Netgate pfSense Reviews

We have internet limitations here in Sudan. The financial institutions that I am working with do not have a lot of services on the internet.

It is difficult but at the same time, we are safer and are not faced with any kind of compromised data.

This solution is suitable for small businesses and charity organizations. Security is not just about the firewall, you need policies and procedures in place.

The developers of pfSense follow the principles of open-source.

They keep it simple. It's simple and good.

The problem with open-source is that no one can take responsibility.

It needs to be more secure. Security needs improvement.

It's always better to have an agreement, an SLA regarding security. You should outsource your security to another company.

I have been using pfSense in my home environment since 2010. I have a small lab, a small environment.

We have also deployed it in my workplace.

It's a stable solution.

pfSense is scalable.

At our peak time, we have reached more than 5,000 concurrent connections.

I do not have experience with technical support.

I am also using IPFire. It's also open-source.

It's very stable, and it meets my business needs.

The initial setup is straightforward.

If you have solid knowledge and experience in IP tables, then it will be easy for you to deal with this product or any firewall. For example, Palo Alto or Fortinet. It's the same concept.

Depending on your activities, it can take a long time to deploy if you are new to this solution. For me, it takes less than one hour.

You have to understand the network technology and you have to understand what you are going to protect, and what service are you looking to protect. If you address these questions correctly, the installation is just a matter of a couple of clicks.

I completed the implementation myself.

We are using the open-source version, not the commercial one. 

It's very affordable.

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.

We primarily use the solution basically for the firewall, UTM content versioning, bandwidth shaping, routing, and IPS.

The solution is an open-source product, which makes it very cost-effective.

Overall, it covers all of the requirements our organization has at this time. 

The initial setup is easy.

As an open-source solution, there are so many loopholes happening within the product. By design, no one is taking ownership of it, and that is worrisome to me.  

Integration with other products could be improved. It needs log research integrated within it to make it more useful for our purposes.

I've been using the solution for three years.

The stability is questionable. There are glitches. Since no one is really managing the solution, and no one takes ownership of it, there aren't many fixes that happen on it.

We have about 500 people who are taking advantage of the solution within our organization.

The solution is quite scalable. We looked into scaling and found it would be easy enough to achieve if we decided to go ahead and do so in the future.

We've never contacted technical support int he time that we have used the product. I can't speak to any level or service they provide.

We did previously use a different solution before switching to pfSense. We originally switched to this solution due to the fact that it was so cost-effective.

The initial setup of the solution is not complex at all. It's quite straightforward. It's also not our primary firewall. We have another solution for that. This operates as our secondary firewall, and we were able to add it rather easily into our security network.

Deployment is very quick. It only took us an hour or so to set up.

Our provider handled the maintenance for us as needed. We don't handle that in house.

We had a few consultants and a list of vendors that assisted us in the process of procurement and implementation.

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

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.

The solution pretty much is our only firewall security at the moment. It handles the integration with our active directory and makes sure that all communications are channeled through a secure network.

The solution is very robust.

The solution can be complex. It needs a bigger team with more coding skills than what we have at our disposal. With our skillsets, we're facing a lot of limitations. We're a team of four who handles 12 independent companies under a larger umbrella. Our workload is already quite high. We need solutions that lessen it, not enhance it.

The solution requires a lot of administration.

The solution would work better for us if the user interface had some kind of unifying feature that didn't just do firewalls. Sophos, for example, offers so much more. You get one license and you're good to go. Everything's handled from the anti-virus to the network and the traffic and monitoring. Sophos is really user friendly and easy to master. It's easy to get rules put in. pfSense offers none of these things beyond just the firewall capabilities. 

We've been using pfSense as of early last year, around about February 2019. It's been just over a year.

We have about 350 people at our organization that this solution covers.

Although the solution offers a lot of documentation, has a large knowledge base, and has a support forum, when it comes to actually contacting technical support directly, we didn't have access to that level of attention. Everything, therefore, was really on the team. We had to figure out how to troubleshoot on our own and tried to use documentation to guide us.

We originally used this solution way back in 2011. We used it for about 18 months. Then we then migrated on to a system called Kerio Control. We realized that we needed something a little bit more robust than Kerio Control. So we then moved back to pfSense as of last year.

The deployment didn't take too long. I have experience in pfSense, as does my junior. We were able to deploy it within a couple of hours - at least for what we wanted it to do off the bat.

Basically, you need to get all the rules together. We were able to do that within a couple of hours. Obviously, I must say, if we wanted to do a lot more, it would take us quite some time. Unfortunately, we're quite a small team, so we've got quite a lot on our plate and we just honestly did not have the time to get really granular. 

That's the reason why we're moving to something a little bit more user friendly for our size.

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.

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.

I had an appliance that died six months ago. Then I didn't want that hardware anymore, so I bought two new servers. A single power supply but dual on a network with three times four network cards. On that, I installed the pfSense (Community Edition).

From inside to outside, I have about 15 to 20 node servers and users going outside. From outside to inside, I have only three tech support people, myself and two other ones. With regard to clients using the platform from outside to inside, on the servers inside, I have about 1000.

I had some outages in the network and we provide services for our company. We sell mobile credits. The terminal gets access to our own server inside the network and if one internet fails, then the other one is still up and we have a back-up link on the devices. 

If the devices cannot send the first IP address, they make use of the second IP address, which is the back-up link to access the servers. In terms of outages, ever since I used pfSense, I have that feature. 

In terms of experiencing delays, the server has the primary IP and the secondary IP configured on the client terminals. The total solution works.

I'm still experimenting with some new features. I want to do a high availability configuration. I haven't done that yet, but I'm using OpenVPN, it's very handy. 

Some suggestions for improvement of pfSense are:

• Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great.
• With regard to the Community Edition, when I installed it, we use Proxmox as an equivalent of PMWorks and I installed the Community Edition in Proxmox. That was very difficult to get to work at first. A lot of tweaking. That is very, very not easy.
• When I'm inside of my network and I go to a URL, the URL points to a server inside my network. It doesn't hang, but I don't get a response. It just stays blank. 
• I can imagine that inside my network, I am going outside, and it points to the public address, so I can reach it. With eSoft, without any adjustment, it worked, and I was able to do that. I went to search pfSense for an option, and I had some documents open to read about how it is done, but it isn't clear enough. It's not that easy. I would appreciate it if I could get easy help on that.

pfSense is very stable. My own disappointment is the appliance only worked for a year and two months. It might be just bad luck, but that was very disappointing.

I had to use pfSense Community Edition on a general desktop. That was done within three hours. It took me three hours just to get the hardware, download the software, and then set it up to get everything working again. 

After that, I ordered the new server with two servers: one has to be active and the other standby. I am going to try higher scalability on it using pfSense. 

The configuration is already on the servers. I did all this myself because of my experience. The utilization of the CPU, etc., it's very low. 

I like pfSense. It doesn't take too many resources and it's very stable.

I did not utilize pfSense customer support. You have documentation, there is enough documentation online to get you through. I haven't actually used tech support. When I bought the appliance, I was entitled to one year of tech support. I never used it, it wasn't needed. 

I previously evaluated eSoft by Untangle. Untangle is an open source company but you have to buy custom add-on's to get it to work. I bought eSoft and it's very good.

I am also the CEO of my company. This technical part, it's not my profession, but I get less and less time to invest, and more time playing around with this stuff. 

When we were growing, a small company, eSoft was small, so I needed a bigger one. I had to reset eSoft every week because of the growing traffic over it. I wanted a bigger one and it was not available. 

What I wanted to do was not possible with Untangle. Untangle was basic stuff. I bought the pfSense appliance and it's open source, but I support the project. 

I bought it and I got disappointed because I again wanted a bigger one. My first choice would be Cisco because of my background but Cisco is expensive.

eSoft was good. Before switching from eSoft to pfSense, Cisco at that time was not an option. 

Every software in our company, every desktop, every server, is open source. If it isn't CentOS then it's Red Hat or Ubuntu. 

Open source was preferred and pfSense was number one on the list.

Ever since the first time I used it, it's very straightforward, it's very easy.

My strategy was to get it connected to the internet first, then apply some rules for forwarding and VPN. 

The first one was very easy to set setup. VPN was not that straightforward but there is enough documentation to get you through it and that helped. 

In terms of time, the Community Edition took very long to install but once installed, to configure, it took around 15 to 20 minutes.

I did the setup all by myself. There is documentation online and that is sufficient. It's good enough, very good support in the documents.

If you haven't invested a lot of money, you will definitely see the return on investment with pfSense because you hardly spend anything, except for the hardware. 

With the appliances, pfSense should look into longevity issues. Your hardware should take, like Cisco's and others, years before they break. In terms of other retailer equipment, it's a safe bet towards pfSense.

That's why I purchased it but I have to look into the high availability. There is documentation of people that I know that are going to get it to work. I'm going to test it because that is our business that we are talking about also.

It should work because of the resale mobile credit for our customers. Another thing I will definitely try is the virtual IP because the virtual IP feature can bridge the two interfaces. The SSL certification is from Google. 

That was it for me, I'm 100% happy.

I prefer appliance licensing with pfSense (Community Edition). 

1. It's free. 
2. It's very stable. 
3. 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. 

I used to be a Cisco network expert. I used to train people and I've done some Cisco projects myself. I know Cisco by heart but I was less excited about Microsoft, so I went researching for open source solutions and I came across pfSense.

I was able to compare pfSense with Cisco. I used it for a client of mine as well, and it was interesting. After that, I started my own company and I came across pfSense again. 

I looked into pfSense. You have OPNsense from the Dutch and then you have pfSense. I've tried both and I like pfSense more.

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 use this at all of our locations as our edge device, IPSec site-to-site VPN functionality between our offices and our AWS EC2. No matter what is thrown at this, the system handles it like a champ. We have both dedicated hardware and virtualized versions running in our infrastructure. So far we haven't found a reason why we need to spend thousands for an appliance like Cisco ASA when this handles all of our needs.

We're a small business growing rapidly. We recently overhauled the IT infrastructure, and after looking at a number of other competitors, pfSense has been a lifesaver, allowing us to scale up and provide compliance without the need to purchase additional licenses to offer services to our employees.

There are so many packages you can install which extends pfSense's capabilities including consuming from lists such as FireHOL, Pi-Hole, etc. Here are a few packages we use:

• IPSec: pfSense allows for both v1 and v2 IPSec configurations to secure your connections.
• IPS: You can use Snort or Suricata along with Snort packages, even subscribe to commercial packages if you wish. This alone starts making pfSense on par with Cisco.
• Proxy/content filtering: You can install Squid and SquidGuard to act as a proxy and content filter. Yes, it does filter HTTPS, and there's a number of ways you can do it out of the box.

pfSense also reformatted their logs so that they're compliant and standardized. We have our logs shipped to our SIEM and Logstash servers.

While I agree spam filtering is not included or an option with the system, I don't necessarily hold that against the product as there are a number of other services that do it far better than a firewall could. If you use Office 365, Microsoft's implementations are likely to be far superior to what you'll get from a firewall. However, with that said, the one item I wish it included, even if it was a subscription-based service, is the inclusion of an AV and/or threat intelligence. This would elevate the solution well above other alternatives. 

We have not encountered any stability issues and have upgraded to each version over the years. They've really made a rock solid solution.

Extremely high. We tested it on VMs running different configurations from extremely lightweight to overkill. It will run on anything and maintain it's high performance. Obviously the more you give it, the more amazing the solution becomes. 

I had one question, and they got back to me extremely quick. Not only are they knowledgeable about their product, but they're kind and courteous.

Old and outdated infrastructure procured before I joined the company.

Not only was it straightforward, but if you know nothing about firewalls, you can install this. Especially since they recently made their entire guidebook free to use. Not to mention the countless blogs and how to's. Low to intermediate level IT pros should be able to handle this baby.

In-house.

From day one you get a 100% ROI. If all you have is an older server you recently decommissioned, with multiple NICs, I strongly recommend installing this software on it and giving it a shot. Doing that alone will beat out any competitor hands down.

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.

Cisco, WatchGuard, Sophos, Fortinet, Untangle, Juniper.

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. 

We use Netgate pfSense for load balancing. 

The tools' most valuable feature is load balancing. 

Netgate pfSense needs to improve the configuration for a VPN. 

I have been working with the product for three months. 

I rate the product's stability a nine out of ten. 

I rate Netgate pfSense's scalability a seven out of ten. 

I have used online documentation and hence haven't contacted the support yet. 

I rate the tool's deployment a nine out of ten. Its deployment takes only a few hours to complete. 

We did the deployment in-house. 

I use the product's free version. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

pfSense is used as our firewall and router.

The performance is good.

It is easy to use.

I have been working with this solution for so long now that it has become easy. It is much simpler than other solutions such as Fortinet.

I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface.

I have been using pfSense for a long time. Since the beginning.

I have the latest version.

pfSense is a stable product.

pfSense is a scalable solution.

I have not contacted technical support.

Previously, I worked with Fortinet FortiGate, Linux, and OPNsense.

I have tested all that are available on the market and pfSense is more.

The initial setup is easy. 

The first installation took an hour to complete, but the configuration is another part. It's about the complexity of my network because I have provided services from a firm and every company has a different setup.

I was able to complete the installation myself.

I am not aware of the licensing costs.

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

I would rate pfSense an eight out of ten.