Netgate pfSense Reviews

I use pfSense as a firewall. I use it also as a VPN server and for the captive portal. Those are the main purposes.

It's difficult to say how it has made a difference in my organization.

The most valuable features are the VPN and the captive portal. Captive portal and VPN are easy to deploy.

I haven't experienced many problems when dealing with the solution, so I don't know if there are areas that need improvement.

If a user doesn't have a large amount of experience in Linux systems, they will have problems using this solution. Users need to be highly skilled in troubleshooting competency. Users who do not have such skills will find the product difficult to use.

Sometimes if your network goes down, you might experience an issue on the captive portal. This may require a restart and it also may require that you load it again. I'm used to the system, so I know what to do, but it can happen from time to time.

It can be really easy  to deal with Technical support. Technical support is avaible every time I call . But sometime if Technical support do not privide you the solution, so you should double check and solve the issue by your self.

I've been using the solution for about five or six years. 

The stability isn't bad, but there can occasionally be bugs within the system. The likelihood is lessened if you follow a few key protocols.

It's important to have a proper license, otherwise, you run the risk of bugs.

It's important to upgrade the solution regularly. This also helps users avoid running into bugs. If you experience a bug, it's a good idea to check the release and make a grid.

Those that have experience in troubleshooting will benefit from their knowledge when using this solution. Sometimes packages will not work and you'll have to be strategic with workarounds.

The support can be really difficult to deal with. I wouldn't say that we have been satisfied with them in any way.

It's not very complex to set up. However, it can become complex as you're using it, and when you are learning the systems. In that sense, it might not be straightforward for everyone.

When it comes to using pfSense, you need to have extreme skills in Linux and in troubleshooting. If you don't have any form of troubleshooting competency, it could be very difficult to use, and very hard to set it up.

I'm very proficient in the solution. I managed the implementation on my own. We didn't need to hire a consultant or bring on an integrator or reseller.

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

We're just customers. We don't have a special relationship with the solution. We just use it on a regular basis.

I'm not sure if I'm using the latest version of the solution or not.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten since I've never had any major issues with it.

The biggest thing a new user or company needs to be aware of, however, is that whoever the team is that's using it, they need to be very experienced Linux users. The system will be extremely difficult otherwise.

New users will need patience. However, it is easy to use due to its very good web interface. It's also easy to deploy and the process can be handled quickly. There's no need to have a really big fancy long-winded deployment process. That said, especially if you are using it within a complex Linux environment, you absolutely must have high skills in both Linux and security.

In the past, we had different locations in different countries, and in every location, we had the same pfSense firewall. Therefore, the connection between our different locations was good and manageable. However, in the last two years, we have had only one location here in Belgium, thus the performance of the pfSense has been good, and we can manage great with the open ports and the closed ports, but now a firewall has to be a little bit more than just that.

I do not have any big malware in my network, partly because of pfSense. The firewall blocks every malfunctioning malware or virus. Also, the access from outside our network has to be blocked, and I know by experience that our pfSense is very closed. You have to open every port in order to make sure that there can be a connection from outside our network.

1. I can manage it easily by myself.
2. The interaction between the same firewalls is good. We can connect VPNs over the same firewall easily.
3. It is an open source solution. Therefore, the price is good.
4. OPNsense.
5. The performance and functionality are good.

A malware blocker should be included. I do not know if it is included yet. However, until now, we have not experienced a large malware invasion.

There are a few features not included, and when you have to use those features, you have to pay for them.

I know that I should change the current pfSense solution. I should change it because we have only one key port on it. Our internet access also has a key port now, I should have two key ports, one to the LAN and one to the WAN.

Therefore, I want to change it, because it gives us less speed. I could provide the speed, but there are not two key ports on it. Therefore, I now have to choose a new pfSense solution, or I could look at another vendor similar to what we have.

I am satisfied with the stability.

Scalability was less important. When we started, we did not have to scale the pfSense. In the seven years that I have used the pfSense, once I had to renew it because the hardware was broken or was defective. The second one was a little bit faster and had more memory, so I did not have to scale it again. Therefore, the scalability has not been so important to us until now.

We came from OneStart. OneStart was out of data and at end of life. Thus, we had to switch. pfSense was originally proposed to us by the dealer and our external IT help.

The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product.

I did not do it alone. I had help from the dealer. Once installed, I can manage now to change little things. For the initial setup, I was involved with it, but I did not do it myself.

It was straightforward to buy from pfSense.

From Sonic Wall, their price is much higher, because for every feature that you want to add, you have to pay. I can do the same things with pfSense, but everything is included in one price.

We originally evaluated Cisco, WatchGuard, and Barracuda. We chose pfSense because of the price and it was open source software. At the time, our team was called OpenERP (now called Odoo), so open source software was an advantage.

I would recommend it. It is manageable and straightforward. It is not so complex. You have to know the different rules, but you can manage it easily. The performance is good.

• Battery backup
• True processor power at low energy cost
• Expansion possibilities
• Low noise emission

We like it mostly for being able to use BSD compiled software inside it. It is flexible, fast, powerful and full of features, such as an easy proxy filter, and clustering along with an easy and well developed web based interface.

Kernel support for laptop features, USB/Firewire ethernet cards, and specially built in WLAN cards. If the WLAN functions work properly, pfSense makes a perfect "repeater" or controlled and robust accessed point with built in QoS and firewall. Wider support for 3G and 4G USB cards as backup networks would be nice too. It was impossible to get some USB stuff to work.

We've used it for two years, with an HP Elitebooks 8350 for battery backup.

No issues encountered.

I got terrible kernel crashes on HP laptops while trying to setup WLAN, but it worked better on Fujitsu ones.

It has worked as expected so far.

I have never needed it.

I have never used it.

We have mostly used Cisco products. Their products feels like we are back in the stoneage when compared to pfSense. We switched as we needed more power (as traffic, bandwidth and user accounts grew). pfSense was one good clear substitute, and Cisco is too expensive if you want real throughput power, and it was too hard to administrate when we compared it with pfSense. also, anyone can learn pfSense pretty fast because of the intuitive web interface), and there is never trouble with invalid licenses. The features like IPS (snort/suricata) are well developed and can be used for free or at a small cost for extra security. The most valuable of all though, is that we could recycle old hardware to make our perfect firewalls, reducing the hardware cost.

It was easy.

We implemented these ourselves.

It's hard to say. The setup goes pretty fast and, once you know the hardware to be used, it will work, so there was no significant amount of time there. The laptops used in this project were already recycled and had enough power for us to make a cluster and be happy with them, so it pretty much only cost us the price of some 3G modems and some USB network interfaces. Maybe not more than 200 Euros per machine.

We evaluated IPCop and m0n0wall. We took a vote on our team and pfSense won the deal.

If you are unsure, do a labtest before you implement it. If you are still stuck on the traditional "stoneage" products, you may get amazing results.

We are solution providers and this is one of the products that we deploy for our customers. We replaced old Cisco ASA with pfSense and it proves as a good choice.

PfSense gives tools to protect the network. If you configured things properly then you'll be protected to the distant level. PFsense gives a solid set of functionalities that work perfectly. VPN services are stable and easy to deploy.

The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, and VPN Are most common. This is a feature-rich product and the documentation is good.

Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually. It would be more user-friendly if things were set automatically. 

The drop in performance can be drastic when you use more advanced techniques. There is some trade-off between having a certain level of security and maintaining acceptable performance.

We have more than ten years of experience with pfSense.

The stability of pfSense is standard. It is rated as one of the good solutions in this area.

This product is scalable to some point, although we have never used it for large companies. We use it for small to medium-sized organizations. For big companies, we more often implement Palo Alto.

In our company, we have a data center and some of our clients are hooked to it. This is something that we have on-premises for our customers.

We have plans to increase our usage with pfSense because we have had good feedback from our customers. In fact, with the good experience we have had, our sales have been slightly increasing. Our sales are shifting from Sophos to pfSense.

The technical support is organized well. We do most of the technical support for our customers in-house but there is a second level of outside support available. It is okay. 

Positive

We currently resell products from both pfSense, Sophos and Cisco. In some areas, pfSense is better than Sophos. I have been a bit disappointed with Sophos because I know their history, and I don't think that they have advanced as well as they should have in that time. Also, they have two different products, XG and UTM. This is another reason that I prefer pfSense, at least a little bit, over Sophos.

The initial setup is complex. If you have a straightforward setup then you will have straightforward, basic protection and nothing else.

It takes a few months to adjust where you start by setting it up, and then you have to monitor it and see what's happening. It's ongoing work because, after this, you have to keep monitoring and adjusting to the situation. This is part of the service that we perform for our customers.

We are the integrators for our customers and deploy with our in-house team. We have people in the company who are specialized in this area.

The return on investment depends on the predicted cost of failures of the system, or intrusion of the system, which is hard to give a straight answer on. In part, this is because different companies put a different value on their data.

For example, with medicine, if somebody were to steal the data related to the latest CORONA vaccine then the cost would be tremendous. On the other hand, if there is a company that is making chairs, stealing the design of the chair probably wouldn't be as high when compared to an application in medicine. So, there is not a straight answer for that.

Return on investment, in any case, I think for every company, this is a must. Put in a straightforward way, they can count just the possibilities of having an attack on their system with a cryptovirus. If they can save their data from attackers then it would save them at least two days of not working plus the cost of recovery, which would be much more than the cost of the system and maintenance.

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.

Palo Alto, Fortinet, Sophos, Cisco

It is important to remember that you can't just leave the device to do everything. You still have to know what you're doing.

I recommend the product. It's well-balanced and one with a long history, so it doesn't have child's diseases. There is a lot of online support available online, which they can consult themselves. But, in the case that they need support, they can hire a professional support line and that is highly recommended.

I say this because usually, people look at the UTM as something that should be put in the system, set up, and left alone. But, this is not the case with this type of solution. Therefore, I strongly suggest making an outside agreement with a specialized company that will take care of their security from that point on.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using this kind of product is that you can't assume that the internet is a big place and nobody will find you. There is always a good possibility that robots will search your system for holes, and they are probably doing so this instant. This means that users should be aware and have decent protection.

In summary, this is a good product but there is always room for improvement.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

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.

I primarily install and test the solution. I'm not an expert in the solution; I mainly put them in place.

The pricing is good.

I have a good understanding of the underlying firewall which I find to be easy to use and comprehend. Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than they were when I first encountered Cisco.

The initial setup is pretty easy.

The solution has been stable. 

From what I can tell, the solution can scale. 

I can't speak to if there are missing features. I'm not that familiar with it. 

The critical issue there for us was the lack of FIPs compliance, however, I don't know if that's something that they would consider adjusting for.

The product is stable. There are no issues with bugs and glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

While it's my understanding that scaling wouldn't be a problem, I myself have never actually tried to do so. Therefore, I can't speak from personal experience. 

I've never dealt with technical support before. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are in terms of answering support-related queries. 

I also have an understanding Cisco, which is a bit harder to understand. This product is more straightforward. 

In terms of the initial setup, pfSense seems pretty easy. I'd say it's been a few years since we played with it and I don't really remember too much about it other than using it and thinking it was okay. It's just not listed as FIPS compliant for where we're at now in government, which is an issue. 

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

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. I've been pretty satisfied with the product overall.

We are a customer and an end-user. We don't have any business relationship with the solution.

I use pfSense to provide firewall and VPN services for small businesses. I have a handful of clients using it now and a new one in the works. 

What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance. It's a minimal Intel system that has no fan and is all solid-state. It doesn't have a fan because it doesn't do enough to get hot. It's a box about the size of a Discman. I can download the pfSense software at no cost then connect a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and USB flash drive to the appliance. It's built on top of BSD and managed with a web server. And it's effortless to manage.

I would like to see pfSense integrate WireGuard. Currently, pfSense uses OpenVPN, and there's nothing wrong with it, but WireGuard is a lot leaner and meaner. Unfortunately, it's not ready for pfSense, which is built on BSD, and WireGuard is not yet integrated with BSD. The issue is that pfSense is waiting for BSD to add WireGuard support. Once WireGuard is supported on BSD, you can bet pfSense will adopt it. 

I've never had any problems with stability. You plug it in, set it up, and it works.

I know a peer who set up pfSense in a Catholic parish school. It's not thousands of devices, but there are several devices in the parish office, the rectory, and throughout the school, as well as three different VPNs. There's a fourth VPN connection to the IT Director's house, where he manages most of it. So that's four locations with VPNs, and that's the biggest one I know. All you have to do is buy a big enough appliance. You can use the minimum appliance in the rectory, where there's a handful of computers, but you need a step up from that in the school, where there are a lot more computers to connect. And I think even the parish office, which is a handful of people, uses the minimum appliance.

I've never needed support. You can find anything you need to know in the pfSense knowledge base online or in the documentation.

You only need a couple of minutes to install pfSense, then it just sits and works. You boot the USB drive and install it. After that, there's no more management. Any IT professional can easily set it up. Business owners who don't know anything about technology might have a hard time, but the average IT person can do it with no problem. There's good documentation online.

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. 

I rate pfSense 10 out of 10. The appliance is inexpensive, and the software costs nothing. You plug it in and it works.

This solution is for my personal use, I've had a hobby of using it for a long time. I use it to protect my home network. Nothing is bulletproof but I'm happy to have a firewall at home scanning the ins and outs of my network so that I have a degree of security.

pfSense is a free firewall that you can download and install on your own hardware and establish a VPN for it. If you have remote users who need to connect securely, pfSense can do that. The solution has multiple use cases. It's good for scanning and filtering traffic. It's a good network security appliance which you can install on your own hardware or on their hardware. Some companies will invest in a really big firewall for their main branch, and will install pfSense in remote sites because they don't see the value of buying an expensive firewall for each branch.

I'd really love to see the web interface enhanced. It's good but it could be clearer and more straightforward. As a FreeBSD fan, I'd love to see a BSD license code, rather than a GPL license code. I'd also love to see a Sandbox and more security features. pfSense is a mature product, but if you compare it to other products in the market, you realize that pfSense is a little behind. 

I've been using this solution for five years. 

This solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable, it has the HA options that other firewalls also have. It's a software-defined solution, so you can pretty much put it inside a virtual machine and scale it up. Or you can load balance, or have an HA set up between two pfSense proxies, it's all possible.

I don't have contact with technical support. If you have an issue, you can go to the online community and wait for someone to respond. There's no SLAs for that. The only way I would have access to their support is if I actually purchased a Netgate appliance.

I've previously used vendor-based firewalls, like Sophos. They have Sophos XG and Sophos XG, UTMs. Those are the firewalls that I have the most expertise with and I also have some experience with Fortinet. pfSense is normally installed on x86 hardware which uses CISC architecture, a complex instruction set that runs on laptops and computers. They generally make calculations much slower than what we call risk architecture. As a result, firewalls with a risk-based architecture or reduced instruction set architecture are preferred because they provide better throughput. That's the case with FortiGate. They are very well known in the market to have the highest IPS throughput and that's one of the major factors for choosing a firewall.

The initial setup is very easy, it takes about 15 minutes. 

I would recommend this solution, it's one of those technologies anyone should at least try out. If you want to protect your home network, and don't want to invest in a firewall, pfSense will do the job. It's good for home use and for small businesses or remote sites of large companies. It's a good strategy because it's generally more critical to invest in defending your main data centers. It's important to choose the hardware wisely, make sure it's compatible. Netgate, the company sponsoring pfSense, manufactures hardware that is really optimized towards it. For small or medium businesses it's not a big deal. But for enterprises, this is important. 

I rate this solution a seven out of 10.