--- title: Netgate pfSense Reviews meta_title: 'Netgate pfSense Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 326 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Netgate pfSense works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.7 review_count: 326 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-07' parent_category: name: Network Security url: https://www.g2.com/categories/network-security --- # Netgate pfSense Reviews **Vendor:** Netgate **Category:** [Firewall Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/firewall-software) **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 326 ## About Netgate pfSense pfSense® Plus software is the world’s most trusted firewall. The software has garnered the respect and adoration of users worldwide - installed well over three million times. Made possible by open source technology. Made into a robust, reliable, dependable product by Netgate. ## Netgate pfSense Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **ease of use** of Netgate pfSense, valuing its intuitive interface and reliable management capabilities. (3 reviews) - Users value the **customizability** of Netgate pfSense, empowering them to configure their networks as desired. (2 reviews) - Users find the **easy setup** of Netgate pfSense straightforward, making it accessible for admins to configure effectively. (2 reviews) - Users appreciate the **control and flexibility** of Netgate pfSense, finding it secure and easy to manage. (2 reviews) - Users value the **robust security** of Netgate pfSense, finding it reliable and flexible for various networking needs. (2 reviews) - Control (1 reviews) - Users highlight the **excellent customer support** of Netgate pfSense, enhancing their experience with prompt assistance when needed. (1 reviews) - Users love the **customization options** of Netgate pfSense, enabling tailored configurations for unique network needs. (1 reviews) - Documentation (1 reviews) - Users highlight the **ease of implementation** of Netgate pfSense, allowing quick setup and configuration within minutes. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **complex configuration** challenging, especially for newcomers, due to the steep learning curve. (2 reviews) - Users find the **difficult learning curve** of Netgate pfSense daunting, especially for those new to networking. (2 reviews) - Users note the **expertise required** to effectively navigate pfSense's complex interface and advanced features. (1 reviews) - Users find the **high resource usage** demanding, often consuming significant hardware memory during operation. (1 reviews) - Users feel there are **integration issues** with Netgate pfSense, affecting security and support for the CE edition. (1 reviews) - Users find the **lack of guidance** in pfSense challenging, especially without prior network knowledge or experience. (1 reviews) - Users find the **steep learning curve** of Netgate pfSense challenging, especially for those new to networking. (1 reviews) - Limited Options (1 reviews) - Poor Interface Design (1 reviews) - Users find the **poor support services** of Netgate pfSense problematic, making troubleshooting and upgrades frustrating. (1 reviews) ## Netgate pfSense Reviews ### 1. Great Features for Self-Starters, but Support Can Feel Dismissive **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Scott B. | Unix Linux System Administrator III, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 15, 2026 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It has great features if you will research them **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Support is the RTFM type. Only interesting issues tend to get help the the rest you are made to feel bad for asking. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It was a great firewall that only costs you time. ### 2. pfSense - reliable and user friendly. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 05, 2025 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The interface is easy to use, well organized, and easy for admins to setup. Their support documentation/forums are well documented and up to date. I think it's secure when integrated with the right platforms and packs cool useful features. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The CE edition could have better support, although kept up to date, they can improve on security and some integrations. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** VPN integration and configuration/management, radius and simplifies traffic management. ### 3. pfsense is one of the appliance that is recommended for stock router replacement **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohd, R. | Software System Staff Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 17, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfsense allow you to build your own router using your CPU that is no longer in use. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** It is a bit hard to configure for the first time. But netgate did provide the user guide for installation/configuration that you can use as reference. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfsense is a replacement for my stock router that is provide by ISP. I want to explore the available options. ### 4. Is a good option for basic needs **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2025 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Is easy manage using the web interface. Comes with a good logic and help to solve the basics needs for standard connections **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Dont have options to interact confortly using CLI or scripting **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** centralize the solution to keep the connectivity managed easily ### 5. Fantastic when deployed in a virtualized environment **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chris G. | President, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense is easy and fast to deploy on a variety of platforms, depending on the use case. As an enterprise service provider, we assist our customers with the deployment and hosting of systems in our cloud environment as well as on-prem datacenters. These are typically customers who for reasons of their own are not willing to trust a public cloud with their data. Having the ability to choose a hardware solution or virtualized installation of the pfSense software grants lots of freedom in design and deployment. The web-based interface is intuitive and responsive. It's certainly competitive with other offerings. We have engaged with support on a one-off as well as TAC subscription basis and find Netgate / pfSense support to be first rate. We appreciate having a trusted partner. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense update management can sometimes be a bit ungainly. We'd really appreciate the ability to enable automated updates, especially to patch security threats. Or perhaps even a notification that would be sent to the pfSense admin when a new update is available. Oftentimes the only time a user realizes there is an update is when they log into the web interface, and many of our users can go weeks or months between log-ins. A push or email notification would be helpful in this regard. Lower-end pfSense appliances from Netgate have shown themselves to be a bit flaky. They will lock up on updates, or sometimes lock up for no reason at all. When this happens, we've noted that even a reboot of the system doesn't bring it back online and it must be accessed via emulated serial console (over USB) in order to manually walk it through a startup sequence. This is extremely problematic at remote / unstaffed locations. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense is great at the customer edge. IPSEC tunnels are quick and easy and perform especially well in our virtualized environments. In addition, the built-in OpenVPN with the client config builder is a great timesaver. We're also experimenting with multi-tenancy options that allow a single installation to reach across multiple VLAN'd networks, providing unique internal subnets and routing for each. ### 6. Wide array of hardware with flexible software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Michael P. | Assistant Professor, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The pfSense software is widely-known and very flexible. There are considerable resources on the Internet, from books to videos. Good technical support from Netgate. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I'm used to configuring routers and firewalls for my advanced home network. pfSense had a learning curve for me. It would be nice if there were a more intuitive visual interface where it's more obvious that firewall rules and DHCP servers are based on interfaces, and aliases are definitions that go into the rules and such. Also, it should be much easier to analyze and reduce bufferbloat and other common connection nonidealities. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** The Netgage 1541 provides more than enough throughput for my 1.6 Gbps Internet connection. It provides support for the isolated wireless networks in my house, and has two 10 Gbase-T connections for connecting to my primary switch. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > We appreciate your positive feedback about the flexibility and resources available for pfSense software. We understand your concerns about the learning curve and user interface, and we are constantly working to improve the user experience. ### 7. Satisfaction **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** My general confidence in its high security level (on the condition that its configuration is errorfre) **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** 1. Sometimes I experience uncertainty in how to interpretate and/or configure and understanding consequences of firewall configuration commands. a. One example of my experience: I did create firewall commands for an OPT interface (on SG-1100, as well as on SG-2100), in order to setup Netgear WiFi Routers R6020 to the OPT Interface as their WAN. However, when I looked at Netgear router logs, there used to be an abundancy of log entries indicating DOS Attack. Therefore, I assume that I didn't manage to secure the OPT interface against incoming traffic from the Internet. b. Another example that I do not understand: Log entries in pfSense (System, General) containing text "now monitoring attacks", quite a lot of entries. 2. Use of PHP in pfSense which, to my knowledge, is not a completely reliable web language, and often is subject to security vulnerabilities. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Secure Electronic communication from my home (Stationary computers, Laptops, Smart phones, WiFi AP and router (since a few days, no longer including Netgear WiFi routers having OPT as its WAN interface) **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > Thank you for your vote of confidence and feedback! We appreciate it and are constantly working to improve our documentation and provide clearer guidance for our users. ### 8. Ten years of experience in using pfssense, more than forty firewalls administered. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Luca D. | Sistemista, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The software is flexible, working well in KVM-type VMs that I mainly use. With a little practice you can do anything with it. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There are required features that have been lost for years and never implemented, such as a centralized administration console for sets of firewalls. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Routing, centralized VPN, firewall. ### 9. A solid performing firewall platform, ideal for budget conscious applications **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 10, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Low cost (in many cases free) firewall solution which can be run on no-brand hardware. Very stable. Advanced features such as load balancing, traffic shaping, multi-WAN support, hardware encryption support for VPN, etc. The capabilities of pfSense is comparible to very expensive enterprise grade systems that most SME's would be unable to afford. Incredibly flexible configuration allow policy based routing and incredibly granular control over how traffic is handled. Paid support available if required, making it ideal for budget commercial applications. Dedicated hardware is available if a turn-key solution is desired. However, the branded hardware is expensive for what it is, but comes with suppport, etc. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The move from pfSense CE to Plus has made the platform feel a little less "open" (although still based on open source software). Now, the only install images available are old and need to be upgraded to from CE to Plus,to get the latest release. Some of the advanced features, if customised, can produce unexpected behavior. For example, I'm using traffic shaping and multi-WAN and have unresolved issues with incorrect shaping being applied during WAN fail-over scenarios. Branded appliances are a little expensive for their technical specs. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Providing a secure, multi-WAN firewall for my SME. I have 3 x WAN connections (2 high speed land-lines plus a 4G backup) and pfSense has the capabilities to dynamically load balance across on connections, or fail-over. Which LAN devices use which WAN connections can be fully customised via policy-based routing, allowing me to offload certain traffic to certain WAN connections to maximise the benefit of multi-WAN. ### 10. Got tech support like you were a fortune 500 ! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Joey S. | Cabinet-conseil en management et transformation numérique, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 23, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Their products are affordable for remote workers/SME who want to cover their network security needs. If you have a problem with an update, you open a ticket and their support team will quickly contact you the same day to help you solve the problem. They are knowledgeable and friendly people you can trust. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Technical support is in English only. For some people this can be overwhelming. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is an easy-to-deploy firewall that reduces attacks on your network and the resulting loss of productivity. ### 11. Easy to managment **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Erick V. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 10, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Many of the opensourse tools e.g. surica, opevnpn etc. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Its interface should be more user-friendly. And there should be no application control. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** In our company it helps us to network with our partners as well as our branches. ### 12. Rock solid network firewall platform **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 10, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense Plus has truly transformed my network experience. Its intuitive interface simplifies setup, making it accessible to all levels of users, even my coworker, which usually does not have much experience with firewalls can manage it. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** In a virtualized environment the performance is not the best unfortunately. Although we use high performance network cards on our hypervisor, it usually achieves about 2.5 Gigabits per seconds. Our regular setups do not reach those speeds, so this issue is not really important to us. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use pfSense to access our internal services through a wireguard vpn. Also we filter our dns requests using pfBlocker which has the benefit of blocking ads and unwanted hostnames. ### 13. Full option Firewall **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lohourignon Hervé O. | Information Technology Technician, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 17, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** the GUI is user friendly and contain descriptions to help pfsense administrator **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I have a Netgate 6100 but I feel like the system work a bit slowly **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** it improved the security in my network, I can manage very easyly user authorisation and authentication now and remote VPN connection. ### 14. PFSense Review **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Axel S. | Chief Executive Officer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** PFSense is a Great Solution for Small Companies that are Cost-Sensitive but still require excellent Protection. Online Documentation is vast and easy to navigate and to implement. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Some basic Features are, at times, complicated to configure, and although a vast community is available for support, some solutions are not easy to implement for a normal end user. Software upgrades always need to be thoroughly tested as they can regularly break your Firewall Configs. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** PFSense has excellent Perimeter and Network Protection for smaller SMB's, and the Out of the Box features are great. VPN Solutions work great without significant Challenges. ### 15. Great product, good support; Netgate doesn't fail to impress. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bill E. | IT Coordinator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 02, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Leaning on the open source community and having rock solid support who are aware of pretty much every issue in their Redmine is awesome, I always feel like if I have to go to TAC that the people who respond know their stuff. I like the modularity and the affordability of the appliances/software. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There's no API, automation is moot because of this which seriously restricts its use in the enterprise. I can't deploy these at every site if I have to manually configure them or use some XML uploads. Another thing is vetting your versions for enterprise customers, I know Netgate can't predict everything, but these should be thouroughly tested or at the very least a PSA if there's a possibility of a large bug on upgrade. Lastly, another thing for enterprise customers, VPN usage. Every major firewall appliance builds off of a simple, existing VPN solution. It'd be nice to have more support for the OpenVPN addons for instance, things like SAML/OIDC for enterprise customers would be amazing. Even if you can't build an API into the current builds having some level of VPN automation would also help immensely. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Probably the biggest thing is I know the latest versions of pfSense are secure, the developers are diligent in finding vulnerabilities, quashing them, and informing the community when a new one hits the waves. ### 16. A great firewall with a thriving community and good documentation **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Eren C. | Senior IT-Administrator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** + Good plugin base + Good free documentation + Free and quality forum support + Broad community + Stable software Advantage to competition is customizability in my opinion, you have many features to choose from and on top of that, you can test out beta features which puts pfSense ahead of its competition. One example is DCO. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The entrance/skill level is rather high, many features are there but need to be explored. I, for one, had difficulty understanding the switch module of my specific device. To clarify: There is another section called "switches" where additional switch modules are displayed. Getting the right config for it to work, especially with different VLANs, is very tricky. I made the mistake to fiddle with Port VID 4090 and 4091 and essentially locked myself out, good thing there was a documentation for that. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use pfSense for our whole neighbourhood (4 companies connected), VPN connections, our Active Directory Federation Services but needed the overall higher throughput. We switched from UniFi dream machine to two XG-7100s in failover and our overall network responsiveness as well as VPN thoughput. We also needed a more refined firewall ruling for our ADFS and DNS resolving/redirecting on different VLANs, which the pfSense fulfilled flawlessly. ### 17. Open source is the way to go if you have a little patience **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Yousif H. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The best thing about pfSense is its web UI, hands down. Nothing comes close. Also great: FreeBSD o/s, and open source nature. Proprietary vendors still have not caught up on GUI or price. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** It's not quite as reliable as some of the high-end vendors. Cisco IOS is basically bulletproof. I've had bad experiences with Netgate hardware, too. But you can't compare the value-for-money. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** all-in-one VPN, edge routing, general network appliance (DNS, DHCP). Eliminates the need to run dedicated VMs or machines for these services. It's made things more streamlined in terms of administration. ### 18. Upgrading my home network for Gigabit **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ian S. | Data Technician, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 02, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The flexibility around VLANS and allowing me to separate my IOT devices, Security Cameras, Docker Containers, Servers and End User Devices. I had come from other solutions, including more expensive ones and PFSense was the first that really clicked for me. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I think the logging mechanisms are pretty powerful, but maybe some of the flash & wow of other systems would be nice. It's hard to complain though. Every problem I have encountered has been solved by the community or me skilling up. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** I wanted to be sure that IOT devices could not be used to compromise other parts of my network. I needed to ensure uptime compared to my previous environment (lots of patches) and I also needed a system that could do OpenVPN faster than my standalone router. ### 19. PFSense has worked very well for our needs. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rich R. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Ease of use as well as being very economical as compared to using Juniper, Cisco and others. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Support could be better. You need to purchase a TAC Enterprise subscription which at the end of the day cost almost twice what you spent on the appliance in some cases. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are replacing higher cost devices from other manufacturers while getting the same type of results. ### 20. Poor support **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Construction | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 29, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Relatively inexpensive but a solid product **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Support is hard to find. I have a fiber connection using an ONT that needs a router/firewall that is set to IPoe. There are very few article is any concerning connecting to IPoe and Negate does not provide support for that. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Unknown. ### 21. pfsense SOHO review **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kevin K. | Vice President - Database Architect 2, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 10, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** For the most part it is easy to install and maintain. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Recent split between the open source and paid versions. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is a reasonably priced business class firewall + appliance that can also do VPN, SNORT/Suricata, region and other blocking and a number of other features. ### 22. Prince of Internet Management for Organizations **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Asif M. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Easy to Manage, its free for basic usage **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Third-Party Packages not operate properly sometimes **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is benefiting organizations to manage their Internet Distribution and management with their own choices mold it according to your needs. ### 23. It was quick and helpful **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hichem H. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It is simple to use, effective in deployment, and Diagnosis and troubleshooting are clear. Also, many tools are ready to deploy. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Some features and tools are unclear, and more help can guide some people to improve their systems. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** The outstanding performance of pfSense is the ability to backup, restore, and migrate from one system to another without complexity, even when you are not familiar with the product. ### 24. Reliable Multi-gateway Firewall **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Waseem H. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Multi-gateway with Auto-Failover Support **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Lack of Filtering and Real-time Reporting **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** 24/7 Internet Provision ### 25. Every product that I have use from Negate has been an excellent upgrade. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I like the customer service from the Tac team and I also like the function and features of the devices. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There is not much to dislike about Pfsense except for some once in a while upgrade bugs. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is making it so smaller businesses can have a business class firewall at an affordable price. ### 26. pfSense: The best you can get from a company you can trust **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense not only offers all the features you would expect from an enterprise firewall, but builds upon the reliability and feature set by implementing a sea of community add-ons and integrations to enhance your experience and general usability. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Arguably, the most frustrating thing about pfSense is the lack of easy access externally. Nearly every other server in the rack has a form of SSH installed, but pfSense opts for a web-UI only interface, one that can be frustrating when you need to diagnose and debug an issue with your system. Thankfully, though, the issues with pfSense systems are far and few between, so you shouldn't find yourself missing out on that feature very much at all. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense gives us peace of mind with the security and dependability that we've all come to expect from our networks. Previously, when working with Watchguard boxes, we had frequent outages and service interruptions, and although their support was excellent, the product required far more support after sales than it should have. With pfSense, we have access to a host of online forums, communities, and support personnel through Netgate that have helped every step of the way. ### 27. A firewall that does what we need with a great knowledgebase behind it **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Carlo H. | Production Employee, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 28, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The WebGui makes it possible to config almost everything without using a terminal **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The initially high purchase price. But is it actually big deal? I think not. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** If you have a Netgate without an internal switch the vlan configuration is easy to understand. Complex firewall rules without GUI, DNS resolving, IDS, nTop and VPN configurations are quickly done. And there are actual people with knowledge out there you can hire. ### 28. Better protection and good netgate support **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohmad S. | Infrastructure and integration Architect, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 03, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Open source and inbuilt IPS/IDS system. Also Firewall rule are easy to manage **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Max bandwidth is around 5GB. Should support a complete 10G network. Also, Alias should support wildcard domains like *.google.com for whitelisting. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cost-effective solution and ease of use. ### 29. pfSense for SME office **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohammad Awis R. | Assistant IT & Operations Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The VPN feature, able to use it without the restriction numbers of user like normal OpenVPN server. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** For me, the firewall rules part is a bit confusing. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Secure remote access to office environment, I am able to manage in house infra without the need to open a lot of ports on the firewall level. ### 30. Not promising better future **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 25, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** open source, free, stable, secure, easy to manage **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** lack of high-quality documentation, lack of essential security features like next-generation firewall capabilities against new threats, unpolite community & support **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Securing home/company networks against cyber threats, providing a secure remote connection. ### 31. Good software which just works. Very reliable. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 28, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Easy to use. Helpful and easy-to-understand documentation. Huge community. Many "recipes" are available on user forums. Nice web interface. CLI is also available. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The support package covers only issues with software. It does not cover questions like "how can I do this and that with pfSense". It's developing much slower that a competition. Some critical features are not available out of the box, and you have to install them as an add-on. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** You can have a router with HA features for a relatively low price. ### 32. Great OS and flexibility, hardware not as reliable **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospitality | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 31, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Control and visibility of traffic rules and data. Easy to configure rules and settings. Not bound to hardware and configuration can be easily ported to different hardware. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The negate hardware has been unreliable. Would not use in remote distant areas due to failures and difficulty for an average user/remote hands restoring the appliance. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Geoblocking countries we are not in business with, DNS control and visibility, granular firewall rules, aliases, Snort, pfblocker, DNS, and VPN with relative ease. ### 33. Solid, open source **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Carl B. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** FreeBSD based, using familiar and trustable code **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Very slow release schedule for open source version **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Much better solution than router-based firewalls ### 34. A fierce firewal doing its job pfSensitively **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Simple and intutive user interface, ease of use and the help for each menu option. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Ambiguous terms used on menu options and some deep-buried menu options. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have two internet connections from different ISPs. I needed a device which not only offered the fail over but load aggregation as well. pFSense does it quite well. ### 35. pfsense seems powerful and configurable though the docs are not the best **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** lots of options and plugin apps, lots of guides online, runs on cheap-ish hardware **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** my netgate hardware died after a poweroutage. the webui is slow and a bit unreliable. had to go cli for fw upgrade which did not wokr out of the box **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfsense lets me seperate network functions from my servers and from my appliances - a DIY network applaince ### 36. PfSence fun **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Hardware | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 02, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** FreeBSD based and open source and GUI control panel **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** missed some documentation regarding VPN configuration **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Firewall and IDS/IPS ### 37. pfSense: Fast, BSD-based routing with a great community **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stephen G. | Security Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense is a fast, very stable routing and security platform that has a large community behind it and is very customizable. It's easy to run on low-power hardware and a great alternative to openwrt. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Changes in the Negate licensing structure have made pfSense more expensive/difficult to run on cloud platforms for free. These changes don't seem necessary for me, but I understand the need to earn for usage in clouds. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense helped to create an open-source and very performant routing & security platform for both hardware and cloud deployments. pfSense has allowed us more configuration options with minimal overhead. ### 38. PfSense: a great firewall and VPN system **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shaffin T. | Information Technology Consultant, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2019 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** PfSense lets us to set network rules up simply using the internet browser, so VPN configurations can be easily installed and clients can be easily connected while using the VPN. Traffic visuals are beautiful too. A large number of add-ons enable the manager to increase the functionality to satisfy the organization's needs and requirements. PfSense is a such a superb firewall system that all traffic is recorded and packages can be installed to snort heavy traffic. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The modem's features can not be integrated into a pFSense box. This may limit the auto-deployment of something in conditions where firewall rules are required or HAProxy settings modified. So, I have to reach for other measures, such as SSDs, so that any technical failures should be prevented. **Recommendations to others considering Netgate pfSense:** I think PfSense would be a great tool for any IT department that needs a decent high-end firewall alternative but doesn't want to purchase a lot of equipment or licenses, although hardware could also be bought to make pfSense an all-in-one alternative for even the highest applications, but it is not mandatory. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We mainly use PfSense as a firewall and VPN system throughout the business. The software helps us to get a routing protocol conversion and to protect our subnetwork, so intruders can not access our databases on an attack. Before PfSense, we wanted anything easy to develop and maintain that did not involve excessive payments or ongoing expenses to limit our financial risks. ### 39. Connect to the internet as a central edge firewall **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** LaceyMai M. | Information Technology Staff, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 19, 2019 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** PfSense offers solid security because it is centered on FreeBSD. The database server enables me to provide the capacity to IP that I want at the user's request with more energy and lower power to clients with less demand. It makes configuring the firewall and NAT very easy and usable. pfSense is a strong traffic-balancer as the clustering performs quite well. Any improvement made to the database is also provided with an interactive product. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** When an interruption of the Web happens, pfSense starts to work very slowly, I guess because it creates loads to all users allowed to access the network. Also, if the disk mirror adds an extra to a channel faders, it would prevent unforeseen downtime due to hard drive shortcomings. **Recommendations to others considering Netgate pfSense:** PfSense is an ideal tool to be used as a main firewall or VPN server with many settings, as it helps you to monitor traffic efficiently with less commitment VPN transfers and reduced licensing prices. I would recommend pfSense for small or medium companies that require load handling. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** In the IT department, we use PfSense for connecting to the internet as a central edge firewall. We also use pfSense to handle loads or fail to comply with incoming applications or network hosting specifications. The VPN interface is also accessible to enable us to link and test whether our products are on the platform, from almost anywhere. In terms of usability, pfSense has outperformed expectations. ### 40. Great open source firewall **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Robert G. | FOSS Implementation Specialist, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 03, 2019 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Open source professional level firewall. Particularly features like multi-wan and how that is implemented into standard features like NAT etc. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Many of the services I would like to run are add on packages not truly part of the system. Those have non-standard configs and interfaces because of it. They can be broken or unstable because of it. **Recommendations to others considering Netgate pfSense:** While I really like this product, I have moved on to a fork of it called OPNSense that I would recommend over pfSense. pfSense a is good product but much has changed with the project and the company behind it. I put them in second place because that is where there software falls based on most usage. Hope their next release release with all the drastic changes announced a couple of years ago will change my mind. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Multi-wan internet supplied by multiple ISP's and used directly without most staff even knowing it. Provides various switching and failover methods for bandwidth or times when an ISP is unreliable. ### 41. Easy to setup and checking Software Router **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Allan L. | IT & T Manager, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 05, 2017 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Resource utilization is really lower. Have a good user interface that I can easily understand and learn how to use it. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** No much user know this product that I can only access their forum for searching solution **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Main Network Router and VPN gateway. I can use an old server to serve 50 peoples without lagging. ### 42. So powerful **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Joseph N. | Operations Manager, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 30, 2017 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** With this product being open source it amazing how powerful the features you get with it and the ability to configure to your needs is great! **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** It can be hard to get the configuration you want at the start but you get there in the end! **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Free open source protection for your network what more could you want! ### 43. Great Enterprise Firewall **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 27, 2016 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I think pfSense is performant, powerful, and stable. It's got active development, and while I think the pace of innovation is kind of slow. I believe it's one of the best open source firewalls made. It's FreeBSD base provides a great stable base and wonderful networking capabilities. This router really can do everything a Cisco can and more. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I think the project tends to shy away from things like configuration management and newer "hot" technologies because they have alternatives coming down the pipeline. Which is great, and I look forward to things like pfCenter, but not having at least some hooks in Ansible is a problem. When things get brought up on forums, people can be nasty. But I guess that's the internet for you. I wish the base OS was more vanilla FreeBSD w/pfSense packages that could be installed on top. Sometimes I want to do things and I'm afraid to add packages that are outside of the official pfSense package list because there's a fear it could bork the system. **Recommendations to others considering Netgate pfSense:** Read the documentation, take the official training. Buy support if you have questions or need help. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Replacing more expensive firewalls and getting much more performance. ### 44. The one and only firewall **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 14, 2016 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Many options for configure a free and open source firewall to protect and manage your private cloud **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Too many options and old style interface (a newer version with new UI is coming) **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Full mange of our private cloud ## Netgate pfSense Discussions - [OpenVpn best report's?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/openvpn-best-report-s) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [What is pfSense used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-pfsense-used-for) - 7 comments - [Can pfSense be used as a router?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/can-pfsense-be-used-as-a-router) - 11 comments - [Is pfSense any good?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-pfsense-any-good) - 3 comments - [Is pfSense still free?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-pfsense-still-free) - 5 comments - [View Netgate pfSense pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/netgate-pfsense/reviews?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=4§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-12+20%3A05%3A06+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=5080c4fa-9032-48ed-b429-3fdabf78d30d&secure%5Btoken%5D=bc2a484b14ceb1c724555a9e9c85ff8e08dcf03b6a1a7c45257aa1c7d13870f4&format=llm_user) ## Netgate pfSense Integrations - [AWS Lambda](https://www.g2.com/products/aws-lambda/reviews) - [Sophos Firewall](https://www.g2.com/products/sophos-firewall/reviews) - [Tailscale](https://www.g2.com/products/tailscale/reviews) ## Netgate pfSense Features **Additional Functionality** - Penetration Testing - Alerts/Notifications - Audit Trail - Anti Virus - Vulnerability Scanning - Remote Monitoring & Management - VPN - Behavior Analytics - Reporting/Analytics - Real-Time Notifications - Access Controls/Permissions - SSL Security - Patch Management - Event Logs - Anomaly/Malware Detection - DNS Leak Protection - Third-Party Integrations - Server Monitoring - Real-Time Monitoring - Compliance Management - Network Provisioning - API - Email Alerts - Security Auditing - Intrusion Detection System - Data Visualization - Two-Factor Authentication - Generative AI - Firewalls - AI Copilot - Anti Spam - Threat Response - Activity Monitoring - Risk Alerts - Data Loss Prevention - Single Sign On - Intrusion Prevention System - Secure Login - Policy Management - Activity Dashboard **Administration** - Policy Management - Logging and Reporting - Application Gateway - Concurrent Sessions - Uptime Reporting - Web Traffic Reporting - Compliance Management - Access Management - Incident Management - Audit Management - Remote Monitoring & Management **Agentic AI - Firewall Software** - Autonomous Task Execution - Adaptive Learning - AI/Machine Learning **Usage** - Multi-Device Usage - Multiple Concurrent Connections - Protocol Choices - Unlimited Bandwidth - No Log Storage - Varied Server Locations - Unlimited Server Switches - Event Logs **Functionality** - Virtual Private Network (VPN) - Antivirus - URL Filtering - Availability - IP Filtering - Content Filtering **Miscellaneous** - Live Customer Support - Open Source Code - Multiple Payment Methods - Activity Dashboard **Monitoring** - Load Balancing - Continuous Analysis - Intrusion Prevention - Intrusion Detection - Intrusion Detection System - Intrusion Prevention System **Additional Functionality** - Two-Factor Authentication - DNS Leak Protection - Web Inspection - API - Uptime Reporting - AI Copilot - Compliance Management - Multi-Language - Real-Time Monitoring - Remote Monitoring & Management - Security Auditing - Remote Access/Control - Kill Switch - Access Controls/Permissions - Policy Management - User Management - VPN Tunneling - No-log VPN - Encryption - Firewalls - Secure Browsing - Mobile Alerts - Anonymous Browsing - Generative AI - Single Sign On - Secure Login - Anomaly/Malware Detection - Third-Party Integrations - Rules-Based Workflow - Reporting & Statistics - Ad Blocker - Authentication - Mobile Access - SSL Security - IP Masking - Geo-spoofing - Data Storage Management - Performance Testing **Generative AI** - AI Text Summarization - Generative AI **Artificial Intelligence - Firewall** - AI Firewall **Additional Functionality** - Spam Blocker - Alerts/Escalation - Role-Based Permissions - Network Monitoring - Visual Analytics - Customizable Reports - Real-Time Analytics - Reporting & Statistics - Anti Spam - Activity Dashboard - Real-Time Monitoring - Real-Time Notifications - Activity Tracking - Hardware Integration - Summary Reports - Alerts/Notifications - Access Controls/Permissions - Real-Time Data - Server Monitoring - Two-Factor Authentication - Log Access - Reporting/Analytics - Multi-Location - SSL Security - Behavior Tracking - AI Copilot - API - Event Logs - Vulnerability Scanning - Risk Alerts - Single Sign On - Dashboard Creation - Monitoring ## Top Netgate pfSense Alternatives - [Sophos Firewall](https://www.g2.com/products/sophos-firewall/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (817 reviews) - [Check Point Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs)](https://www.g2.com/products/check-point-next-generation-firewalls-ngfws/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (514 reviews) - [WatchGuard Network Security](https://www.g2.com/products/watchguard-network-security/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (249 reviews)