I would advise you to try to estimate your network first and do a test network just to have a proof of concept of what you want to run and check the routes you want to run against your network, making sure that your requirements are valid before deploying it.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

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.

I would recommend it. For personal use, it is a great way to start. For companies, it is a great add-on. Companies can get support by buying the license.

I would rate pfSense a ten out of ten.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

If you want reliable, highly-customizable, and rock solid firewall, do not hesitate for one second to install/purchase this product.

I recommend using Postgres. However, if you need a firewall without additional tools and prefer a pool of well-established services, pfSense offers suitable features."

Other solutions like Postgres, Sophos, and Palo Alto are in the market. We've used firewalls for a long time, but in the last three years, I worked with pfSense, and it's efficient for all devices.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

If you're considering using Netgate pfSense for the first time, I would recommend giving it a try. It's relatively easy to set up and use, especially if you have some prior knowledge of network and IT work. The user manual provides helpful guidance, and the basic configuration is straightforward. Just ensure you pay attention to the hardware requirements to make the most of it.

It can be rated as an eight for simplicity. However, as you progress and introduce complexities, such as enabling deep packet inspection, adding extra features, or installing multiple plugins, the configuration can become more intricate. I encountered some issues with iOS in version 2.5, but they are expected to be resolved or have been resolved.

On a scale of one to ten for pfSense overall, I would rate it a seven. In comparison with other top devices like Fortinet and UDMP, pfSense stands equal in my opinion.

I rate pfSense eight out of 10. It's an open-source solution that you can deploy on data warehouses with various resources. You're not tied to specific hardware. It's easier to manage and use.

Before deploying, you should find out the details about the environment where you will install pfSense. I would recommend pfSense for an enterprise environment with around 1,000 to 2,500 users.

I rate pfSense six out of 10. We want a product that has at least two WANs as well as fault tolerance or load balancing features, which pfSense also has, but we don't have the hardware or support. That's why we need to switch. However, if cost is a big issue, then I recommend pfSense for customers who can't afford a paid hardware and software solution. That was our issue because we're a government company, so our assets belong to the government. We have to think about where we want to spend money because it's the taxpayers' money. If your management doesn't understand the need to invest in IT, then you can consider this alternative.

We are just end-users and customers.

I cannot speak to the exact version we are using. Ours may be slightly out of date. We may not be using the absolute latest version. Version 2.51 is available soon and we'll likely upgrade to that.

It's good for where people have outgrown their existing broadband routers, such as the TP-link, the Dre Tech, and that sort of thing. Often, it doesn't justify putting in a full system. We tend to use a Mini ITX PC, multiple LAN network cards, and then install the opensource version and configure it appropriately.

You need to be slightly more tactical than just plugging in a Dre tech or similar Nokia device. I don't think you need to be incredibly technical to set this up. 

I like it, I'd recommend it to most people to at least give it a try, and to spend a few hours initially to work their way around it.

I'll definitely give it at least a nine out of ten for its general ease of use for me and my staff. It does pretty much everything that we ask of it and the required resources for the hardware are minimal as well.

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.

I definitely plan to increase using pfSense. I am going for a higher capacity. If power fails or one server dies, or one gateway dies, the other servers will take over seamlessly. That's the ultimate for us.

I would definitely rate pfSense an eight and a half out of ten. Definitely eight and a half, not lower, could be a bit higher. Because it's stable, it's good. If the small issues I've mentioned are worked on then I would go to a 10.

We have not used the VPN capabilities of pfSense. We also did not have a need to integrate pfSense with any service.

I would rate pfSense a nine out of ten.

Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

I would absolutely recommend this solution. I would rate it a nine out of 10.

Initially, the product was difficult. It gets easier with use. It was a good investment. I would recommend the solution to others. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

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 are a customer and an end-user. 

We're using either version 5.3 or 5.4 at this time. 

While this is a good solution, we're looking for something stronger in the future. I'd recommend others also look for something strong, that fits their security needs. 

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. 

If you don't need WireGuard VPN, pfSense is better because it is easier to use than OPNsense. It is a very good platform. Its web administration interface has been working fine.

I would rate pfSense an eight out of ten. A couple of months ago, I would have rated it a ten out of ten because of the WireGuard VPN feature.

There is a steep learning curve and you have to spend a lot of time with it to understand how you're going to use it and how you're going to customize it yourself. That's where you're going to have to spend a lot of time, but by the time you're done with everything and you have played with all the features you want, you will understand everything you need. You will always be up in minutes, even if it gets "destroyed" during the night, you can come back to it and reinstall the whole thing, and everything will be good.

I would rate it a 9 out of 10. It cannot get a 10 right now because it changes every day. It might be 10 today, but in a few seconds, it won't be a 10 because the whole internet changes in a few seconds, and the whole way of serving your clients can change in a few seconds. So, it can't get that perfect 10. 

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 would advise others to try it and see if it is good for them. It is a very good product for me, but that might not be the case for other users. There are so many solutions, but I'm really happy with it. For my scale, it is good. If you are Amazon or a company with one million connections every minute, don't ever use this. It is not made for that. It is perfect for small-scale networks.

I would rate it a nine out of 10. It needs more regular updates, so I can't rate it a 10, but it is very easy to use, stable, and solid. 

I would recommend pfSense, but it depends on the requirements. There could be other vendors who offer more services than pfSense. For example, Fortinet is a very good brand, and it offers services in a different way. Fortinet also offers more services, but it is very expensive. If you don't need some specific services, pfSense is an excellent solution.

I would rate pfSense a nine out of ten.

We're a pfSense partner.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. It's been very good to work with.

I would recommend the solution. pfSense is superior in terms of defending against attacks.

We're just users of the product. We're not consultants or resellers.

It's your basic firewall setup. However, when we looked at Sophos, we found that Sophos offered a lot more as it's a fully unified solution and had a firewall, as well as anti-virus and network monitoring capabilities.

This solution really gives us a greater extensive array of modules or features than we would not necessarily see in managing the system as administrators. The solution is quite extensive in that there was a lot of material that we had to read about. It just was not user-friendly for the team. We needed a solution that can handle itself without our intervention.

I'd rate the solution five out of ten.

Any network engineer will understand how this solution works. It's not so complex to understand and be familiar with. It will require a certain level of networking knowledge to use it but we're at an enterprise level and we're a small-medium business and it works.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

It's an amazing product. There really are few issues with pfSense.

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

I would advise others to go for it. I would recommend this solution. It is a good solution. No other solution can beat the price. 

There is so much stuff you can do with it. There are so many features, and I have not even scratched the surface on all of them. If it is something that someone doesn't feel like configuring, you can buy a prebuilt system from them and get support.

I would rate pfSense a nine out of ten because of the cost and flexibility. It has been pretty good.

We're just cusomers. We don't have a business relationship with pfSense.

We're using the latest stable version of the solution.

I would 100% recommend the solution to others. On a scale from one to ten, I'd give it a ten.

I strongly recommend giving pfSense a hard look. I've been in IT for 20+ years, and I've run the gambit on other firewalls. pfSense definitely can hold it's own against any of them. 

The learning curve is steep, but once you get the basics down, it's very robust and easy to use. There are plenty of resources online about setting it up.

If you're a junior or even a beginner engineer, jumping into the interface for pfSense could be overwhelming. There are going to be things in there you just have never heard or seen before, which isn't a bad thing.

On the front end, I would take advantage of any courses that are out there, any introductions to it. It's very intuitive and there are a lot of forums out there that you can go watch and educate yourself on. If you are not that advanced of a network engineer, I think it's a great solution for you because you can go out to some peers and get a lot of direction and guidance from them to set it up in a small environment. The only other thing I would do is just compare. You always have to understand what your customers' needs are. Make sure you understand what your customer's needs are and that it's going to fit into their environment and their budget. I don't know why it wouldn't, but that'd be about the only advice I'd give is just make sure that it is definitely a fit for your customer base. I'm fairly confident, small and medium businesses should be a very good fit. I've been in the enterprise space as well. There may be some things on the enterprise level that you just can't do with pfSense and you might want to go to some other solution set, but I think it's very competitive.

I'd rate this solution a nine, even if I was an experienced engineer because it's easy to have and easy to maintain.

Become familiar with the router before implementing it at customer sites. Realize that basic features require a basic amount of hardware. Advanced features require more RAM and if using an SSD, use the embedded installer to reduce wear and tear on your drive.

I would recommend having the following hardware as a minimum:

• At least 8GB for storage
• 256MB+ RAM
• A dual core 1.8Ghz CPU for single typical Internet connection
• The faster the internet connection, a faster CPU and more RAM are required
• If you run Snort and Squid it is recommended you have between 4GB to 8GB of RAM

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.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give pfSense a nine.

I would continue to use pfSense if the decision was mine, but it is out of my area. It depends on the CIO.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

pfSense will not cost you any money.

It depends on your business needs. You have to address your business needs correctly.

I would say to go with pfSense. If you feel that it is not compatible, you have other purchase options such as Palo Alto.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I have been 100% satisfied with the solution.

I rate pfSense an eight out of ten.

I would recommend pfSense for the simple reason that it's open-source and it's free. Anything for free is good. I personally got much more out of it than I expected. I never expected this product to be so worth the time. It's a good product. For my needs at least.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight. I have not used it for thousands of users, but for our usage, for an SMB organization, I would give it a rating of eight.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The solution has solved many of our use cases.

I rate pfSense an eight out of ten.

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

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.

I rate pfSense a five out of ten.

We are really happy with the system performance, overall, but it depends. For example, right now we have a client who is trying to switch from FortiGate to another solution that is less costly. We recommended and talked with them about pfSense, but despite it being a cheaper and really rock-solid solution with good performance, they were not comfortable using open source. We also offered them Sophos, SonicWall, and Palo Alto — they finally chose SonicWall. I don't know why. It completely depends on the client. 

I would absolutely recommend this solution to others. This is definitely one of the most powerful firewalls for peace of mind. The fact is, as long as you are aware of the challenges that you have to face when implementing and managing the firewall, day-to-day, then this could be the best option for you.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.

For those who want to implement this solution I would advise it is great for a small enterprise, it is best to get started without having any harm getting to their networks.

I rate pfSense an eight out of ten.

I recommend this product, it's well-balanced, has a longer history than other solutions so it's not lacking in maturity. There is a lot of online support available via YouTube or blogs but professional support is available if required. I highly recommend taking the support because usually people look at the UTM as something which should be set up in the system and left, but that's not the case with these devices. I strongly suggest making an external agreement with a specialized company to deal with security. Users need to have decent protection, not just protection.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

My only comment would be to suggest that if you wish to implement the solution read the documentation very carefully. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

I rate pfSense eight out of 10. I would recommend it for a small business or a startup as a starting point. It's also good for companies that are on a tight budget.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. I give it this rating because of the rich features available. pfSense is free and I can do everything with it. It works as a firewall for servers also.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

I would recommend this solution if there are no power issues. It's stable and performs well, even on older hardware.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give pfSense a nine.

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.

We implement the solution for our clients. I've personally implemented the solution on five projects so far.

We work with the latest version of the solution, typically.

Our companies are typically mid-level enterprises. 

This product is the very best. Overall, I would give it a rating of ten out of ten.

If you don't have a policy that says "only proprietary software" in your company, there is no reason not to go for pfSense. If you are still in doubt, take the cheap (and excellent) Netgate academy course. It's only for two days, and you will learn how to manage pfSense at a comprehensive level.

My advice to those wanting to implement this solution is that if you are new to configuring this solution I would seek assistance. You most likely will have problems if you have not done it before.

I rate pfSense an eight out of ten.

It is just great. Give it a try. It just works.

I would rate pfSense a ten out of ten.

Test, test, test and...test! It's powerful but only with testing will you realize what you need.

If your organization has the budget, go with a paid solution. We've had our days with it and went with a paid solution (another firewall) due to the company growing and we couldn't have any downtime. It would likely cost the company more money with downtime than to purchase a good quality firewall.

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.

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.

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

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten because it's a central solution.

Eight out of 10

My advice to the IT manager is to do your research, and make sure that pfSense meets your needs. If you are not technical enough, then looking at other solutions. pfSenseis needs a bit more tech-savvy IT manager to manage it. It is a very important business tool for me.

I rate pfSense an eight out of ten.

I rated pfSense an eight because it did everything I wanted it to do which makes it an awesome solution but not a ten because of a few minor shortcomings. However, I recognize it is open-source and it is not going to have everything.

Before deciding to go with this solution, make sure to evaluate the features to ensure that pfSense will cover your needs. pfSense is very strong in some areas, but it has some difficulty in others. It's a good solution, but it all depends on what you expect from the firewall. 

If you need the firewall to implement security in your network, then pfSense is better than the competition in terms of price. It will cover all of your basic needs for far less money than similar products that cost five to ten times more money.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give pfSense a rating of nine.

We are just customers and end-users.

The solution is an open-source platform. We are a software company and we like open-source. Lots of people say open-source means that you need to install it on your own. They will see that as a limitation, however, we see that as the other way around. 

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations and users. It's open-source, it's flexible, and has a strong community. You can use it in many different ways, either in a small installation, laptop, PC, or on a machine, or you can buy an appliance or you can even buy your own hardware and configure it in a different way. The software as such is free and you have a lot of options as to how you want to use it.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. It's been very good for us

The product is flexible, scalable, and has logic in using it. It is easy to integrate and implement into your IT environment.

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 would rate pfSense a nine out of ten.

I would rate pfSense a nine out of ten. 

Just go with it, can't go wrong.

I would recommend joining the community and ask questions.

You should also read the installation and configuration documentation on the website.

Proper planning is necessary in order to select the right hardware and configuration required (rules, services etc.).

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 :)

Don't install pfSense on a machine with only the minimal recommended hardware configuration, but on a better machine.

I would recommend pfSense to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate pfSense an eight out of ten.

It's worth giving this product a shot and testing it out because it's free and community based.

I would rate the community version a 10 out of 10. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give pfSense a seven.

I would recommend pfSense to potential users. I would tell them to just read the tutorials because they're very useful. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give pfSense a nine.

There's a learning curve to this solution, it's not as simple to use as some of the other GUI based firewalls. You need to play around with it a bit. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

I would recommend that you use and implement this product. I say that because it is open source, has a low hardware cost, its fabulous web interface, the backup and restore feature, the pass through MAC, and many other features etc.

We have fifty users in our organization, and I can recommend pfSense. On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at eight.

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 are just customers. We don't have a business relationship with the company.

I would recommend the solution to small companies. If you are a small company, you can use pfSense without any issues due to the fact that it's a free solution.

I would rate the solution seven out of ten.

We're just using this solution; we don't have a relationship with the vendor.

In terms of the version of pfSense we are using, we have that basic boss, 1.0 however, that is behind the firewall. The firewall which we were using is UTM1240B.

While we are satisfied with the netting features and the bandwidth controlling and routing, we find cannot expose our entire network to pfSense as there's no underlying ownership fo the product itself. We prefer a hardened firewall.

Due to the fact that it is an open-source solution, no one at an enterprise-level would ever think of putting pfSense at the gateway level or even at the main level. I would definitely recommend pfSense as the second lane of action, just not on a workload.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

Plan, research and test certain features and configurations in a lab environment first.

I would recommend the solution to others.

I rate pfSense an eight out of ten.

You should try it.

Make sure the implementer has programming experience.

I would recommend reading the manual and the administration book. It has all of the proper information.

Many will jump into pfSense without reading the manual properly, or taking the time to understand the definitions, and how to set it up properly.

If you don't, then you might have a bad experience, which would not be fair to the product.

To give a fair comparison and trial, definitely read the technical documentation before implementing it.

Given the fact that it's open-source, relatively easy to use, and it seems to do the job quite well, I would rate pfSense a ten out of ten. I think it deserves that.

I develop the solution on behalf of my company. 

With my scant knowledge of networking and the firewall I would rate pfSense as an eight out of ten. 

All the other features are good, and with it being free, it is very attractive to the users.

Go ahead and just implement it.

It is recommended, as it is a stable product.

pfSense is good for a company that is looking for a solution with a reasonable cost for implementation.

It's a good product, and it really could be a valid firewall solution.

My advice to those wanting to implement pfSense is to start out with the free version before going with the appliance.

I rate pfSense a ten out of ten.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.