Android vs. iOS vs. pfSense

Android is great if you are on a budget and can't purchase other operating systems for mobile devices. It is also great for installing third-party apps if you find one you like. Although there is a lot of customization options available, this may cause some users to become frustrated if they are unfamiliar with this system.

Incentivized

iOS works well when you want solid control over institutionally-owned devices. This generally works best when you play by Apple's rules and buy through them and use Apple School/Business Manager - so if you're going for a BYOD model, this probably isn't the way to do [it]. There is a wide variety of management tools, but bear the costs of each in mind.

Incentivized

I believe PFSense is well suited for both home lab environments as well as up to small to mid-size business environments on a tight budget. However, I would implore that anything in production requires the use of the authorized hardware that PFSense sells to receive support. However, in my experience, PFSense is a solid set-and-forget firewall solution.

• Affordable and available on many types of devices.
• Development and release is very convenient than other mobile platform.
• Cost to enter is low especially when considering the hardware side.

Incentivized

• Extraordinary compared to other OS on the lookout for the mobile devices. In the event that somebody needs an ad free and secure insight.
• Apple iOS give you heaps of inbuilt elements by which there is no need of any outsider applications.

Incentivized

• Easy to use. Good user interface design! Easy to understand and easy to set up.
• Lower hardware requirement. 3 years ago, we used an old PC to run it. Now, we have changed to a router device with Celeron CPU and 8GB RAM. It runs smoothly with a 1000G commercial broadband.

Incentivized

• Quick changes is little bit dificult to adapt as a developer
• There are no rstrictions on the notification, Every user is getting too much notifications
• Too much fake apps on the platefarm need to remove from playstore, Can improve the quality checks
• Therer are too much settings, and different on every brand its very confusing if changing the brand

Incentivized

• Replacing the battery is hard and shouldn't be.
• I know it is for security, but the ability to remote control iOS and help users would be great.
• Security can be tight with the iCloud and passcodes and you can brick a phone if you are not careful.

Incentivized

• I did kind of mention a Con in the Pro section with OpenVPN.
• When I create a config for an employee other employees are able to login to that config.
• I could be doing something wrong when I am making it - I am not afraid to admit that as I am pretty new to all of this, but it seems like it builds a key and I would think the key would be unique in some way to each employee, but I could be wrong.
• I actually do not have a lot of Con's for this software - I did not get to set this up on our work network so I am not sure of any downfalls when installing.
• I installed this on my personal machine in a Hyper-V environment to get a feel for it before I started working on it at work and it seemed pretty smooth. I didn't run into any issues.

Incentivized

It is very easy to use and the customer user interface is very smooth and logical. Rarely do applications crash and need reinstallation. The app store is secure enough to prevent malicious software from being advertised and potentially downloaded. Rebooting devices does not have to be a regular occurrence so this allows for high availability.

Incentivized

In all likelihood, common users will either already have experience with iOS on their iPhones, or will pick it up quickly. The UI is generally simple and mostly visual. Power users, on the other hand, may feel constrained by the inherent limitations built-in. Root access, terminal commands, and deep customization are not really to be found here.

Incentivized

The pfSense UI is easy to navigate and pretty go look at. It is much better than some high dollar firewalls that just throw menus you you. The pfSense UI is quick and responsive and makes sense 99% of the time. Changes are committed quickly and the hardware rarely requires a reboot. It just runs.

Incentivized

There have been only two times that I have needed to contact Android support for technical issues and both times I received some support. I received more helpful tips from Youtube, so I now bypass support and try to do most of our troubleshooting on my own with these support videos online.

Incentivized

Lots of help articles online for just about everything under the sun. I have never personally had to engage Apple's support team to comment on their helpfulness.

Incentivized

pfSense+ basic provides "As Available" email support. pfSense+ Pro offers 24 hr turn around email support. pfSense+ Enterprise offers 24/7 phone support.

Incentivized

Android allows users to customize their systems. It is very simple to use and there are a lot of devices running it. The interface has been improving a lot since Android Lollipop and it has been becoming more useful. For developers, Android gives more possibilities and the license for distributing your app is cheaper than the Apple Software Developer Program.

Incentivized

The software updates have a wide coverage for iPhone models and I love updating software for additional features and/or improved software stability. It has also genuine feel of the phones they offer. Easier to set up and use. It helps me do more productive tasks. If I have the latest phone model, I would have additional software advantages that are already included in my OS.

Incentivized

Meraki has a unified management login for all devices, which is nice. It also has decent content filtering, both areas where pfSense is weaker. Where pfSense far ouclasses Meraki is in the ease of use and the other width of features. These include features such as better VPN interoperability, non-subscription based pricing, auditability, not relying on the infrastructure of a third party, more transparency of what's actually going on, easier to deploy replacements if hardware fails. Additionally, the NAT management for pfSense seems to be a bit better, as you can NAT between any network segment and not just the LAN segments out the WAN interfaces.

• We have an Android mobile app and our customers have downloaded more than 5.000 instances in less than two months.
• With the app our customers don't need to go to our offices to get a support or service.

Incentivized

• Positive as far as cellular usage, phone tracking, and security for our users.
• Negative as far as battery replacement on older phones.
• Costs would be similar to android phones so security/simplicity is our main point here.

Incentivized

• pfSense can be installed on commodity hardware with no licensing fees. With a simple less than 10 minute restore time, on most hardware, it's an extremely inexpensive way to achieve the same results that some of the more expensive vendors provide.
• The easy to use interface has allowed configuration management to be preformed by lower level technicians with quick and easy training.

Incentivized