Netgate pfSense Reviews

We have mainly been using for our internet workstations.

After we started with testing with it a bit, it showed that it can be utilized in a way that we wanted to utilize it.

I have not had one issue with pfSense at all, which is amazing.

Layer 7 filtering has been taken away from pfSense. They would like us to use Snort, which is a good thing, but I would like them to make the Layer 7 thing easier.

The one reason that we did not go with pfSense is that it is not centrally managed like Meraki, where you log into the website and can see all your services there. This is the only reason why we are going with Meraki.

We would like to be able to see is all the configurations from a central interface on all our pfSenses.

Stability has been excellent. We have experienced no issues; it never fails.

There is a lot of stuff that you can add-on. You can actually write your own APIs to connect to it and so on. So, there is a lot of scalability in pfSense that other products do not have.

We have not using technical support. We have only been using the community version.

We used to use Empalis. We actually started to replace our Empalis with pfSense first to do testing, and see if it would actually work for us. This was just a test phase, before we went over to Meraki. So far, pfSenses outperform Merakis.

I setup all of it. I set it up for our country, and I did it all remotely. I learned from the community how to do it. The process to install and configure is very straightforward.

It is a free solution.

We originally looked at SonicWall, but we chose pfSense because of pricing (since it is free) and it has issues that pfSense does not have. 

We are currently migrating over to Meraki and are having a lot of issue with it. Also, with Meraki, you pay through your neck for it.

I would not have made the decision to move away from pfSense. pfSense has been giving us better options than what Meraki is giving us at the moment. I have got login problems with Meraki which takes about two days for them to sort out. If I was on pfSense, I would sort it out myself.

They need to look at all the communities, comparisons, etc. and read up about the issues and problems people are having with some of the solutions, then see if those problems might be related to what they may be experiencing.

Main criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• How easy is it to learn.
• How easy is it to implement.

I am using pfSense as a firewall and VPN gateway.

pfSense has helped our organization because we use a data center that needed a firewall, VPN, and other features under a budget. 

The most valuable features of pfSense are security, user-friendliness, and helpful online management.

It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution.

I have been using pfSense for approximately one year.

I rate the stability of pfSense an eight out of ten.

We have approximately 2,000 people using the solution.

I rate the scalability of pfSense an eight out of ten.

I have not used the support from the vendor. However, I use community support.

The initial setup of pfSense was simple. However, when we install filters or agents it can be difficult.

I rate the initial setup of pfSense an eight out of ten.

I am using the community version of the solution which is free.

The paid version is priced reasonably.

The solution has solved many of our use cases.

I rate pfSense an eight out of ten.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monowall, Tomato, DD-WRT.

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

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

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

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

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

No

Customer Service:

8

Technical Support:

8

Fortinet, TMG Microsoft, SonicWall, scalability, cost

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

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

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

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

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

- Firewall/router

- OpenVPN server

- DHCP server

- High availability cluster

- It's for FREE!

Before I started working for my present company, they used to use a small (for home use :) ) Linksys router. The main problem of Linksys was the limitation of firewall rules of up to 50 entries. I suggested using a main firewall/router because it has professional functions, has no limitation, and it's for free.

So far, from my point of view everything is working perfect!

I started working with pfSense in 2009.

Deployment is very easy and quite intuitive. Installation is very simple.

No, I didn't have any issues. Every issue I had with pfSense was with hardware (not caused by pfSense).

Never.

I never use customer service.

I never use technical support.

Before pfSense I had in the company an old Cisco router, but it had problems with stability so I was looking for an alternative and I found pfSense.

If you have some knowledge about router and firewall, initial setup won't be a problem for you. Ask google about it and you will find a lot of documentation, instructions and video.

I implemented pfSense by myself, so I can't rate the vendor team level of expertise.

System is totally free. I spent two days to implement it.
As hardware, I used old workstations which were prepared to scrap.
So ROI = use some cheap hardware with 2 NICs and you will get a professional firewall/router.

It's absolutly free, no pricing and no licensing.

I was checking some other alternatives (right now I don't remember which) but pfSense had the best documentation, so the choice was simple.

For professional use, I advise using two computers with three NICs

Why 2 computers???
To create a HA cluster.

You will need 3 WAN IP addresses, 3 LAN IP addresses, and a quite simple NIC configuration:

1st NIC use to WAN connection (CARP)

2nd NIC use to heartbeat and sync between two pfSense

3rd NIC use to LAN connection (CARP)

For more details ask Google :)

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. 

We use pfSense to protect our customers using IPS and IDS.

We are a government agency and we manage the government network. 

We complete the setup and we are protecting our customers.

The most valuable feature is that it's robust.

In terms of resources, utilization assets, CPU utilization, and a lot of memory, it's very good. 

The concurrent users are perfect for us.

The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall.

I would like an API that can sync to SolarWinds because we use SolarWinds for our monitoring platform. It would be great to be able to do all of the monitoring from SolarWinds instead of logging into the application to monitor it. It would be a nice feature to have.

I have been using pfSense for less than two years.

In the last two weeks, we moved a few resources to the pfSense and it's been stable. 

When compared to SonicWall there were some issues but it could be that SonicWall was doing too much. It was doing almost everything. It was doing IDS, IPS, and contextual training. It may be that it was overwhelmed.

We were using the software base, and then we bought the hardware device. We moved 12 users onto it and we are monitoring it.

Based on the documentation it would not require much to scale up or upgrade. There is no doubt that it is scalable.

Most of the support is online.

We do a lot of reading, and if there is any support or suggestions we quickly do it. 

We have not contacted them directly.  

They have a lot of resources available on the internet that will guide you in finding your way around.

We use a few different firewalls. We use SonicWall and Huawei firewall along with pfSense.

The initial setup was straightforward. It was easy.

We did not use an integrator. I completed it with one of my colleagues.

Looking at what it does, I think that it is fairly priced.

When we compare to SonicWall, we feel that we are getting the best with pfSense.

Depending on what they want their firewall to do for them. If it is for intrusion detection, and intrusion prevention I would recommend this solution. 

In summary, this product is good but I would like to see resources utilization (cpu, hard disk) directly on SolarWinds. A one stop shop for monitoring on SolarWinds. It would be great!

I would rate pfSense a six out of ten.

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

For pfSense the valuable features are:

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

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

We did not encounter any issues with stability.

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

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

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

Setup is easy and done in a few steps.

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

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

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