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pfSense Review

Straightforward set-up but it does require some technical expertise to do it.

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What is most valuable?

Free
Open source
Robust
Strong community support
Strong author support

How has it helped my organization?

Critical network infrastructure has improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for two years.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've also used Untangle and Sophos firewalls

How was the initial setup?

Straightforward, but it requires some technical expertise and tweaking.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it entirely in-house.

What other advice do I have?

Make sure the implementer has programming experience.

**Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Last updated: Apr 14 2015

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Project Manager / Security consultant at BT Global Services

Indeed this is a very powerful opensource solution but as you say it requires some technical expertise and tweaking (but actually which firewall technology does not require some now?). Fortunately the community and project documentation are rich and very helpful. Extra packages availability is also rich, it goes from the simple CLI tool like bmon to fully graphically managed RADIUS, SQUID, SNORT servers for instance (see : https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Category:Packages). It also support natively High Availability Sync thanks to CARP and pfsync protocols (see: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Configuring_pfSense_Hardware_Redundancy_%28CARP%29). Few days ago I set up VPN SSL configuration with OpenVpn in TAP mode, all done through the GUI (no need to edit any files through CLI) what quite impressed me (usually bridge creation is done through CLI).
To conclude I really invite people looking for a free firewall solution to give a try with pfsense :-)
Just keep in mind such a solution is devoted to projects requiring "not so much speed", I mean 40G or even 100G firewalling and either not UTM inspection.

26 August 15