What users are saying about
12 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.5 out of 100
Based on 12 reviews and ratings
59 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.9 out of 100
Based on 59 reviews and ratings
Feature Set Ratings
Firewall Security Management
8.5
AWS Firewall Manager
85%

pfSense
Feature Set Not Supported
N/A
AWS Firewall Manager ranks higher in 8/8 features
AWS Firewall Manager ranks higher in 8/8 features
Policy planning and rule management
8.2
82%
4 Ratings

N/A
0 Ratings
Automated Policy Orchestration
8.7
87%
4 Ratings

N/A
0 Ratings
Device Discovery
8.2
82%
4 Ratings

N/A
0 Ratings
Policy Compliance Auditing
8.7
87%
4 Ratings

N/A
0 Ratings
Attack Path Simulation Testing
8.5
85%
4 Ratings

N/A
0 Ratings
Anomalous Event or Behavior Deviation
7.7
77%
4 Ratings

N/A
0 Ratings
Vulnerability Scans
9.0
90%
4 Ratings

N/A
0 Ratings
Firewall Rule Cleanup
9.0
90%
4 Ratings

N/A
0 Ratings
Firewall
AWS Firewall Manager
Feature Set Not Supported
N/A

8.5
pfSense
85%
pfSense ranks higher in 11/11 features
pfSense ranks higher in 11/11 features
Identification Technologies
N/A
0 Ratings

8.7
87%
8 Ratings
Visualization Tools
N/A
0 Ratings

7.8
78%
7 Ratings
Content Inspection
N/A
0 Ratings

7.3
73%
9 Ratings
Policy-based Controls
N/A
0 Ratings

8.4
84%
9 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP
N/A
0 Ratings

7.9
79%
8 Ratings
Firewall Management Console
N/A
0 Ratings

9.7
97%
8 Ratings
Reporting and Logging
N/A
0 Ratings

8.6
86%
9 Ratings
VPN
N/A
0 Ratings

8.8
88%
9 Ratings
High Availability
N/A
0 Ratings

8.9
89%
9 Ratings
Stateful Inspection
N/A
0 Ratings

8.9
89%
9 Ratings
Proxy Server
N/A
0 Ratings

8.2
82%
9 Ratings
Attribute Ratings
- pfSense is rated higher in 1 area: Likelihood to Recommend
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
AWS Firewall Manager
90%
4 Ratings

9.1
pfSense
91%
22 Ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
AWS Firewall Manager
AWS Firewall Manager is well suited for cloud environments that have a lot to manage and maintain. If you have a smaller scale cloud environment or on premise setup this may not be for you.
System Administrator
UngerboeckEvents Services, 501-1000 employees
pfSense
For fast-growing or SME companies, pfSense is quite suitable because pfSense already had many advanced features such as VPN and multiple WAN / LAN. As a result, we just need to pay for expensive router frequently to upgrade our infrastructure.
IT & T Manager
Madison (Hong Kong) LimitedRetail, 51-200 employees
Pros
AWS Firewall Manager
- Intuitive interface
- Real-time logs

Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology
Financial Services Company, 51-200 employeespfSense
- pfSense is an excellent firewall - It logs all of your traffic. It has packages you can install to snort bad traffic.
- pfSense has a tool called "p0f" which allows you to see what type of OS is trying to connect to you. You can filter these results and you can also block a specific OS from connecting to you.
- pfSense is an excellent load-balancer: (Multi-WAN and Server Load Balancing) The fail-over/aggregation works very well. This is perfect if your business uses multiple ISP's to ensure your customers are always able to access their data. Also helps with bandwidth distribution as well.
- VPN's - I am not entirely sure if this package was free with pfSense, but it does offer the ability to use OpenVPN which is what I am familiar with.
- They also have IPsec in the settings as well, but I am not familiar with that enough to go into any detail with it.
- As I mentioned I do use OpenVPN the only thing I don't care for with it is I can create OpenVPN configs for each user I want to be able to VPN into the network and I assumed each one would be "unique" but this does not seem to be the case. I could be doing it wrong, but if I create a config for a specific employee I would expect only that employee should be able to use that config, but I have been able to login to everyone that I made using my credentials.
- I mentioned earlier that pfSense had a GUI.
- I personally really think it is cool because it has a bunch of reporting graphs for monitoring your networks. I think when I become the full-time admin at the company I am going to try to talk them into getting me a TV I can mount on the wall and display all the graphs and real-time info pfSense shows so I can monitor what is going on with the network(s) at all times. Plus I think it would look rad.
Technical Support Specialist
TimeTrak Systems, Inc.Computer Software, 11-50 employees
Cons
AWS Firewall Manager
- It could provide more tutorials
- More training documents
Security Data Analyst
FacebookInternet, 10,001+ employees
pfSense
- There is no API for making changes. This can be a hindrance in environments where auto-deploying something needs firewall rules or HAProxy configs updated. Since all settings are stored in an XML file and then configs are generated from that, even manually updating config files cannot be done.
- Beware that some network cards can have issues. pfSense is based on FreeBSD, so it's best to look on their compatibility list before deploying.
Information Technology Manager
TimeTrak Systems, Inc.Computer Software, 11-50 employees
Pricing Details
AWS Firewall Manager
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
—AWS Firewall Manager Editions & Modules
—
Additional Pricing Details
—pfSense
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
$179 per appliance
pfSense Editions & Modules
Edition
SG-1100 | $1791 |
---|---|
SG-2100 | $2291 |
SG-3100 | $3991 |
SG-5100 | $6991 |
XG-7100-DT | $8991 |
XG-7100-1U | $9991 |
XG-1537 | $1,9491 |
XG-1541 | $2,6491 |
- per appliance
Additional Pricing Details
—Alternatives Considered
AWS Firewall Manager
AWS Firewall Manager is way better than our past experience of Azure Firewall with which we have witnessed a lot of troubles and luckily AWS proved as a guardian angle for us with its features and perfect working and compatibility. From protection to the facility to filter out web traffic everything sounds perfect. AWS is not as tricky and difficult to begin like that of Azure Firewall.
Digital support officer
HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS)Government Administration, 10,001+ employees
pfSense
Before pfSense we were using consumer and small business rated network appliances from Linksys, Cisco, Buffalo and Netgear. We were replacing them on average of every 6-12 months because they'd fail or would offer poor wifi availability.Switching to pfSense allowed us to use professional grade switches and wifi access points, offloading all of the services that the consumer grade products took care of, onto pfSense (DHCP, DNS, routing, firewall, VPN, etc).
Chief Technology Officer
LoudDoor, LLCMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
Return on Investment
AWS Firewall Manager
- Client retention
- Less need for tedious tasks (cost savings)
System Administrator
UngerboeckEvents Services, 501-1000 employees
pfSense
- Moving to a FWaaS solution installed on a decent computer the initial investment was moderate to cover 50 to 250 users, but still being cheaper that a Fortinet, Cisco ASA, or a Sophos UTM.
- Paying only for support can be a double edge knife, cause you need to identify what's the goal of the request, or your drown into a an endless list of requirements.
- To stay in the top with the half of a regular investment pFSense gives a wide variety of plugins that will give you a deep knowledge of your security flaws and strong points.
IT Manager
Stoneleaf Construction LLCConstruction, 51-200 employees