- Free
- Open source
- Robust
- Strong community support
- Strong author support
Technical Program Manager at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees
Straightforward set-up but it does require some technical expertise to do it.
Pros and Cons
- "Critical network infrastructure has improved."
What is most valuable?
How has it helped my organization?
Critical network infrastructure has improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used it for two years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've also used Untangle and Sophos firewalls
Buyer's Guide
Netgate pfSense
March 2026
Learn what your peers think about Netgate pfSense. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
How was the initial setup?
Straightforward, but it requires some technical expertise and tweaking.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented it entirely in-house.
What other advice do I have?
Make sure the implementer has programming experience.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Manager IT at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
The proxy filtering is valuable except for blocking HTTPS which it can't do.
Pros and Cons
- "I was using another product, but it didn't have a bandwidth controller and monitoring tool like this product does, so I switched because I can find everything in one window."
- "Proxy filters are not supported for the blocking of HTTPS sites."
Buyer's Guide
Netgate pfSense
March 2026
Learn what your peers think about Netgate pfSense. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Network Admin at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
The product is missing a graphic report implementation tool but performance, scalability and customization are valuable
Pros and Cons
- "After switching from Cisco, Juniper, Astaro and Microsoft network response improved and more control of packet (for me, pfpacket technology is better than packet filter.)"
- "The initial approach is very complex because of the multiple functions, but after a short learning curve it is able to handle the standard functions."
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Netgate pfSense Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2026
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Netgate pfSense Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
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Indeed this is a very powerful opensource solution but as you say it requires some technical expertise and tweaking (but actually which firewall technology does not require some now?). Fortunately the community and project documentation are rich and very helpful. Extra packages availability is also rich, it goes from the simple CLI tool like bmon to fully graphically managed RADIUS, SQUID, SNORT servers for instance (see : doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Category:Packages). It also support natively High Availability Sync thanks to CARP and pfsync protocols (see: doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Configuring_pfSense_Hardware_Redundancy_%28CARP%29). Few days ago I set up VPN SSL configuration with OpenVpn in TAP mode, all done through the GUI (no need to edit any files through CLI) what quite impressed me (usually bridge creation is done through CLI).
To conclude I really invite people looking for a free firewall solution to give a try with pfsense :-)
Just keep in mind such a solution is devoted to projects requiring "not so much speed", I mean 40G or even 100G firewalling and either not UTM inspection.