Netgate pfSense Reviews & Product Details

PFSense provides an extremely feature-rich platform without any of the annoying licensing structures that you find with other firewall vendors. If you're willing to invest the small amount of time it takes to learn the PFSense platform, you can build an enterprise-grade next-generation firewall that matches the features of any of the major firewall vendors' offerings for nothing more than the cost of the hardware itself. Now that I am comfortable with PFSense, I can't see myself ever using another type of firewall in my environment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The main downside for me is that it does take a little bit of time to become familiar and comfortable with the tool, but even this is a minor quibble, since this is true of any technology. Since documentation is robust and freely available, the only cost is the time it takes to read and understand it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

After conducting an in-depth analysis of various enterprise-level solutions, we discovered that many of them not only incurred a substantial initial acquisition cost but also imposed functional restrictions while subjecting users to additional charges based on their service usage. An illustrative instance is the requirement for multiple IPsec tunnels, which necessitates an extra fee per so many tunnels. Similarly, if one desires two WAN connections, an additional fee applies. In stark contrast, PfSense emerges as an all-encompassing solution, unencumbered by limitations. Our transition from Juniper and SonicWall, dating back 5 to 6 years, led us to replace every firewall in our infrastructure with Netgate hardware running PfSense. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is difficult for me to identify any significant shortcomings of PfSense. However, if I were to pinpoint one aspect, I would mention that the web interface, although entirely functional and intuitive, exhibits a slightly dated design. Additionally, the inclusion of pre-defined permission groups tailored for lower-level users and managers could prove beneficial. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that these features can be implemented without difficulty, as the user rights offer a high level of granularity, necessitating only the creation of custom groups. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

pfSense is just chock-full of incredible features and the GUI interface makes it pretty easy to implement them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

All of the power and features of pfSense may seem overwhelming for network-newbies, but there is a lot of documentation, community support, and other postings to help you discover best practices and methods. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It has been easy to use and setup. pfSense has easy tutorials to follow for creating firewall rules. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The hardest thing is trying to get the "A" record working to use hostnames in looking up endpoints. I have not been able to figure this out and get it working. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Technical support is in English only. For some people this can be overwhelming. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

OpenSource and has a good support network and community. its featrue rich alongside many paid for experiences with out the expiration or subscritpion stonghold many others makes Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Somet times can be a little confused on where to locate features or they require a 3rd party app, admin accounts do not support MFA without the need of a 3rd party app which can cause some issues reguarding smaller users or less tech focused user who require this as part of the UK gov Cyber essentials certification, many paid ooptions have this as a native option. Having this built in with the ability to use Authenticator app out of the box would be ideal Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Pfsense has been our choice for 10+ years. It is highly scalable and fits all scenarios, from home users wanting control over their internet connection to critical applications in the datacenter where hi-availability is paramount.

You want to export OpenVPN configs for clients from the dashboard? Sure! You want to automate configuration with Ansible? No problem either!

We've never encountered a situation where Pfsense lacked a feature, and new features can be easily added through additional packages without licence fees.

The most crucial aspect, however, is that security products like firewalls shall always be open source so that independent researchers may assess and verify the code. All closed-source solutions from the "big players" competitors fail at this critical point by design.

Pfsense. Works. Period. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

A centralised management solution with a GUI would be a very nice add-on. On the other hand, this might be really unfair to the competitors who may have to file for bankruptcy as it is among the only feature that PFsense does not (yet) cover... Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

With pfSense available as a community sourced application and available on a dedicated solution from Netgate it makes a IT Consultants job easy. Also coming from SonicWall to pfSense setting up and creating the rules is much easier Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The learning curve for basic firewall rule programming is easy, but when it come time to install other packages you really need to focus. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The amount of power and flexibility pfSense brings to your network is outstanding. The integrated VPN ability means connecting to my network from the outside is easy and doesn't require additional hardware. The complete control over how packets flow to and from the internet, and even across LANs; means I have control that lets me keep my network running efficiently and securely. If you're used to dealing with just the hardware your provider gives you, pfSense is a significant step up. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The learning curve can be a bit steep. pfSense doesn't make any assumptions, and you'll often have to tell it that you want traffic moving across LANs. It can all be a little daunting if you're not used to dealing with actual firewall configurations. But once you get over that hump, you'll find a level of control you didn't think was possible. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have been using pfSense Plus as my firewall software for a couple years and have been impressed with its performance and features. I am running it on a dedicated Netgate Device (an older SG-5100 model). Even though this piece of hardware has been discontinued from production, I am under the impression that the pfSense software will continue to be compatible and maintained to run on this device for quite some time. If and when I DO have to migrate, I appreciate that the Community Edition (or open-source pfSense CE) is similar enough to the Plus version that I could just as easily run the software on my own dedicated hardware of choice. I also understand that there is an option to purchase a license to the Plus version which unlocks the ability to run the Plus version on a DIY machine.

At this stage in the game, running the commercial version of the pfSense Plus (closed source) firewall makes the most sense to me. The inherent simplicity and reliability of a full-fledged package with its own specialized hardware and software implemented with added features seems like a decent enough business model for a company - and I have no qualms with this approach. There are certainly FOSS purists among us who will adamantly disagree and oppose Netgate's shift away from the single-stream development model of the firewall software... but I am not one of them, and I appreciate all that the company has to offer.

The web-based user interface of pfSense is straightforward to use, which is important for me as someone who doesn't have a ton of experience with firewall software. The dashboard provides a helpful overview of the system status and traffic, configuration pages are intuitive, for they allow me to customize settings without feeling as overwhelmed as one might with a command-line interface. I also appreciate that the firewall rule builder is easy to use and allows complex rules to be easily created. The software supports various VPN protocols, which has been helpful for me because I have to connect to a VPN occasionally. Additionally, there are several packages that be installed on top of the stock firewall software - which can provide a network administrator with even more customization and other powerful tools.

One thing to note is that pfSense may require more technical knowledge than other firewall software options. However, there is a large and helpful community that provides documentation and support, so I haven't found this to be an issue. Overall, I would highly recommend pfSense Plus as a powerful and easily customized firewall platform that can meet the needs of organizations of all sizes. Although I am running a rather simple network in a small home office environment, I am enticed by the fact that the software is not only highly effective when applied to a niche use-case scenario - but it is just as capable when used in an enterprise-level network build. I am happy that I have become accustomed to the experience of hardening my network against intrusion and malicious attacks by using pfSense Plus. I feel reassured when I consider all the company has to offer, and I look forward to seeing what else they can come up with in terms of community support and feature development. I am looking forward to the years ahead - with what I hope is continued stability and reliability from both an excellent hardware vendor and a great software development firm! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I find that the business model of providing support packages on a subscription basis is well out of my reach, financially - but I am happy to know that a decent amount of community support is available on the forums of Netgate and elsewhere on the internet as well. Also, if I were to nitpick upon the gritty details of the matter, I would like to see additional transparency and clarity regarding the shift to closed-source software - and what this means for the future of the Community Edition of pfSense. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.