--- 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: '2026-07-17' 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. Most reliable firewall **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dr Chidanand B. | Director, Education Management, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Many things in one, its DHCP Server, WAN Management, with Routing capabilities, can handle multiple LANs, WANs, And VPNs. Stable, free and open-source, firewall with custom rules, **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** It has so many options, and out of them I still don't know the application of 90% of the options available in them. No proper guidance on open platforms to learn and explore most of it. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Basic aspects of multi-wan to multi-lan with separate vlans, configurable open VPN, URL filters, removes ads from the entire network. routing, gateway monitoring, etc., ### 2. A versatile cost-effective firewall. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Entertainment | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 28, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The strengths of pfSense are its ability to run on various devices and its wide range of dedicated appliances. Also worth mentioning is good community support and the ability to install additional packages, making it a versatile solution. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** If something doesn't work, then searching for the source of the failure can be tedious. The inability to wrap firewall rules requires long scrolling and perceptiveness. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use pfSense both as a classic firewall and for VPN connections. Depending on the requirements, it works on various devices, including virtualized ones and performs well. ### 3. Fast and easy to use even for the inexperienced **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Louis M. | Canadian Tire Associate Dealer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 30, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Easy to use and find knowledge based articles to guide the user **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Firmware upgrades can potentially corrupt the file system if user is not careful **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfsense is keeping my online presence safe and secure ### 4. Equipment with pfSense + **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daniel M. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It is easy to operate and has various and complete applications. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Sometimes there is a lack of information for the operation of all its functions. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Denial of service problems and especially blocking of insecurities in the network ### 5. Amazing Firewall **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Transportation/Trucking/Railroad | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 26, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** likely gui, reliable, good support, easy implementation, really like it and use it and that's why i became a parter **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** it is not like a dislike but i a better/easy gui on logs firewall etc for troubleshootung **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Firewall blocking business vpn security others ### 6. An easy to manage and scalable all-in-one solution for the network management of our Start-Up. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Markus W. | CTO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 02, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense covers all our needs for OpenVPN Networks, Cert-Management, Firewalls, DNS-Resolver etc., in one solution. The GUI makes it much easier and less error-prone to configure complex services, such as firewalls or VPNs, compared to the pure Linux pendants (e.g., iptables). **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** A specific bug with the DHCP service (https://forum.netgate.com/topic/168172/dhclient-error-cannot-open-or-create-pidfile-no-such-file-or-directory/3) caused quite some trouble, but we finally found a solution in the Netgate forum. Our conclusion: The reliability of the free version is not at enterprise level (which was to expect), but the support is yet quite good. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense allows us to have a cloud-only IT infrastructure based on distributed VMs located at different providers. The built-in VPN servers and firewalls completely encapsulate crucial internal services. Hence, we can have a super scalable, safe, yet highly cost-efficient IT setup thanks to pfSense. ### 7. pfsense firewall for home **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Keith M. | Lecturer Computer Science & Engineering, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 01, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The best feature is the integrated pfblockerng add-on package. It handles both IP and DNS filtering with a wide range of easy to use customization. I especially like the ability to select from a large number of different IP and DNS feeds to meet my specific security needs. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** If you are a non-technical user, adding, setting up and using the more sophisticated network security software add-on packages have a steep learning curve. This is not unique to pfsense in any way. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Besides the basic requirements as a firewall, the ability to provide a fine level of control over ad and tracker blocking features (pfblockerng) makes it a perfect match for my needs. ### 8. Best Firewall for Small and Intermediate businesses **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jim D. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 30, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Pfsense plus is worth the cost. Most options come with all security rules and protocols to expand upon including vlans segmentation and as well DHCP server. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Can't think of any issues relating to the configuration and utilization of router control. Load balancing maybe, if it's a compatibility issue but everything with pfsense is sound with me. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Their solving cost productivity and options for thr general public ### 9. Excellent FW and Excellent Support 24x7 **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pedro Andres R. | Solution Responsable Sales, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 05, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Its rock solid! Based on the latest FreeBSD and updated PHP version. Never had a problem, and to top it all, it now features ZFS for multiple boot enviroments! **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** We need more Tutorials on YouTube to get more people up-to-speed and therefore adopt pfSense a lot quicker! **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** As a system administrator, there are many tasks and always less money to accomplish projects. By having pSense, I get peace of mind. ### 10. 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. ### 11. PfSense is my first choice of solution to implement **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Luis Marcelo M. | Jefe de División de Comunicaciones, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It is an easy solution to implement and almost never presents problems, almost never, and that is very good, as an accessible solution that is practically free. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** You have a difficulty with the basic NAT configuration for publishing web pages. Although it is simple, it necessarily requires a unique public IP for each subdomain when it is a system separate from the main domain. However, an alternative is with ports... and you do not have a bandwidth meter like speedtest. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Solve problems of distributing internet service among users (guests, employees, bosses, and system administrators) with very good control of bandwidth, IP ranges, and DHCP; publishing via NAT for web pages in a simple way; and real-time monitoring of bandwidth usage is possible. ### 12. Best Open source Firewall Software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dancan N. | Lecturer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 20, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Installation is easy, setting up various interfaces is easy, especially on the GUI, and rules are quite direct. Basically, its an all-around firewall that even newbies in the network security field can work with. The learning curve is easy. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** am yet to know why DNS services have been failing to restart during reboot after an unplanned shutdown or after a power failure, which has been rampant in this small enterprise. But in all general, performance outweighs its cons **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's my basic routing software. My entire network security is built on it, packet segregation /traffic shaping is done there, setting VLANS, a captive portal for students' access ### 13. Great Firewall, Great Price **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Neil A. | Infrastructure Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 24, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Easy to use and understand, full training materials provided online to help even the newest of user setup the system and maintain. Regularly updated with the newest and best features. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Nothing to note so far, does everything it should do. GUI could do with a little "glitter" to make it look like a 2023 product but that's not really important. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Allowing us to replace our aged fleet of UTM threat management and filtering solutions. Coming in at a price that is obtainable for Schools and Educational establishments. Latest VPN technology to replace our old IPSEC connections. ### 14. pfsense with support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Automotive | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** BSD network stack is solid. Both the console and GUI are well thought out. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Nothing so far. Pretty new to it. Not sure what else to say. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Gateway and firewall ### 15. 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. ### 16. Good support and good performances **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 14, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Ease of Use and number of packages available. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Hardware requirements may be restrictive sometimes **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Network security for remote access and management ### 17. Powerful, customizable gateway appliance software without the headaches **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chad H. | IT Director, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 18, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** PfSense was exceptionally easy to get configured, though it also offered many customizable settings and could be tailored to my precise needs. It is much easier to understand than our previous gateway appliance running Watchguard Firebox software. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The only disadvantage to running PfSense that I can see is that since it's designed to be open-source at it's core it lacks some visual polish. Not a bad trade-off in my book. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our previous internet gateway had reached end of life and was in need of being replaced. We found PfSense could do so much more than we were currently asking of our gateway, and could do so cost effectively, so that as our business continues to grow we can expand into newer and more advanced ways of routing and firewalling our network. ### 18. sophisticated software platform **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jeffrey J. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 10, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** A sophisticated & secure software platform. Easily configurable, yet highly customizable. Support & problem-solving of the support team are unparalleled! **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** User Education & understanding of some terms. There could be better explanation of terms with possible examples given for their use. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Security, Stability & Reliability ### 19. Superb firewall software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kwabena A. B. | IT Professional, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 15, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I really like pfSense especially the integration with other modules **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** having found any yet. So far all the features are fine with me. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use it as our main firewall software. Also, we have internal applications that are hosted on our local area network and so the vpn allows users to access these applications whiles outside the organisation. ### 20. A solid and flexible firewall solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mike P. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense is one of the easiest-to-use firewalls out there. It works on appliances and off-the-shelf hardware and is entirely scalable. I've tried many other firewall solutions and I keep coming back to pfSense **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There aren't many small fanless appliances with 10gb sfp+ interfaces. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use many pfSense firewalls for WAN, DMZ, and IPv6 firewalling. I also use pfSense for IPSEC VPN tunnels over both ipv4 and ipv6. ### 21. My experience is highly pleasant. The software is very stable, scalable. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jaime C. | Coordinador de Redes y Comunicaciones, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 30, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The stability and the number of options that do not require any type of licensing payment contribute greatly to educational and research institutions. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Only on one occasion did we have an issue with an upgrade, but other than that, there isn't much to object to; the software operates really well in all the areas where I have used it. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Firewall, NAT, VLAN, DHCP, DNS, OpenVPN, IPSEC, CARP. Management is very easy, backups can be modified and adapted to other configuration schemes when migration is necessary. It operates on almost any hardware and tuning is easy to do, and there is a lot of documentation. ### 22. Great value without problems **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Francisco Javier C. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It's very easy to setup and it can be used even in complex scenarios, delivering great value specially for smb companies **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** IPsec tunnels can somewhat tricky specially when connecting to other manufacturers solutions **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Connecting our developers team securely with simplicity and at low cost. A simple firewall can connect everyone in the company. It's also used to connect to our customers production environments without compromising security ### 23. Stable, secure, simple **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rob I. | Managing Director / CSO CTO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense is a product I've been using for literally years to secure my home internet connection and, more recently that of my small business. It boasts an amazing community where most issues will already have an answer on the various forums. During COVID lockdowns, the simplicity of setting up VPN connectivity allowed everyone to continue working remotely with next to no issues. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Since the push toward a more commercially focused product, the regularity of the updates has diminished; however - it's a firewall, and stability SHOULD be celebrated. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Provides a simple interface through which to provision new VPN connections (and users) along with making it intuitive to create DHCP leases for fixed network assets and allowing specific traffic to transit various VLANs ### 24. One of the few software products I've used that provides a consistently good experience **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 07, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense is a feature-rich and very stable software firewall. We use pfSense on both commodity hardware and Netgate appliances; it works very well on both platforms. It is available in both an open-source version and as a customized Netgate version; this opens the user base to a larger audience, a plus in a security product. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Occasionally the package versions seem out of sync with the standalone versions of some packages. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We like an integrated firewall, router and VPN product ### 25. pfSense for VPN **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gavin W. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 24, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It's been very reliable and stable from the first day I configured and installed it in my home office network. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There is nothing I dislike about the product! **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** I need to have all my equipment show their network presence in a specific city and country. I have two appliances with pfSense installed, one that is resident and the other a traveller. ### 26. Great firewall **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Razmik M. | Chief Executive Officer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 12, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Dual WAN capability, integration with snort and many other packages. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Some often used services are hard to reach. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Real DUAL Wan. My Linksys dual wan router was using second WAN as a backup only. Pfsense load balancing works fine. Took a little time to configure "sticky connection" for banking and other security-critical apps. ### 27. It just works **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Phillip D. | ICT Help Desk & onsite Service Technician, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 24, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The freedom of options. The versatility to host it on my own hardware, whether that's bear metal or even virtualized! The ability to tweek additional setting that you don't usually find in a conventional router & make it work how I want it to. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I tried to think of something anoiying about pfSense but Nothing comes to mind. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Stability & options. The only time pfSense stops working on me is when the electrons stop flowing (power outages). :-D The choice of options is mine. If there's a requirement needed, pfSense usually fills it. VPNs have always been stable. ### 28. An important equipment for providing/protecting access for our research work **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** We are able to have very important features such as network segmentation, openvpn+2fa, suricarta, zeek, logging at a very reasonable and affordable pricing. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Steep learning curve in the beginning, but there is alot of videos and documents available. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allow us to implment most of our infrastructure planning with great ease and affordabilities ### 29. professional support, super fast **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** James A. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 12, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** the product just works and has excellent support when you need it. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The status led's could be a bit friendlier and strategically placed. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** i can grant my staff remote access via VPN knowing my public-facing ip's are relatively protected by a firewall that works. ### 30. Tremendous support and hardware. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John G. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 28, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It is the best choice for network security and configuration **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Nothing yet. The software and SG1100 has been great. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Network security for my unRaid servers and home devices ### 31. 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. ### 32. I use pfSense to manage multiple remote networks **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Facilities Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 02, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I love that it's really just a "full" Linux distro, so when I can't find a built-in setting or a package to do what I need I can ssh in and write something. I also love that it's very stable and low maintenance once it's set up, I rarely need to worry about anything. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** A few things, but nothing major stands out: I would like to be able to manage DHCP static clients remotely, ie with an external database. Updating alias tables is a bit of a hassle (I have an external service that lists out several thousand ips to block that I want to be updated in pfSense immediately so I have a script to ssh in and update them). I would love updates to not necessarily be automatic but to maybe notify me or have an API endpoint to check for updates and execute them. An API in general would be nice. Additionally, a better dns resolver (ie wildcards!!) **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use pfSense in a residential setting, but it is completely remote. I use several services including, but not limited to firewall ip blocking, dhcp, dns resolving, NTP, SSL signing, and OpenVPN. ### 33. Great product with many easy to use tools **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jerry A. | Regional Sales Manager -- Video Systems, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Extremely reliable and powerful and like the ability to use third party databases to block unwanted traffic. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Definitely could better documentation, and yes I bought the book. We need a deeper dive. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** My wife and I both work from home and are on video calls most of the day and the reliability and throughput are fantastic. ### 34. Pfsense is the corner stone of open source enterprise firewalls **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ismail Y. | Computer Emergency Response Team, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 01, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It is free and easy to anyone willing to apply themselves to and learn. The support is one of the best and the response is prompt. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The UI and design could be modernized to compete with other same category of firewalls. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Sometimes the firewall just won't respond and only had to be rebooted ### 35. It's an good firewall for small office where we explore multiple things. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Pharmaceuticals | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** 1. East to install. 2. Alert notification on time. 3. Package feature is also good and time to time updated. 4. Ntopng is good looking for monitoring. 5. Openvpn service is also very supportive for remote users. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** 1. Backup and recovery process needs to be easy to support. 2. Auto backup process also does not work sometimes. 3. Log management system needs to enhance. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are using it at covid time for remote users via VPN services it's easy to access and support users also. LAN management is also smooth. HAproxy also fantastic service. ### 36. Powerful & affordable/free firewall and network management system **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Duan D. | Executive Head of Department, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 29, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** PfSense offers an advanced, intuitive firewall with highly sophisticated and customisable network tools to effectively manage and protect one or more network properly. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The system could be complicated for beginners and intermediate users, but good videos are available online to help beginners and novice users. Additional add-ons would have been nice, especially for home and small business users who cannot afford separate systems or hardware-based systems. Tools to assess issues and challenges, e.g. throughput & latency, up or downstream. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense is a comprehensive firewall- and network management system at an affordable price. pfSense competes well against costly hardware firewall systems with even less functionality. pfSense is one of a few advanced firewall and network management systems that home users can use for free. pfSense integrates all the functionality of a firewall, network management and other tools into one system. It enables a small to medium enterprise's user- or network administrator to guard against cyber attacks. End device management is also part of pfSense. pfSense can manage access to certain features and (or) websites and services that could expose a business to security issues. ### 37. 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. ### 38. a very confort platform and have many gudie to configure **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** ivan S. | TI, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** the network control and the proxy service, also that can make my own VPN for the company, the service of check all th traffic and capture package is ver usefull and check ip **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** It not easy to configure a proxy squid for the service to check what site is my partner work use, or the certificate for my own DNS in the server, I need to know more because there so many guide, but all is in a different way to configure and kinda confusing **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** block websites, block traffic, control traffic network, prevent spam and virus for the internet, also create vlan for external use o for guess with low speed for then ### 39. A very powerfull free Linux-based Firewall with all the needed features **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rui Manuel C. | Senior Technical Support Specialist na HCL Technologies, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Well, first, the very intuitive front end. Also Youtube is full of videos showing how to configure almost all available features and different scenarios. Available documentation, foruns for troubleshooting some of the more common issues, and on top of that you may chose to pay for support (recommended in case of professional use). Another strong point here is that you may go for a hardware based firewall, or install PFsense on a computer with 2 ethernet adapters, and it doesn't require much resources. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** To be honest, so far I haven't found anything that I dislike. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** In my case, I use it only on my home lab. I have a Virtualization Server where I test software and Windows based domain configurations, etc. I have a VM with PFsense isolating that Virtual infrastructure from my home infrastructure, filtering traffic (since I also use the lab for sandboxing some software), creating several NAT for remote administration, blocking ports, redirecting ports, etc. I can explore all the settings and learn a lot about firewall use cases and configurations. ### 40. An excellent all in one firewall, router, and network security device. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jay P. | Senior Client Technologies Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I love that it is an open source all in one solution to help keep your network safe. It handles routing, DHCP, DNS, intrusion detection, VPN, firewall, and so much more. I put my ISP's router and my wifi router in bridge mode and let my NetGate pfsense box handle all my traffic. I like how you can ssh into it or use the web GUI. The wizards on the GUI are easy to follow to set up how you want your network to be. The hardware is small and doesn't take up a lot of room. The VPN wizards are awesome. It even has a package that will export a profile you can install on your iPhone or Android that will connect you to your VPN. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Some configurations are a little hard to understand, but that's if you're going for the genuinely complicated setups. Other than that, I have no other complaints. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It has reduced the hardware and different setups I must do to secure my network. It is very inexpensive to buy and operate. Configurations are easy to save in case of disaster recovery. ### 41. Incredible Build - Solid Experience **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 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?** From the moment I opened the box over two years ago, to the today, I've appreciated the perfect mixture of high-quality hardware, world-class service, and the best-in-class firewall/operating system mix (pfSense/FreeBSD). I love the open standard operating system (FreeBSD) and firewall (pfSense) because when I'm digging into configuration and customizations, I'm learning something applicable in other settings as well. I appreciate the wide selection of ports on the back of the appliance - allowing fantastic SOHO customization - and also the solid build quality, with a metal base and high-density plastic top. The status LEDs let me know at a glance when things are just working, or if there's a concern I need to look at (like upgrading the firewall's software to the latest version). The Netgate team keeps things current, so we don't have to worry as much about firewall exploits, and we can just set it and forget it. For a technical person who wants a perfect firewall appliance to cover their SOHO, this is ideal, and if the build quality of this unit is any indication of the build quality in the higher-tier units, I'm sure they're all fantastic. Reputable company, easy-to-configure product, holds up to the years. Perfect! **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The only time I had an issue with this firewall was during a software/firmware upgrade, where the unit would not boot back up. Many other folks had the same issue, and we were guided by support (even outside of warranty!) through the company's support forums to resolve the issue. The one way this could be better, and I've suggested this to the company in the past, would be more affordable support contracts for SOHO situations, where we're paying out of pocket for a firewall that we use in our homes. I don't want to pay $300 a year for support, but I also realize that 24x7 support costs money. So perhaps $100 per year for next-business-day support, or 8x5 or something? I'd love to see that, and it's really the only concern I've had about the product. I hope they implement a less expensive support model for self-supported products, where you maybe just need one or two chats/emails per year, during normal business hours during the week, after exhausting all the other support methods first. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** The pfSense firewall software provides an industry-standard solution for allowing my NAT'd IPv4 devices to communicate with the Internet, while keeping the Bad Guys out of my network. I feel confident that this Netgate appliance is the best solution for SOHO, and would absolutely recommend it to friends. The flexibilty of pfSense allows for plugins and extensions, which go far beyond a regular firewall appliance, and for a much more reasonable cost. A firewall appliance from a competitor might cost several times this, for far less. ### 42. A firewall that delivers **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ed H. | Senior IT Architect, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The opensource nature of the software solution **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The time it will take for a new person to learn it. But that is true for all software. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense solves a firewall issue with Comcast Business (CB), where their firewall solution is inferior. The pfSense firewall is very mature and offers better TCP/IP traffic control than CB. ### 43. pfSense makes it quite simple to setup your own firewall device. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daniel T. | Senior DevOps Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It's simple, fast, and has most of the features I'm looking for. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** pfBlocker and squidGuard are not as simple to use. It advertises that it can block IPs and URLs and keyword matching for websites on a Vlan or individual IP/Mac addresses basis, but I could not get it working well. It ended up blocking legitimate traffic instead of doing what it needed to. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's a lot faster than appliances like netgear, asus as routers. I'm able to get almost all of my 1 gigabit of bandwidth via ethernet. I have multiple LANs. It provides DNS/DHCP and static reservations. It provides a nice firewall as well and VPN tunnel as well. ### 44. Simply amazing, is the best open source and community driven firewall **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Miguel M. | Datacenter Analyst, Banking, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** To be able to use OpenVPN with other VPN providers without restrictions or constraints. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** If I had to point a thing, I would say that it needs more Packages. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It replaced completely a fortinet appliance! And has the benefits of cost reduction for my company! ### 45. Great firewall security appliance **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Doug L. | IT Support, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 30, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The cost of getting a pfsense firewall (with expert support) is considerably less that what it costs to adopt a cisco or palo alto device. The available addon software packages included with pfsense (suricata, snort, etc) make pfsense a complete security system fw+IDS for businesses of any size. My feeling is that pfsense will continue to become even better as it matures. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The only thing I would change about pfsense is that the hardware that it runs on. I think that it would be great if pfsense appliances whould ship with more robust CPU and RAM in the future, to make these appliances even more competitive in the enterprise markets. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have used pfsense to build ipsec point to point tunnels between our offices and also as a VPN concentrator for mobile and home users. Pfsense has work great for how we use it. ### 46. PFsense, Is one of the firewalls that has best adapted to my entire work **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Simeons S. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I like the adaptability and ease of use, as well as the great community that supports it **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I don't have any bad reviews. On the contrary, it is a robust tool. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It solves my network security problems. In addition to facilitating the efficient administration of the resources of my work environment ### 47. …and yes, is also a firewall! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** massimiliano l. | Radiologo, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** All the features needed in a lan in one machine with a stable web gui. Accessible from your phone and it's all free. Vpn, antivirus, reverse proxy, snort... **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The file system is very susceptible to back out. I need a good ups.... **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Vpn host to lan and lan to lan ### 48. A powerful, stable, Opensource-based Firewall **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nancy J. | Manager, Digital Innovation & E-Commerce, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 31, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Mostly, I love the simplicity and with a little of network knowledge, I can manage my network at home. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Since I'm not a technical guy, I have to go through a lot of reading to make it up. but at the end, the documentation is available and there are a lot of forums contributions that are also very useful. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use pfSense to control the network's access by doing isolation for the guest network. In addition, I create a policy for my children's devices to be able to manage access to the website "block and authorize" and when they may use the internet. ### 49. Great firewall software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Elijah L. | In-House Technician, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 07, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** PFsense is very easy to setup and maintain, there are very helpful descriptions for most settings and there is a large community supporting it as well. I have found it much easier to use and navigate than competitors like Watch Guard. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Unfortunatly software updates will occasionally brick the firewall and require a reinstall. If you are using netgate hardware such as a sg-3100 then there might not be a removable drive and if there becomes a hardware issue then you are probably sunk unless you can get to a shell to copy the file off of it. It would be nice if the updates were more reliable and if there was at least an mSATA or SATA DOM installed or even a small M.2 so you could get the config file off if the something happened to the hardware. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** At home I needed something capable of VLANS, multiple interfaces and a open source firewall I could learn and trust to protect my home network from my homelab. At work we are able to use it to connect clients to their servers in our datacenter with ease. The OpenVPN is fairly reliable and easy to troubleshoot when it doesn't work. Everything is easy to setup so we don't have to have only one person manageing/setting up and doing all things pfsense whichs saves time for our techincal director. ### 50. pfSense and Netgate are great **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 15, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** We don't need it often, but when we do the email support has been quick and great. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I'd like to see more development on the CE edition. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Remote office connectivity and Intrusion detection ## 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?page=4§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-25+05%3A53%3A18+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=8de50308-edf9-4b5c-b9b3-bdc6f795bae9&secure%5Btoken%5D=af0587d8a869d45d515455ed026aa8daccfbf3479a7ed4f1a2e26e2e5d8e88d2&format=llm_user) ## Netgate pfSense Integrations - [AWS Lambda](https://www.g2.com/products/aws-lambda/reviews) - [FortiGate SD-WAN](https://www.g2.com/products/fortigate-sd-wan/reviews) - [Sophos Firewall](https://www.g2.com/products/sophos-firewall/reviews) - [Tailscale](https://www.g2.com/products/tailscale/reviews) ## Netgate pfSense Features **Administration** - Policy Management - Logging and Reporting - Application Gateway - Concurrent Sessions **Agentic AI - Firewall Software** - Autonomous Task Execution - Adaptive Learning **Usage** - Multi-Device Usage - Multiple Concurrent Connections - Protocol Choices - Unlimited Bandwidth - No Log Storage - Varied Server Locations - Unlimited Server Switches **Functionality** - Virtual Private Network (VPN) - Antivirus - URL Filtering - Availability **Miscellaneous** - Live Customer Support - Open Source Code - Multiple Payment Methods **Monitoring** - Load Balancing - Continuous Analysis - Intrusion Prevention - Intrusion Detection **Generative AI** - AI Text Summarization **Artificial Intelligence - Firewall** - AI Firewall ## Top Netgate pfSense Alternatives - [Sophos Firewall](https://www.g2.com/products/sophos-firewall/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (814 reviews) - [Check Point Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs)](https://www.g2.com/products/check-point-next-generation-firewalls-ngfws/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (511 reviews) - [WatchGuard Network Security](https://www.g2.com/products/watchguard-network-security/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (248 reviews)