Netgate pfSense Reviews

I prefer this product because it is open source. Another thing is that it is Unix-based, so it is not affected by viruses or attacks. Support is also available.

With the right hardware, its VPN capabilities and performance are amazing.

From my usage, controlling the bandwidth for each user is valuable. Also, the availability of working as a backup or aggregating downloads is useful. All these capabilities are key.

Its interface is simple and easy.

Maybe they can add two-factor authentication.

I have been working with this solution for almost four to five years.

It is very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

It is scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

We have 60 to 65 users.

I have not taken any technical support from Netgate. I was able to get all the information from the web or Netgate forums. I did not use their technical support because it is an open-source and free edition.

Neutral

I used OPNsense.Using the module for controlling the bandwidth for the users in OPNsense required payment. There was also a subscription, and I dislike subscribing to any service.

It was not complex. It was straightforward. They had a wizard with ten steps. I just had to fill in the information.

It took me about 45 minutes to be completely up and running with my configuration.

There were no third parties involved. It was implemented on-site.

I am using the free version. 

I would recommend pfSense to others. It is free. Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution as a firewall and for managing traffic.

The interface and the integrated services are very useful.

pfSense offers very good flexibility. There are good plugins you can integrate into the software. We can use it for a firewall and to monitor internal traffic. We can do many things. 

It's not very difficult to integrate and configure features. At the install level, using the wizard is very simple. As a firewall, it's easy. You can watch usage and target effectively. If I have difficulties or questions or I need to understand how something works, there are videos and tutorials. 

We noticed the benefits of using pfSense pretty immediately. We could see it on the graphs that help us analyze the traffic.

We're able to leverage the single pane of glass interface. We can monitor everything from it from traffic to the state of the machine to memory usage and CPU. It provides good visibility so that we can make data-driven decisions. The visibility we get helps with availability.

Performance has been optimized under pfSense. We can filter traffic and limit internet use as needed. With it, we can control throughput.

The first time we deployed it, it was kind of tricky. There were many configurations. You need to first configure the alias, then you have all the IPs ordered correctly, and you can start to manage the VLANs. It would be ideal if we could implement in an easier and efficient way. 

One time, we tried to configure a wireless AP to the firewall and that was tricky. Understanding the interface was hard. It could be easier. 

The displays of all the plugins could have a better layout. You have to search through all of them to find what you need. They need a search button.

I've used the solution for one year.

We haven't had any issues with stability.

We haven't tried to scale the solution. 

We haven't contacted technical support.

Previously, we used a simple firewall called Linksys, among others. It was not very useful for analyzing traffic. pfSense is more granular in terms of firewall rules. 

The initial setup was straightforward, and there are a lot of tutorials online. You can just follow instructions. It's not too hard. The setup was fast. It took maybe half an hour.

There might be a bit of maintenance needed. We check from the main page to check it for CPU or disk failures. there might be some updates. That's it. Sometimes I go on Reddit and check to see if I should do the update or not. I remember once I read that someone suggested that we do not update and to wait for an update in a few weeks.

We managed the initial setup ourselves. 

The total cost of ownership is good. We don't have too many pfSense subscriptions across our network. However, it's pretty cheap compared to other firewall subscriptions. Plus, the pricing is inclusive. 

The pricing is good for us. It's not too expensive considering all of the features on offer. It's about $1700 a year. It could always be cheaper, however, for the most part, it's good. 

We use the Plus version of the solution. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

I'd advise users to always follow tutorials which can be found online. Be prepared. That said, the interface is not overly difficult.

After successfully using pfSense at home to manage IoT devices and separate their traffic from my computers and gaming consoles, I'm now evaluating its suitability for our hospital system. As the IT manager, I'm impressed and considering replacing our current firewalls with Netgate pfSense appliances.

I implemented pfSense at home to proactively prevent security issues on my home devices.

Netgate pfSense is flexible allowing us to add plugins.

It has improved my home network's security, making it significantly harder for attackers to access my data.

Netgate pfSense works well to prevent data loss and helps optimize performance.

As a first-time NetGate pfSense user, I've been impressed by several features: easy integration for blocking traffic by country, straightforward creation and management of firewall rules, and the ability to extend functionality through plugins.

I'd love a centralized management system for multiple pfSense appliances. This is where Netgate could improve. Redesigning my network for seven pfSense units sounds like a daunting task, especially with the need for individual configuration. A single pane of glass for managing everything at once would be a game-changer, streamlining the process significantly.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for five years.

I would rate the stability of Netgate pfSense ten out of ten.

Based on what I have heard from other users and what I have read, Netgate pfSense can scale.

The deployment was easy, but I took a cautious, phased approach to avoid disrupting household internet access. Once complete, the upgrade from my previous Netgate appliance allowed me to take advantage of SFP+ ports, so I put ten gigabytes into it and continued fine-tuning the system.

The initial deployment for basic functionality was completed within a few hours, but achieving full functionality took approximately two weeks. 

Netgate pfSense stands out as a cost-effective option that delivers excellent value. While I haven't personally used their support at home, a vendor I spoke with praises it highly. Their reputation suggests phenomenal hospital-grade support might be worthwhile for a critical environment like ours.

Netgate's maintenance contracts are significantly more affordable compared to other vendors, demonstrating their competitive pricing and commitment to customer value.

I would rate Netgate pfSense ten out of ten.

Netgate pfSense is low maintenance.

Before committing to any network or security hardware, including Netgate pfSense, I recommend a Proof of Concept to ensure it meets your specific needs. Don't rely solely on others' suggestions. Thankfully, pfSense offers downloadable virtual images, allowing you to experiment with its features before purchasing physical equipment.

We use the solution as a gateway appliance for our own corporate network as well as that for many of our clients. It has become our go-to gateway appliance for clients when they're looking to to have a new network stack installed.

Many of our clients are smaller. However, the big features for them are usually the built-in OpenVPN server for client-based VPN access. The site-to-site links and IPsec site-to-site connectivity are great.

The flexibility is one of the reasons it's become our go-to unit. We don't, unfortunately, get to use so much of its flexibility on a regular basis. That said, I love the fact that it can basically do whatever we need it to do all in one piece of gear.

It's relatively easy to add additional features. They have an application store that already has tools that you can add to pfSense as you need them. At this point, there are 30 or 40 or more of them.

In the long term, when you buy a piece of hardware, you basically get updates for that device for the life of that device. You're not paying for additional licenses throughout the life of that device. You just pay for it once. We do Meraki devices as well, and, every year or few years you need a license. You have to renew. 

There are some features in pfSense that help you to prevent data loss. Even just on the firewall side, you can limit what people are able to reach out to. The outbound filtering has a massive effect on that. They also have some other web filtering tools built-in; however, we don't typically use those. We have other tools for that.

pfSense offers a single pane of glass type of management per client site.

The solution does provide features that help minimize downtime. We don't use these features. However, we know they are available. We have the ability to offer that service. You can hook up two of the gateways in tandem. That way, if one of them ever does fail, it automatically fails over to the other functioning unit. 

pfSense provides visibility that enables users to make data-driven decisions. You can look at the amount of bandwidth used by the device as a whole or as a client. If there's a problem or if Netgate isn't performing per the client's wishes, we can easily make an assessment.

The visibility in pfSense helps optimize performance. There are a lot of different visualization aspects, including some bandwidth charts as well as some other built-in ways of looking at the way the data or information is flowing through the system, which definitely allows for that.

Something that we would really love to see is a real single pane of glass management for multiple clients. Having a reseller portal of some kind that allows us to easily remotely access all the different pfSense gateways that we have out there (like Meraki does with their equipment) would be ideal. Right now, we have to manage client by client and just maintain access per site, basically.

We've been using the solution for the past three or four years. 

They are super stable units. I have not had a single complaint about them.

They are definitely scalable. You can add your own additional storage to them. You can add additional memory to them if need be. They're very scalable, considering what you see in the rest of the gateway appliance market. Those are usually just static boxes where you get what you get, and that's it.

I have contacted support once. I have a Netgate pfSense box that I run as well. I got a little impatient when a firmware update was happening and thought the device locked up and rebooted and ended up having to push the default firmware back. I got help over email, and they were great. They gave me a copy of the factory firmware and I was able to recover the unit.

Positive

We've previously used Meraki. We use their gateways as well. We also used to use some Unify gateways but it was too limited. 

pfSense is great - and more flexible. It's better than both. It just lacks a centralized management portal. 

Initially getting into it, it took took a second or two just to get our team trained up on it. Since it's so flexible, there are some initial configuration assumptions that aren't made. You can do with the device as you wish. There's a lot of network equipment out there that has done a little bit too much hand-holding in terms of the initial configuration, however, those are also devices that are much less configurable. Going in, you want to understand networking a little bit more to make some of those decisions when you're setting up a pfSense box. 

How long it takes to implement depends on what you call fully deploy. We're still in the process of doing that. We have, especially on the Unify or Ubiquiti side, every time we have a client where one of those devices fails, we're putting in a pfSense box at this point. We deployed it on our own corporate network rather quickly. I had it done in a couple of hours, basically. 

There is some maintenance needed. The firmware updates, and we want to make sure that we're watching for when the new firmware is released, especially if it's being released to cover some known vulnerabilities.

We did the implementation all by ourselves in-house.

We are buying the Netgear hardware and we get the license along with it. The total cost of ownership is is extremely low when you compare it to a lot of the other devices or other gateway appliances that are available on the market.

The pricing is great - for the hardware, at least, which is generally what we're paying for. I was very aware of and paid attention to all the noise that went down when they changed their licensing, especially for the community edition. They created a new product called the Plus version of the license. 

For what they charge for it, which is maybe $100 a year, it's still good. If you wanted to build your own router, pfSense is more than worth $100 a year to have all that flexibility and maybe your own piece of custom hardware that you want to run it on. It's definitely a value-driven product.

We're using the Plus version since we buy the Netgate hardware. That comes with pfSense, and we're typically not building our own gateways.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

My advice to new users would be to practice with the product when you get an appliance. It's always easier to start learning with an appliance directly from Netgate. Just set it up and mess around with it maybe on a network that is a test network of some kind. Something that's not in production. It's not a hard device to understand if you understand networking at all. 

We use pfSense as the main office gateway for firewall router access and OpenVPN for remote access.

We wanted to move up to a much more modern integrated system. Before adopting pfSense, we had an old basic router firewall that was starting to get long in the tooth. PfSense gave us more capabilities to monitor and set firewall rules appropriately and have all of the remote login capabilities with two-factor authentication.

I'm much happier because I don't need to see as much stuff in the logs. PfSense is blocking so much of that, and I feel more secure about it. We needed two-factor authentication for node access, and that's been a massive improvement. Also, allowing the staff to access the network remotely and use those applications has certainly helped. It made us more confident in what the firewalls were doing and gave us better controls on remote access. It adds another layer of protection for us.

The solution gives us a single pane of glass management for probably 99 percent of it. I don't need additional network infrastructure to handle the required jobs. The ability to back up previous installations, snapshot them, and go back to them if I break something has helped eliminate downtime. That's handy in terms of getting things up again. 

PfSense Plus helps us optimize performance. We can identify pieces that aren't performing as they should and lock them down or reconfigure functions inside. Our ability to see what's going on with the network has improved quite a bit. 

Remote access with two-factor authentication was a big one for us. Pulling in things like Endpoint NG to monitor traffic has been quite helpful. The pfBlocker has been good. It helps us limit who's trying to bash away at access to the systems.

PfSense has been flexible for us. It's done everything we've asked for. Adding plugins is pretty easy. You go into the little application section and install what you want. The documentation that they have online is certainly helpful. Most things are open source, so you can usually find additional notes about problems. 

One or two of the plugins didn't do what I wanted them to do. Maybe that was a misunderstanding or it's not quite ready yet. Sometimes, it's hard to wrap my head around the way the firewall rules work. 

It has been about a year since we purchased pfSense.

I rate pfSense nine out of 10 for stability. I've only had it lose its brains on me once. That was probably me just configuring something, getting lost, and going around in circles.

I rate pfSense 10 out of 10 for scalability. It's got plenty of scalability, and we're not pushing it unusually hard. 

I rate Netgate support nine out of 10. I've used them a couple of times, and they're prompt in responding. If the issue is outside their purview, they can point you to where you can get the information. Most of my questions had to do with third-party plugins more than the core Netgate infrastructure, which has worked fine.

Positive

It's a bit of work to initially set up virtual networks inside the office, and we have to add several staff members to the various servers and create additional firewall rules. This is a little bit. It isn't simple for a business with lots and lots of internal stuff, but it wasn't hard, either. 

It took a couple of days to get it online, but we spent a week tweaking it until we were fully happy. We needed one and a half people to deploy it. Other people on the network had to help with the configuration.

We've seen a return in the form of time saved. I can rely on it, get the nice logs out of it, and see what's happening. It saves me about 5 percent.

PfSense is reasonable for a business but a little pricey for home use. With the time savings and reliability, it pays for itself. I've been more than happy with the unit we've gotten here for the capacity we need. However, it'd be nice to have nice to have some nice home units that aren't a thousand dollars.

I rate Netgate pfSense nine out of 10. I would recommend it for business use cases. It's not appropriate for someone in a home environment, but it's good for business. 

One of our clients operates multiple branches, and we've implemented a solution involving feature and IP address tunnels connecting these branches. The main branch serves as the hub, housing the Central PBX and providing services to the other branches.

We use pfSense to handle VPN connections, extending to remote workers in our various branches as well.

The feature I find most valuable for fulfilling network security requirements is pfBlockerNG. It offers exceptional visibility and filtering capabilities, without the need for dedicated hardware or recurring expenses. Unlike other solutions, pfBlockerNG operates seamlessly and continuously without additional costs or maintenance concerns.

The traffic shaping and bandwidth management features of pfSense significantly enhance our network performance. The inclusion of a QoS wizard simplifies the process, eliminating the complexity often associated with configuring QoS on other platforms like Cisco routers. With pfSense, utilizing the wizard streamlines the setup process, making it accessible and effective for users without requiring an advanced understanding of networking intricacies.

There have been specific incidents where the reporting and monitoring tools of pfSense played a crucial role in identifying and resolving network issues. In one instance, we received complaints about internet connectivity problems affecting productivity across the business. Upon investigation, I discovered that the issue stemmed from excessive bandwidth consumption caused by multiple HD camera streams being watched simultaneously. Utilizing pfSense's reporting and monitoring tools, I quickly pinpointed the source of the problem and implemented measures to alleviate the network congestion. These tools are invaluable for identifying resource-intensive processes and resolving performance issues effectively.

The process of integrating pfSense with other tools and services has proven to be quite straightforward thus far. While there may be a slight learning curve at the outset, particularly for those less familiar with networking concepts, it becomes manageable with experience.

The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box. This capability simplifies troubleshooting, as it allows for faster identification of DNS discrepancies or any other issues compared to proprietary systems. With pfSense, network configurations adhere to standard practices, facilitating troubleshooting without the need for complex overlays or policies. The interface, prioritizes network principles, making it intuitive for those familiar with networking concepts to navigate and achieve desired outcomes efficiently.

It lacks a solution for SD-WAN integration. I believe improving integration with various antivirus vendors could be beneficial. Partnering with trusted antivirus providers such as Bitdefender or Sophos as an add-on feature could enhance the antivirus capabilities of pfSense. Incorporating a centralized management console for easier administration would be a valuable addition.

I have been working with it for over five years.

The stability of pfSense is exceptional. I've only encountered one instance of hardware failure, which was due to an electrical issue. Otherwise, all other deployments have been reliable. I would rate it nine out of ten.

The scalability of pfSense is impressive. I've witnessed its capabilities firsthand, especially when it was deployed in environments supporting up to seven thousand employees. I would rate it nine out of ten. Currently, pfSense is our top recommendation for clients, tailored to their budget and specific requirements. Depending on the client's needs, such as compliance with PCI or HIPAA regulations, we may suggest models that offer corresponding features and evaluations of network security. This flexibility allows us to cater to clients with varying compliance needs, ensuring they receive suitable recommendations.

In terms of technical support, I primarily rely on the forums whenever I have a question or need technical information. I've found that the answers I seek are often readily available there. While pfSense does offer paid support packages, I haven't had the opportunity to utilize them yet.

The main difference between Fortinet and pfSense lies in their integration with different vendors. While pfSense offers integration with multiple commercial antivirus solutions, Fortinet primarily provides its own antivirus offering. However, the effectiveness of the antivirus provided by pfSense may not be as high as some other options available in the market. In terms of cost, pfSense offers a one-time payment for cloud services, providing continuous service without ongoing fees. On the other hand, Fortinet's pricing structure may seem appealing initially, but if you wait until close to the license expiration date, the renewal cost significantly increases, which could result in unexpectedly high expenses.

The initial setup was straightforward.

To set up pfSense, you start by configuring firewall rules to allow the necessary traffic. Once that's done, you can explore and download additional security packages from the package manager to enhance your environment's security. The initial setup is quick, typically taking around ten minutes for a basic configuration. However, if you're integrating features like pfBlockerNG, it may take a bit longer as you need to ensure you're not inadvertently blocking any essential services. Despite this, the task can be managed by a single person, such as an IT manager.

Maintenance tasks, such as checking logs and ensuring updates are running smoothly, are typically handled by two designated individuals. They connect to the firewall periodically to perform these checks. While we do have a management console, it's not fully integrated with the pfSense Manager (PSM) solution. Having a dedicated management console that allows remote management of all wireless devices would be ideal, as it would streamline the process of making changes across multiple devices.

The price point is highly competitive. The cost varies depending on the license type, such as licenses for eight to five support or twenty-four seven support. Opting for twenty-four-seven support significantly increases the price, reaching around ten thousand to thirteen hundred dollars. I would rate it four out of ten.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

We deploy Netgate pfSense primarily as enterprise-grade routers and VPN endpoints or VPN servers.

It's a firewall that provides frontline defense for any network. We saw the benefits of pfSense immediately upon the first deployment. It has several features that prevent data loss. For example, it allows automated backups of the configurations. It's nice to know that any changes are captured, and we can easily be pulled back to a new device should the current one fail. It also helps to optimize performance. We get good real-time statistics that Netgate can use to optimize performance. 

The automated backup is great. PfSense is an incredibly flexible platform. You can install whatever plugins you need and get lots of community support. There is tons of built-in logging, and the add-on packages you can use to analyze your traffic have been handy. That can generate a ton of data for us to look at how the network is being utilized and what changes need to be made or where we can improve.

From the hardware perspective, it seems like there has been a lot of turnover at Netgate. It comes with the territory because processors and other boards change so fast. But I'd like to see more continuity in the product line and a longer lifespan for a specific series. The operating system side of it has been rock solid, and the appliances have been great. I just want to not support many different appliances. I want one we can standardize for several years.

I have used pfSense for around 10 years.

The stability of pfSense is rock-solid.

The scalability of pfSense is also excellent, assuming you purchase the right hardware on the front end. In our case, we're doing physical deployments, not cloud-based.

I rate Netgate support 10 out of 10.  Their in-house support team is excellent. Each appliance comes with the minimum support needed to get a network connection. The support is knowledgeable and responds quickly, so the questions are addressed professionally and accurately.

Positive

We've used some Cisco products. I prefer the pfSense licensing model. You can get ongoing support and updates continuously. I don't need to pay again to patch a system. Cisco licenses connections. It's such a licensing problem at Cisco that I prefer dealing with pfSense.

We deployed pfSense on physical appliances. I think it's fairly easy for the average IT technician with no prior experience if they understand that it's primarily configured through a web portal instead of a command line configuration. PfSense can be deployed on one instance in 15 to 30 minutes.  

The documentation and community support are great, so many answers can be found without reaching out to their support. It requires no maintenance aside from regular updates and patches. 

The pricing is fantastic, and the market bears it easily. The total cost of ownership is so low because the license and the hardware are remarkably good. You don't have any recurring fees or licenses to maintain. With pfSense, you pay the upfront cost and that's it. The upfront cost is reasonable.

I rate Netgate pfSense 10 out of 10. I love using pfSense firewalls. 

I use the solution in my company since we operate as a managed services provider that provides security solutions to our customers. I was looking for a device that had the required features my customer wanted, and that fit their budget, so Netgate pfSense is a product that clearly fits this space. Our company has started to deploy the tool for our customers.

In terms of the benefits of the tool for my organization, I am not an end user of the product. My customers use the tool, and what they have been able to achieve using Netgate pfSense is that they are better able to control their spending on internet services. Without Netgate pfSense, users can just take up the whole bandwidth from the network and make it difficult for other people to work, but with the bandwidth control feature, including the built-in functionalities in the solution, you can control what individual IP addresses on the network can do, thereby bringing in more control. My customers have even told their other MSPs how they need to increase their bandwidth, whereas what they needed to do was just control what they already had in Netgate pfSense. Controlling the bandwidth has brought savings to my customers, and it also helped them to have a better user experience with the internet services that they were purchasing.

The solution's most valuable feature is that it is a highly configurable tool. The tool has a lot of options, so there is literally nothing you cannot do with it, but you have to know your way around the product.

The problems my company's clients wanted to resolve by implementing Netgate pfSense were that they wanted a provision for enterprise network security, static control over load balancing, and failover. This area is typically the use case for our customers.

If I assess Netgate pfSense's flexibility, I would say that it is a highly configurable tool, which means there are many options. It has a lot of flexibility in terms of configuration. You can write different rule sets for different traffic types and scenarios. On the same firewall, you could have lots of variety in how you want to handle traffic.

If I want to add features to Netgate pfSense, I would say that because the structure is modular, there is an app store where you can download whatever feature sets you want but are not included by default in the tool. The tool also supports many third-party plug-ins. It is possible to add features to the tool.

Netgate pfSense provides a single pane of glass for management with a customizable dashboard. You can customize the dashboard. Any handy modules you want are possible on a dashboard with a single-view window where you can see what is going on, and it is customizable.

The single pane of glass management feature has an impact on operations since it simplifies management because, typically, my company is not on the customers' premises, so we need to have remote access to the firewall. The people who are doing the back-end monitoring have a single view, which makes operations easy because, with one single glance, you can tell if there is a challenge or not in the tool.

Netgate pfSense Plus is what came on the device that my customers purchased by default.

In terms of whether Netgate pfSense Plus helps minimize downtime, I would say that the main difference between Netgate pfSense and Netgate pfSense Plus is the availability of enterprise support. When I have issues or bugs, I have someone to go to and say that something is not working and ask what we can do about it, after which I can get a response. When it comes to Netgate pfSense and Netgate pfSense Plus, the software is almost the same. One of the versions comes with enterprise backing, so I have some support and OEM support instead of relying on the community. I have a proper company I could talk to about any challenges my customers and I may have. The support does help reduce the downtime. I haven't actually had any downtime with the tool on my customers' end. I haven't had any downtime using the tool.

In terms of whether Netgate pfSense provides visibility that enables my company's clients or me to make data-driven decisions if we don't speak of specific use cases, I would say that it is typically a next-generation firewall that does bandwidth control and provides IPS and IDS features. For instance, if my customers wanted to have an idea of how much internet traffic they are using, then Netgate pfSense would give you graphs that you can export and do further analysis. I don't think the tool's use cases are tied to data or data analysis.

I can’t get any area where improvements are needed in the tool off the top of my head. I haven't had any challenges I couldn't resolve between myself and the support. Maybe Netgate needs to see if a medium-level Netgate pfSense Plus can be created for smaller organizations.

Most of what I need is already in the tool. If there is any need associated with it, I will be sure to report it to the support team.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for two and a half years. My company serves as an MSP for Netgate pfSense.

The only area to consider is that sometimes when there is an upgrade, there may be some changes. But when you have uploaded a stable version of the firmware, the operating system, I think it is a very stable tool. I have not had any issues around stability. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I deal with clients in areas such as residential, government organizations, and medium-scale businesses. I have one customer in each category, which includes small, medium, and large businesses.

Normally, when it comes to the size of hardware before you make a purchase, due diligence is required to see that the device would be able to handle the current requirements and have some room for growth. With the solution itself, I don't see the need to discuss questions related to its scalability because that would be a function of the hardware and the size of the network where you are deploying the tool. Typically, if you have a huge network, you need to make sure that you have the equipment that can handle that volume of traffic from the on-site. The scalability aspect is not really a good assessment criterion to use to measure the tool. If I put things into a certain context and say that we have a network that has around 100 people, then you don't put up a device that can manage 100 people. Instead, you need to get a device that can manage 150 to 200 people, and then you can create room for growth. If you don't follow these steps, you will have to change the device after some time.

The solution's technical support team is okay. They respond quickly. I have only had the need to place two support calls in all of my dealings so far, and they were able to figure out my issues and resolve them very quickly. I rate the technical support a seven to eight out of ten.

Positive

In our company, we typically deploy a mix of security products that we prefer. At our organization, we have Sophos, Fortinet, and Netgate pfSense. Sophos, Fortinet, and Netgate pfSense are pretty standard. Netgate pfSense has all of the features that Sophos and Fortinet have, but what is more, it can be used without having to have separate licensing. Netgate pfSense really beats the other tools hands down in terms of price because there are no individual license costs for the features that you want to use. In Sophos, certain features require separate licensing. Netgate pfSense's advantages over other tools in price make it a top choice over the others. In our company, we have some customers who are particular about products, and for such customers, we provide them with what they request. For those who don't mind trying something different, Netgate pfSense is our default choice.

The product's initial setup phase is straightforward. The complexities in the deployment are produced by customers who do not know exactly what they want. Some customers have requirements, and my company needs to sit with them and streamline certain areas. The integration and the configuration are not the challenges associated with the tool.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

Typically, if all the configuration information is available, the tool can be deployed in a maximum of two to three days. One can have the standard installation done. The deployment procedure can be done assuming one day for the configuration and the second day for rack mounting. The process is quick when the customer has all of the information they want configured in hand. For some of them, the tool is typically deployed over a period of a few weeks because they don't know or have not decided how they want to implement a particular feature. Still, it would not be a delay from Netgate pfSense's end but rather a delay from the customer side.

I would not call it a cheap tool, but it is very cost-efficient. I don't see any product that gives you the same functionality within the same price brackets offered by Netgate pfSense. There is hardly any need to go to the open-source firewalls, especially with the ones that are coming back, and there are no enterprise security products in the price range that Netgate pfSense falls under.

If I assess the total cost of ownership of Netgate pfSense, I rate it as an eight or nine out of ten.

I don't use Netgate pfSense Plus on Amazon EC2 VMs, and I haven't had a customer who wanted to deploy the tool on the cloud. Most of them purchase and install their hardware directly from Netgate.

The maintenance of the tool's equipment is done once or twice a year just to blow out some dust and make sure it looks physically okay, which is nothing outside of what the regular network devices require. It doesn't require any special maintenance.

I would recommend Netgate pfSense because it is one of the products that my company markets to our customers.

As I have existing customers that use the solution, they serve as a reference point for my new customer. I tell others that I have deployed Netgate pfSense in a few official organizations, their use, and the problems that it has solved for them. I have case studies to speak about. If someone wants to go for a proof of concept, it is something that is doable.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.