it takes ten to 20 minutes for one person to deploy one pfSense firewall.

Netgate pfSense has a great pricing model.

I would rate Netgate pfSense ten out of ten.

Maintenance is required for software updates.

We use pfSense as our main router.

We implemented pfSense to address the instability and limited customization options we experienced with our previous router.

pfSense is highly flexible, allowing for creating IPsec tunnels and various other configurations.

Adding features to pfSense is easy.

Since implementing pfSense, our overall stability has improved significantly over the last ten years as we transitioned from Prosumer equipment to a more robust tool. This success has allowed me to implement more pfSense routers in other locations. We saw the benefits of pfSense in less than a couple of weeks. Having that added stability is great.

pfSense Plus provides us with the visibility to make data-driven decisions. We can see historical data and bandwidth utilization, allowing us to make informed decisions about our internet connection based on that information.

The most valuable aspects of pfSense are the stability, hardware compatibility, and low cost.

I want pfSense to add some next-generation firewall features.

The scalability has room for improvement.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for ten years. 

I rate the stability of pfSense ten out of ten.

Due to the absence of a single pane of glass management feature, scaling out pfSense becomes quite challenging. I'd rate its scalability a three out of ten, as the process is far from straightforward at present.

The few times we've had to engage support, they have been professional and incredibly knowledgeable. If we encounter someone who doesn't have the answer immediately, they can find it very quickly. In the past, they have even joined meetings with us and a client to work on a problem, providing a lot of insight and assistance throughout the process.

Positive

We previously used Prosumer routers, but their capabilities were insufficient for our needs.

Initially, it was a bit complex when I started using the system over ten years ago. pfSense required a deeper understanding than the Prosumer devices I had used before. I had to grasp the ramifications of every action. However, once I overcame that learning curve, it became knowledge I possessed.

It took us about two weeks to implement and learn how to use pfSense. I've noticed that with pfSense, I'm always learning something new. Just because we've used something for a long time doesn't mean we know all of its functionality. For example, I needed to establish an IPsec tunnel for the first time last year. I called in support, and we successfully established the tunnel to another location. There's always something new to learn, whether pfSense adds new features or we encounter a need for functionality we haven't used before.

pfSense Plus is cost-effective for what we're getting. I've been using Netgate hardware for a long time, and including the pfSense Plus license with the hardware offers significant value. Additionally, using pfSense software for free is of great value.

The total cost of ownership is very low. We've used pfSense historically in a simple configuration, and I've been able to train peers on how to use the Netgate hardware and pfSense Plus effectively.

I rate Netgate pfSense seven out of ten only because of the lack of ability to manage all our switching and WAP from one location.

We have three locations, and two to 25 users use a combination of wired and wireless devices and a typical broadband connection.

pfSense requires maintenance when new versions or patches are released. This does not happen often, but it does happen.

I recommend pfSense to others. Once you overcome the learning curve, it becomes almost second nature to use. The cost is also a major factor. Every year or so, I explore alternatives to Netgate hardware, but almost everything I find is subscription-based, like Cisco Meraki or other brands. I'd struggle to justify renewing a router license every 18 months or risk it stopping working. So, using a platform like pfSense without an annual fee is a huge benefit for our budget.

I use it as a firewall and also as a router because you can address what you want to do with it. It can do network advanced translation (NAT).

It is sitting on my own server. It is on a remote server on a private network.

It is very simple to use. I'm working faster now. I don't have to configure a switch and sync some VLANs on the switch. I can concentrate more on my work because I know that pfSense is guarding my network. It improves my workflow a lot. 

The plugins or add-ons are most valuable. Sometimes, they are free of charge, and sometimes, you have to pay for them, but you can purchase or download very valuable plugins or add-ons to perform internal testing of your network and simulate a denial-of-service attack or whichever attack you want to simulate. You can also remote and monitor your network and see where the gap is. Did you forget a printer port? Most attacks at the moment are happening through printers, and they can tell you immediately that you forgot to close the port of the printer. There are more than one million printers that are in danger, and everybody knows that hackers are using them to enter the network. So, you can download plugins to protect your network.

It is not only a firewall; it can also do some routing or network advanced translation (NAT), which makes it very powerful.

It is very simple to use. As long as you understand the basics or fundamentals of networking, you can manage everything very quickly with it.

The web is evolving every day. So, the product should be constantly improved with more regular updates. Things are constantly changing. There are obsolete protocols, and then there are new protocols. For my own use, it is not an issue, but for somebody who is more at the forefront of internet browsing, it could be a problem.

There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app.

I have been using this solution since May.

It is very stable as long as you don't change the winning theme. When it is working, leave it working. My rule number one is one computer, one function. So, pfSense does that one function, and I don't try to use it for anything else. I could do some File Transfer Protocol or things like that, but it is not made for them. I don't restart it and move it. I only do the security updates and change the username and password very often.

I don't require much scalability. It is fine for a small-scale company with about 30 devices, such as printers, computers, etc. I'm only working with a few people, and I don't have any traffic problems, but a company with 50 or 60 users could have problems with it. Currently, there are four to five users, and I'm providing multimedia services to four to five people. 

It is being used extensively. Sometimes, its usage is 50 times a day, and sometimes, there is no usage. I don't work on it on a daily basis. It also depends on the project I'm working on. We have plans to increase its usage.

Their support is good.

I didn't use any other solution previously. I didn't have a need for it. Only in May, I had the need to deploy my own service.

It is easy to set up if you understand the protocols. If you understand the theory of what is a firewall and what is a router, its initial setup is straightforward.

Its deployment took one week. The strategy was simple. It involved blocking certain traffic, allowing certain traffic, and making ACL or a list of undesired operations such as cookies so that if it is impossible to sniff, and there is complete security. If someone is trying to enter, I immediately get a message on my phone, whether I am in the county or abroad. I immediately get a message saying that somebody is trying to enter, and I am able to counterattack immediately. That's a big advantage of it.

I did it on my own with the advice of some of my friends who have much deeper knowledge than me. It is also very well-documented on the web, and there is a big community.

I am also taking care of its maintenance. I don't have any maintenance except that sometimes, the server on which this solution is implemented has issues. Its maintenance mainly involves regularly checking the systems.

There is a big return on investment because FortiGate is 60 to 70 times more expensive, which could be a big problem for me. It is more expensive than my car. I have a small budget and a small car.

It is about €1,000. It is a one-time payment. I do not have a monthly or yearly subscription. I don't subscribe to any subscription because I hate cloud services.

There are no additional costs.

I would advise others to try it and see if it is good for them. It is a very good product for me, but that might not be the case for other users. There are so many solutions, but I'm really happy with it. For my scale, it is good. If you are Amazon or a company with one million connections every minute, don't ever use this. It is not made for that. It is perfect for small-scale networks.

I would rate it a nine out of 10. It needs more regular updates, so I can't rate it a 10, but it is very easy to use, stable, and solid.