Netgate pfSense Reviews

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. 

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 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.

pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information.

pfSense could improve by having a sandboxing feature that I have seen in SonicWall. However, maybe it is available I am not aware of it.

I have been using pfSense for approximately three years.

I have used the SonicWall solution. 

Sometimes firewalls can get a little complicated. I think some of the things about the setup could be a little bit clearer. Maybe something like a configuration wizard or something that would guide you on more in-depth projects.

I'm running pfSense on old hardware, it takes all of 10 minutes to install.

I did the implementation of the solution, it is not difficult.

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.

We are an MSP. We have some customers who have on-prem networks, and they want to have their networks protected by a firewall. They are quite small customers with 10 to 50 users. We use pfSense in order to protect our customers' network, to make some network automation, and especially to make VPNs to some remote branches to enable remote users to get access to the enterprise network.

It is deployed on a private cloud and on-prem.

My technicians find the pfSense's web interface very useful. It is very easy to use. 

pfSense is very reliable and stable. We like the OpenVPN clients that can be deployed using pfSense very much.

I'd like to find something in pfSense that is more specific to URL filtering. We have customers who would like to filter their web traffic. They would like to be able to say to their employees, "You can surf the web, but you cannot get access to Facebook or other social media," or "You can surf the web, but you're not allowed to gamble or watch porn on the web." My technicians say that doing this kind of stuff with pfSense nowadays is not easy. They can implement some filters using IP addresses but not by using the names of the domains and categories. So, we are not able to exclude some categories from the allowed traffic, such as porn, gambling, etc. To do that, we have to use another product and another web filter that uses DNS. I know that there are some third-party products that could work with pfSense, but I'd like the native pfSense solution to do that.

I have been using this solution for five years.

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

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. 

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.

I am using pfSense as a secondary firewall and network management.

The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic.

The usage reports can be better.

I have been using pfSense for approximately six years.

The solution is stable.

I had 20 to 30 users using the solution.

I have used Sophos and Cyberoam solutions.

The installation is very easy.

I did the implementation of the solution.

I am using the free version of pfSense.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I have been 100% satisfied with the solution.

I rate pfSense an eight out of ten.

We are a small business and we use pfSense as our interface for the WAN. We use it for a Firewall and to ensure that all devices are operating. It provides our basic network routing needs, reporting on usage, such as IDS, and for managing individuals on network devices for controlling bandwidth and destinations.

Our security in our organization was previously provided by our ISP and since we have been using pfSense it has provided me more abilities to manage my network in a secure way. We have much better controls and security.

The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features.

As an IT leader, it would be a benefit to have a mobile application to have certain features, such as mobile application notifications when a new device is added, or the ability to turn off or on firewall policies. Having these simple features would be very convenient and reduce the need to have to log into the console. I can use a web browser on my phone to access the pfSense site but I would prefer to have an application where I can toggle things, such as the policies. Some simple features within a mobile application would be valuable to me. I have evaluated other solutions and have determined this feature does not currently exist. However, Untangle has an application but it was not enough to compel me to change at this point.

In an upcoming release, the reporting could be more user-friendly. For example, the reporting in graphs and charts for the host can be cumbersome.

I have been using pfSense for approximately five years.

The stability of the solution is very good. My only complaint is when there is a power outage pfSense requires a manual reset.

The scalability of this solution is perfect.

I am the administrator of the solution and the rest of my organization are end-users.

I have not needed to contact technical support. I have not had any problems with pfSense.

The initial setup was straightforward. The whole process took approximately eight hours and one hour of that was in front of the computer using the keyboard.

We did the implementation of the solution ourselves.

I have evaluated Untangle.

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.