Netgate pfSense Reviews

pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information.

pfSense could improve by having a sandboxing feature that I have seen in SonicWall. However, maybe it is available I am not aware of it.

I have been using pfSense for approximately three years.

I have used the SonicWall solution. 

Sometimes firewalls can get a little complicated. I think some of the things about the setup could be a little bit clearer. Maybe something like a configuration wizard or something that would guide you on more in-depth projects.

I'm running pfSense on old hardware, it takes all of 10 minutes to install.

I did the implementation of the solution, it is not difficult.

I like pfSense and I have deployed a number of them. I have approximately four of them in the area that I'm using. I have replaced SonicWall with a pfSense unit. It's a more economical way of using a firewall, and the protection it provides is second to none.

Lonnie Buchmann:
I would say give it a serious look. And especially a lot of times when you're in a small business, this is a really good solution that doesn't kill you with all the technology overhead that you deal with nowadays.

I rate pfSense a ten out of ten.

We are an MSP. We have some customers who have on-prem networks, and they want to have their networks protected by a firewall. They are quite small customers with 10 to 50 users. We use pfSense in order to protect our customers' network, to make some network automation, and especially to make VPNs to some remote branches to enable remote users to get access to the enterprise network.

It is deployed on a private cloud and on-prem.

My technicians find the pfSense's web interface very useful. It is very easy to use. 

pfSense is very reliable and stable. We like the OpenVPN clients that can be deployed using pfSense very much.

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.

I have been using this solution for five years.

I would rate pfSense a nine out of 10. It is a very good product.

We primarily use the solution to help our customers with firewall integration. 

I like the solution's stability and ease of use. 

There is a need to increase the technology on the area of WAF, the web application firewall. I would like to be more knowledgeable about the firewall, so I may best use it to solve customer problems. 

The integration should be improved. 

I have been using pfSense for around six years. 

The solution is stable. 

Technical support is perfect, excellent. 

The solution is easy to install for one who properly understands the nitty gritty of the firewall and network.

It is my engineers who are responsible for the installation, not I, so I cannot comment on its duration, although I know that it does not take them long. 

We don't buy the PS from Sophos, because we have in-house training and in-house trained engineers who always handle the implementation.

Our customers must pay for an annual license. 

The solution can be deployed both on-cloud and on-premises. 

When it comes to Sophos, we have around 18 to 20 customers making use of it. 

I would recommend the solution to others. 

I rate pfSense as an eight out of ten. It is good. 

I am using pfSense as a secondary firewall and network management.

The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic.

The usage reports can be better.

I have been using pfSense for approximately six years.

The solution is stable.

I had 20 to 30 users using the solution.

I have used Sophos and Cyberoam solutions.

The installation is very easy.

I did the implementation of the solution.

I am using the free version of pfSense.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I have been 100% satisfied with the solution.

I rate pfSense an eight out of ten.

We are using pfSense as a personal firewall for our systems and network protection.

The solution is very easy to use and configure.

I have been using pfSense for approximately five years.

The solution is stable.

I am only using the solution for personal use and have not tried to scale it.

I have not been in contact with the technical support because everything has been easy with the solution and there is clear documentation available.

I have used other firewalls, such as Cisco and Netgate.

The initial setup is very simple and the configuration is user-friendly. It took me one day for the whole process.

I did the implementation of pfSense myself. The solution does not require much maintenance, we require sometimes to reboot the system.

I am using the community version of the solution and it is priced well. There is a cost of learning how to use the solution, if it was free it would be better.

A good firewall has to be easy to install, configure, use, and fit the use case. This solution for my usage is very good.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate pfSense a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for a Firewall and a VPN.

We have found that this solution is better at keeping our business safe by having improved intrusion prevention than competitors.

I have found the firewall portion for the blocking most valuable.

The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability.

I have been using the solution for approximately six months.

The solution is very stable.

I have found the solution to be unlimited when it comes to scalability. The more memory and power you give it, it will use it all.

I found the technical support of the solution to be not very good at all.

I have used Fortinet previously and the installation took a lot less time to install. Additionally, I have also used SonicWall before but I switched to the current solution because it was getting too expensive. 

The initial installation was very difficult, it took approximately one week.

We did the implementation and maintenance of the solution ourselves.

The solution software does not require a license, it is free. The support contract is about $600 dollars. 

I would recommend for other people looking into implementing the solution to read the manual, go on to the videos, verify everything with the tutorials. Make sure you fully comprehend the size of the software.

I rate pfSense a seven out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for security purposes. We use it for a firewall.

The solution is quite stable. The performance is very good.

We've found the solution to be very easy to use. It's user-friendly.

The scalability potential of the product is quite good. 

We like the fact that the product is open-source. It's free to use. There are no costs associated with it.

The solution is very easy to install.

The solution is quite fast.

It does a good job of monitoring our systems.

The solution could always work at being more secure. It's a good idea to continue to work on security features and capabilities in order to ensure they can keep clients safe.

I've been using the solution for a while. It's been about six years or so.

The stability of the solution is very good. There are no bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. Its performance is reliable. It's been very good over the years.

The solution scales quite well. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so with relative ease.

We have a few hundred users at this time.

We do have plans to continue to use the product.

We have used technical support in the past. They have always been very helpful and responsive. They are knowledgeable. We have no complaints. We're quite satisfied with their level of service. 

The installation of the solution is not overly complex or difficult. It's easy. It's straightforward. e didn't have any issues with eh implementation process. A company should find the setup very simple. 

The deployment was very fast. It only took a few minutes.

The solution is an open-source product. It's free to use. It's extremely affordable.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. It's been very good in terms of its overall capabilities.

I would recommend this solution to other companies and users. It's very fast and very easy to use.

I primarily use the solution for monitoring and learning about how to operate a firewall. I also use it for monitoring my home network as well as adblocking.

The solution is 100% free to use.

The product offers a lot of helpful plugins.

The solution is easy to use and has a elaborate GUI.

The initial setup is quite simple and straightforward.

The integration of the plugins into the GUI could be better. It's sometimes hard to find where a setting can be found or how it might interact with other settings. Some documentation is outdate and plugins sometime have no documentation. Information can always be found on the fora but for novice users this can be a challenge.

I've been using the solution for five years or so. It's been a while.

The solution is stable. Since last upgrade there hasn't been a crash, freeze or need for reboort. It's quite reliable.

I've tried to scale the solution previously. I've got two hardware platforms running. I wasn't quite able to run everything I wanted on a small ARM based device. Therefore,  I build my own Super-micro platform based on Intel Denverton.

It's actually easy to scale. It's just moving over most of the configuration: exporting, importing, or even going right into the original XML export file.

There are six users, 3 dozen of devices and a homelab server with VM running behind the solution at this time.

With what I am running now, I haven't had to reach out to technical support. However, an upgrade failed two years ago and I needed to contact technical support to get me the new image for the device. They were very efficient. I was satisfied with the level of support I received.

I've been switching back and forth between pfSense, OPNsense, and Untangle in the last five years or so.

OPNsense and Untangled are more integrated, however, more and more of the plugins are becoming paid offerings. OPNsense misses a plugin that pfSense has, Untangled it's adblocking is easy but not free.

The initial setup is not to complex.

It's good to have the basic information before attempting to set everything up. They've got a wiki with all basic information and there are the fora for questions.

I've got a CCNA certificate and that some comes in handy. For me, it works without any documentation, however, for a complete novice user you probably need some documentation to get you through the process.

Getting everything up and running only took about 30 minutes. You then have a complete firewall solution up-and-running.

There is some maintenance required. You do need to check for updates from time to time, for example. If you install more plugins more maintenance might be required to get everything tuned.

I handled the implementation myself. I have some knowledge about IP routing.

The solution is free to use. There are (currently) no licensing costs.

I'm just a home lab user.

I'd advise those considering the solution for your business to get a service contract.

It works great for someone with enough knowledge and time to get his head around everything. Otherwise, you need to look for a solution that offers support and can work with you on issues. It's nice to try to balance between open-source and support that costs money.

In general, I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.