What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for pfSense?

The pricing is reasonable. It costs money to run a product. It used to be completely free, and I think that's where many people became a bit disappointed when the pricing model was introduced, but I think it's a pretty fair price point. Some users don't understand that they can't offer everything for free. The development work involved costs money. The inclusion of firewall, VPN, and router functionalities significantly reduces the total cost of ownership. In my previous role, we utilized pfSense in some locations due to its superior cost-effectiveness compared to other enterprise solutions. For smaller companies or those aiming to reduce expenses, it's a highly affordable option, and even their hardware is reasonably priced.

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.

The price is fair. I buy the Netgate hardware so that I can support pfSense and Netgate and I have somebody designing the next layer of software for me in the future. I like their model. It is a high-value piece of equipment with a great team behind it. With the inclusion of firewall, VPN, and router functionalities, we get a good value.

Netgate pfSense offers good value for its price. I prioritize getting the most out of my money, so I choose pfSense. I don't always seek the cheapest or most expensive option but rather the best value for my investment. With pfSense, I get the most product for every dollar spent.

Netgate pfSense has a great pricing model.

Netgate pfSense is fairly priced. It's probably the most powerful router firewall I've come across. The total cost of ownership of pfSense is reasonable, considering the value it provides. I appreciate the VPN, router, and firewall functionality it offers, which is essential for my business operations. In fact, the ongoing costs associated with pfSense do not significantly exceed the initial purchase price.

The price of pfSense seems reasonable. I pay around a hundred dollars a year for pfSense Plus, which is inexpensive for such a complex product. It's also good that they can still release a community edition. If it started to get extremely expensive to the point where it was more of an enterprise-only product that costs thousands of dollars a year or something like that, I might consider stepping down to the community edition or looking elsewhere. The total cost of ownership seems pretty low because you have the cost of the OS and VPN. If I'm paying for a VPN that's probably five to 10 dollars a month, and the firewall is already included.

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.

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.

It's highly cost-effective for both the average consumer and business users. It's highly competitive, which is why so many people use it. It's extremely down-to-earth compared to Fortinet or Cisco, Netgate doesn't reach that financial tier but is extremely competitive and extremely cost-efficient. They offer superb levels of service for what we pay. Currently, my setup is for a small to medium office. My first one was more for a home-based office—you could have a printer, computer, some gaming systems, TV. I would do a personal office with my first one, and this next one for a small to medium-sized office business for myself and others. I feel comfortable with that. And they're also stackable, so I can scale it that way. It's highly scalable. It's really something worth playing with. And they offer a return policy, which is fair too, for the security appliance too. The total cost of ownership of Netgate pfSense: It's basically a one-off deal, which is good. You might consider building in installment payment options on the Netgate website, possibly with services like Afterpay or Klarna. This could appeal to noncommittal consumers. Personally, I would just pay cash upfront for my clients.

I appreciate that pfSense eliminates the need for extra payments, license management, or feature limitations. This cost-effectiveness and its reliable Zero-to-Ping guarantee is its most compelling aspect. The pricing seems fair overall, but I think they need more reasonably priced options for very small offices. They currently offer a few affordable units at the lower end, but then there’s a significant price jump to the next level. I remember they used to have a model around the 2100 range that was a good middle ground. I believe they should offer more choices between the lowest tier and the next one in terms of hardware. Additionally, I'd like to see a per-incident support option, which I don't think they currently provide. I haven’t checked their support options in a while, so I could be mistaken. However, in the past, they only offered annual plans. If I encounter a specific issue, I would prefer the ability to pay a one-time fee for complete support on that particular problem. The total cost of ownership is great. pfSense is our most recommended appliance for router, firewall, and VPN functionality.

pfSense pricing is reasonable. Whether purchasing appliances or support, I hope they're charging enough to sustain their exceptional support services. Whether you opt for a bundled appliance and support or standalone support for a custom-built device, the pricing remains impressively fair. When considering the total cost of ownership, pfSense is a compelling choice for a solution that incorporates firewall, VPN, and router functionality. Initially, I explored purchasing the OpenVPN access server, which would have required a virtual machine due to the lack of a dedicated physical server. However, integrating the VPN endpoint into the firewall aligns better with our design goals. It eliminates the need for a separate VPN appliance, resulting in significant cost savings and improved performance. Testing pfSense with OpenVPN in a virtual environment confirmed that it operates more efficiently on bare metal hardware. Moreover, the licensing cost for the OpenVPN access server would have been comparable to the support fees for pfSense. The TAC enterprise support is $800 a year per firewall.

The pricing is reasonable. Netgate pfSense offers effective total cost of ownership by combining firewall, VPN, and router functionalities into a single solution.

The pricing and licensing are spot on. It's well below the industry average.

The pricing is good for us. It's not too expensive considering all of the features on offer. It's about $1700 a year. It could always be cheaper, however, for the most part, it's good.

The licensing is fair.

The pricing is great - for the hardware, at least, which is generally what we're paying for. I was very aware of and paid attention to all the noise that went down when they changed their licensing, especially for the community edition. They created a new product called the Plus version of the license. For what they charge for it, which is maybe $100 a year, it's still good. If you wanted to build your own router, pfSense is more than worth $100 a year to have all that flexibility and maybe your own piece of custom hardware that you want to run it on. It's definitely a value-driven product.

I would like to see the solution's price reduced.

I use the Netgate pfSense Community Edition and the paid version called Netgate pfSense Plus. Netgate pfSense Community Edition is great and free. For Netgate pfSense Plus, we have to buy Netgate's boxes, and the pricing is great. As a non-profit organization, I would like to have a discount from Netgate, but if you are ready to buy a hundred boxes, it would be nice to have a discount. I understand that Netgate pfSense does not charge a lot more for the box than what we are paying for them. The pricing is fine.

I bought Netgate pfSense Plus since I have to use the firewall in both my houses, so I have four solutions. I have made certain payments using a subscription-based model to use Netgate pfSense Plus. If I were a part of Netgate leadership or running the company, I would clear out a few areas on the strategy side of the business. I work for a major enterprise where an SME or the tool is needed. Netgate's strategy regarding Netgate pfSense Plus for home users or labs was very misleading in nature and handled very badly. I have opted for the tool's subscription-based pricing model. a subscription, and I am very happy to pay the money money, which comes to around 130 USD for two years, which is nothing for me. Netgate handles the tool's subscription-based pricing model very badly. I think Netgate pfSense's pricing or licensing models are fair enough. I think the way Netgate pfSense handled its previous pricing model with regards to Netgate pfSense Plus was an area that was misleading for users. Overall, what I pay for the product is very reasonable.

I think Netgate pfSense's TAC or support is a little expensive, considering how inexpensive everything else is. Netgate's most expensive appliance costs around $5,000. However, an annual subscription to TAC costs around $1,000, which is roughly 20% of what you pay for the hardware. It seems a little excessive.

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.

The solution's pricing is comparable to other products. The basic plan provides the support I need.

I think Netgate pfSense is very fairly priced. I think it's a great way to get people locked in by being a little bit cheaper than many other solutions. Once they see it, they wonder why they would use anything else.

The tool is flexible; even the free, open-source version offers many features. From a cost perspective, even the subscription model for commercial support isn't too costly. However, it's important to have someone knowledgeable about Netgate pfSense to take advantage of it. While there are online resources, a professional or someone experienced can get much more out of the solution. I've heard that the IPS/IDS licenses and other features can be costly. The solution is very cheap. It's so affordable that even students can use it on their laptops. It's a good, cost-effective product.

I use the community version, although there is a paid version as well. I've also downloaded it, registered myself, and paid for it to get support. I'm not sure of the exact features that differ between free and paid.

I use the community version of the solution. It is free to use. I don't consider the cost of how many hours it would take to learn it versus the cost of the annual subscription; however, once I get sufficiently comfortable on many firewalls, that'll average out to zero in terms of cost.

The pricing model is good. It's right about where it needs to be. The total cost of ownership is low and the value is high.

We do pay about $600 a year for NetGate support. pfSense is free, however, NetGate, that made the appliance, charges for a support package. I'm very happy with the quality of service that I get for the price. We would have paid another $7,000/year for subscription fees if we went anywhere else.

I'm using pfSense via Netgate devices, which are reasonably priced. The solution seems to be reasonable. It's well-priced for what you get. It's a bit lower than the competition if you are trying to gauge the cost of ownership. And it adapts well to different speeds.

I use the community version. For configurations and troubleshooting, you do need to pay. I'm not sure what the pricing is for Plus.

PfSense offers huge savings. The price is the lowest in the business. The only thing you can use in place of pfSense is a fork like OPNsense. I'm more familiar with pfSense, so I never got on the OPNsense bandwagon.

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.

pfSense's price is excellent and similar to its competitors. It has a low total cost of ownership for all these features.

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.

PfSense was quite a bit less expensive than some other alternatives, and it's worked as well as we could hope. We have three 1500s and 11 of the 4100s. The total cost of ownership has been pretty beneficial.

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.

The community edition provides all of the basic functions for free on your own hardware, and pfSense Plus comes with a Netgate appliance. It's a reasonable $200 bucks or so to buy pfSense for your hardware, and then it's $800 or $900 a year for commercial support, which is also reasonable for a firewall. It's hard to gauge the total cost of ownership because there's a free, open-source version that, if you know a lot about pfSense already, it's almost zero cost. You can run it on any old hardware you've got. If you need support and multi-gigabit IPSec WAN speeds, you'll need to pay for that, but you will with anybody.

I buy the appliance and accept whatever comes with it, but I am not bought into paid support. When it comes to the pricing of the appliances, they are pretty competitive. The price is pretty competitive. I just bought a Netgate SG-1100. Within the past year, I upgraded my Netgate SG-1000 from 2017 to Netgate SG-1100. I looked at some of the higher-spec products, but they started to get pricier. For example, Netgate 2100 was a consideration. The difference between the 1100 and 2100 is double. I looked at the specs of 2100 and what it could deliver. I did not need all the extra specs. I do not need to perform at that level although it might be nice to have some extra ports on my box. I then looked at 1100. I could get by with those specs. It was an improvement over the tiny SG-1000 that I was running, so it was a win, but the question always is whether there is something competitive and similar that I can build for less money and whether it would deliver the same value. You can get these Small Form Factor PCs. You can get ARM systems and x86 systems and similar form factors. You can get them with multiple NICs already installed. This is more or less your hardware with no support. You get a warranty on the hardware, but they are not selling you the software. You put whatever you want on it and build your system. You can install pfSense CE on that or build your own router on a device like that. Why I chose to buy it from Netgate was the peace of mind of the full stack support because it is probably the most critical portion of my entire home network. I decided to invest a little bit more and trust somebody else a little bit more to have my back. Peace of mind comes from having bought the official appliance. It has a very reasonable and competitive price model. In terms of the total cost of ownership, you have the hardware price. You are combining the price of any hardware support contracts that you may or may not be paying for and somehow estimating the administrative time that is required to actually manage the system itself and billing somehow for that appropriately. That is a tough one because that is where there is a gray area of home business usage. Aside from that gray area, the investment rolls off very quickly. I can recoup this investment within a year.

PfSense is reasonable for a business but a little pricey for home use. With the time savings and reliability, it pays for itself. I've been more than happy with the unit we've gotten here for the capacity we need. However, it'd be nice to have nice to have some nice home units that aren't a thousand dollars.

When it comes to Netgate pfSense, I use the basic TAC Lite license, which comes for about 100 USD. I don't think Netgate pfSense is expensive at all. You could look at other services that offer similar types of configurations, and you can see it may cost in the thousands range. Even though I want something for free, I think it is quite a reasonable tool. The only qualm I have with the tool is that it is a little stingy on how many times they have to rekey a license.

They are on the higher end, but you do not get stuck with spending thousands of dollars every year. You do not have recurring license costs to have people use a simple feature like VPN. That makes it more cost-effective in the long term. There is a very good price point. No one ever complained, and I have not ever thought that they were overpriced. That is for sure.

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.

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 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.

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.

Netgate pfSense is competitively priced. The 4100 box is a good box for the price.

Unlike many firewalls that require annual licensing fees, making them expensive for small businesses, pfSense is an affordable option.

Netgate pfSense stands out as a cost-effective option that delivers excellent value. While I haven't personally used their support at home, a vendor I spoke with praises it highly. Their reputation suggests phenomenal hospital-grade support might be worthwhile for a critical environment like ours. Netgate's maintenance contracts are significantly more affordable compared to other vendors, demonstrating their competitive pricing and commitment to customer value.

It is free. It is open source.

I use the free version.

We just have the yearly support subscription.

The product is free of cost.

I use the product's free version.

Netgate pfSense is a cost-effective option. If you're not using a VPN, you can acquire a decent embedded PC for around a hundred dollars and install pfSense on it, effectively creating a robust firewall solution. With this setup, you can achieve a throughput of two hundred to three hundred megabits per second without any issues, provided you're handling relatively simple rules. The level of performance depends on the specific requirements and tasks.

The product is cheap.

It is an open-source solution.

I am using the community version of the solution which is free. The paid version is priced reasonably.

It is very suitable in terms of the price. If a client cannot acquire a Netgate appliance, I provide a custom-made appliance, and I install the Community edition of pfSense. It is a very good and affordable solution for enterprises. Some of the clients pay monthly but usually, it is annually. The maintenance cost varies depending on the kind of solution we have implemented. It could be €100 per month or around €800 per year.

The solution doesn't come at a high cost. That makes it a very attractive option.

We are using the free version of the solution. We are not paying anything for it at this time.

This is a good option. If a vendor is trying to sell Fortinet and Sangfor, but the customer's requirements are basic, they'll have a hard time convincing someone who believes in free, open-source software that pfSense is not suitable for them. The only cost is the hardware. But pfSense doesn't have after-sales support or some of the other features you might find in a commercial solution.

The price of pfSense is reasonable. However, there is a free version available.

The pfSense software is open source, so you only have to pay $90 a year for support. Of course, I could be wrong on that. It was that much when I looked into it a year ago. It might've gone up or down since then. You can buy the minimum appliance for under $300. It has two ethernet ports, one for your WAN and one for your LAN.

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

The solution is free. However, you need to pay for support.

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

pfSense is a free solution.

PfSense is an open-source product, but you need to buy a license to get some features.

We are using its Community Edition, which is free. My company is a government school, and we don't have much budget.

I am not aware of the licensing costs.

This is a no-cost solution.

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.

My opinion about pfSense's pricing is good. They are open source.

When compared to other solutions like SonicWall, SonicWall has a built-in administrative burden where you have to go back and make sure your client understands they're going to get hit with another annual fee to keep that device up to date. pfSense is not like that. pfSense is not like that in the sense that if you go out and get the latest update of firmware or software, you're going to get the latest and greatest. You don't have to remember to go to the client and remind them they're going to be charged another fee next year to keep their license current. I hope they keep that model.

Our customers must pay for an annual license.

I am using the free version of pfSense.

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.

When compared with other firewalls, the price is reasonable. There is an open-source community version that is available.

A free edition with a cheap support contract could be enough, especially if you use it as a double chance with other expensive products.

Currently, we don't pay for a license.

Its price is pretty fair.

We use the open-source version, which is free to use. I say we've always used the community edition as I've never felt a need for support or anything like that and our clients have never insisted on it. I know where to go to look for answers if we run into problems, so paying for that extra support isn't something we need to worry about.

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

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

As an open-source solution, it is free to use as you see fit.

That is another fun part of this solution. There is no license. You don't have to pay anything. It's completely free. The one thing that you can buy is a security feed like an IP feed or a DNS feed. This kind of thing can be easily bought, but if you have the passion and expertise, you can arrange all of these types of feeds for free. It may be slightly different between how frequently those feeds are updated compared to the paid version. Sometimes, it lags behind for 24 hours or 12 hours, but it works.

Well, its opensource... So for the tech-minded, its not so difficult but yes, the configuration is understandable for those with good prior firewall knowledge... If you can get it working, its great... But yes, thats the first part... Get it working... Oncw working, all licenses etc are not a problem as it is opensource... So no restrictions there... so far...

We are using the open-source version which is free. We are testing the solution to see if we are going to go to the enterprise version which requires a license and is not free.

We are using a free version of the solution. We don't need to pay any licensing fees.

pfSense is open-source.

Licensing costs depend on company size. pfSense is an open source solution, so there's a charge for support. We offer a first line of support and a second line if required. Payment depends on the contract, because usually it's only covers the firewall. We offer a contract for the network which includes UTM. There's a hardware cost for HP servers and, again, depending on the size of the company, installation cost is about 500-800 Euro. There's an annual maintenance fee included in the networking agreement.

The price of the licensing depends on the size of the deployment. pfSense is open-source, but the support is something that the customer pays for. We charge them for the first line of support and if they want, they can purchase the second line of support. Typically, they take the first-line option. The term of licensing also depends on the contract. The firewall doesn't always have a contract but rather, there is a contract in place for the network, which includes UTM. In addition to the licensing fees, there are costs for hardware, installation, and maintenance. We use HPE servers, and the cost depends on how large the installation is. The price of setup is approximately €500 to €800, which also includes the initial monitoring. The maintenance cost isn't really included in the network fees. For smaller companies, we charge them a few hours a month for monitoring. It takes longer if the client is bigger.

The pricing is lower than some of its competitors. However, If you do not have a strong technical team and are trying to get pfSense to do some of the same functions as some of the competitors such as Fortinet or Palo Alto, It will cost you a lot in professional services to do it. You then lose the low cost-benefit of this solution.

I spent a couple of $1,000 on hardware, and the OS was free. A comparable firewall would cost me probably 20 grand. It saved a lot of money.

There aren't monthly or yearly licensing costs.

It is open source.

It's open-source. You can pay for support if you need.

It has almost zero cost, and it is open to us. It runs on a small appliance just for a couple of 100 bucks, and I've never had an appliance burn out on me yet.

We've found the pricing to be very fair. It's actually pretty low. The licensing is very inexpensive.

We are using the open-source version, not the commercial one. It's very affordable.

The solution is open-source and therefore the solution is very cost-effective.

We are currently using the open source solution so it's free.

This solution provides enterprise-level features at a fraction of the cost of an enterprise firewall.

The pricing of the solution is fair. I've also paid for a license that includes Entreprise support. Our license lasts for two years.

It is an open source firewall.

I prefer appliance licensing with pfSense (Community Edition). * It's free. * It's very stable. * It's only on the hardware, it can be very fast. Choose the appliances because it is nice to have the hardware cut out for it, i.e. the right hardware for the right software.

It is completely free.

For the cost and what's included, you can't beat it, no way no how. If you're worried about enterprise solutions, the only thing you need to do then is to purchase a support contract, and you have an enterprise solution. You can even purchase hardware from the vendor if you choose.

All costs are low compared to other solutions. The hardware is stable and cheap. There is no licensing fee except for the enterprise support, if you want it.

It is a free solution.

It was straightforward to buy from pfSense.