TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    pfSense

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ApfSense is a firewall and load management product available through the open source pfSense Community Edition, as well as a the licensed edition, pfSense Plus (formerly known as pfSense Enterprise). The solution provides combined firewall, VPN, and router functionality, and can be deployed through the cloud (AWS or Azure), or on-premises with a Netgate appliance. It as scalable capacities, with functionality for SMBs. As a firewall, pfSense offers Stateful packet inspection, concurrent…

    $179

    per appliance

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/ARed Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux distribution mainly used in commercial data centers.N/A
    Pricing
    pfSenseRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Editions & Modules
    SG-1100
    $179
    per appliance
    SG-2100
    $229
    per appliance
    SG-3100
    $399
    per appliance
    SG-5100
    $699
    per appliance
    XG-7100-DT
    $899
    per appliance
    XG-7100-1U
    $999
    per appliance
    XG-1537
    $1,949
    per appliance
    XG-1541
    $2,649
    per appliance
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    pfSenseRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    pfSenseRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Considered Both Products
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    Chose pfSense
    pfSense is just a more flexible, lower-cost solution—it can be installed (if you wish) on just about any x86 hardware or even virtual machines - the community edition is free and so enables rapid prototyping and low-cost prototyping and lab build out—something that isn't …
    Incentivized
    Red Hat
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    16 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    295 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    17 Answers
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    253 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    16 Answers
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    289 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    14 Answers
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    188 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    16 Answers
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    253 Answers
    Features
    pfSenseRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of pfSense and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Feature
    pfSense
    8.9
    17 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    -
    Ratings
    Identification Technologies8.714 Ratings00 Ratings
    Visualization Tools8.714 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content Inspection9.216 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls8.717 Ratings00 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP7.913 Ratings00 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console9.516 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging8.417 Ratings00 Ratings
    VPN9.117 Ratings00 Ratings
    High Availability9.416 Ratings00 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection10.015 Ratings00 Ratings
    Proxy Server8.415 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating System
    Comparison of Operating System features of pfSense and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Feature
    pfSense
    -
    Ratings
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    8.4
    78 Ratings
    4% below category average
    File Management00 Ratings8.073 Ratings
    Software Application Management00 Ratings8.075 Ratings
    System Update Frequency00 Ratings8.276 Ratings
    Operating System Security00 Ratings9.378 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    pfSenseRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Small Businesses
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.3 out of 10
    CentOS Linux
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.6 out of 10
    IBM AIX
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    Ubuntu
    Score8.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    pfSenseRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.3
    (30 ratings)
    8.8
    (302 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    9.7
    (8 ratings)
    8.5
    (194 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (9 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    pfSenseRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    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.
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    There's a lot of things that can and can't be discussed. But as I mentioned earlier, cloud computing and on-prem, and very much like in the cloud, having a standard image ISO, deploying that, the configurations with Ansible or packages installed via Ansible, instead of just a Kickstart script, you have a set of scripts that run in a pipeline that deploy Red Hat. So I'd say the environments, every time I've used Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a computing solution has been, like I mentioned, reusable, scalable, positive. And I don't think I've ever found any situations where I wish I were using something other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux, because the support is not there for anything else as much as it is for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    • 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
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    • Virtualization, like the operating system level task. I see this product is very good and it blends very well with the middleware components like all the JBoss and other things. And other than that, either you install it or a virtual machine or physical servers, it works seamlessly anywhere. And if you want to go further, like Red Hat OpenShift or those things also work very nice with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    • 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
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) needs better built-in developer-centric tooling.
    • The desktop experience is too barebones, which makes it less attractive for developer workstations.
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) needs to be integrated and available in GItHub Actions as a supported platform so code developed on GitHub can be tested and qualified there.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    We find RHEL to be a superior OS with stable operations and long life. It is also easier to use and fix then most other OS's.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    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
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    It's pretty intuitive and easy to use. Everything is adjustable; everything is customizable through a set of yaml's and everything can be undone and re-done. Doing items such a modification and restarting the single app doesnt take down the whole operating system like one of the more popular GUI based operating systems. We can work on live production systems without breaking into a sweat.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Product support and regular patches.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    As with any OS enhanced testing will need to be done prior to application integration.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    pfSense+ basic provides "As Available" email support. pfSense+ Pro offers 24 hr turn around email support. pfSense+ Enterprise offers 24/7 phone support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    Red Hat support has really come a long way in the last 10 years, The general support is great, and the specialized product support teams are extremely knowledgeable about their specific products. Response time is good and you never need to escalate.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Don't be afraid of it, its easy to install and configure for the tasks needed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    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.
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    Windows Server can take a long time to patch, waiting for the patch to install, then waiting to apply, after the OS is rebooted it can also take additional time to apply the update. Often times Windows Server patches can fail, leading to long troubleshooting times and application outages. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Patching is extremely quick, I've honestly not seen a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) update fail to install in many years of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) patching.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Operational ease of use backed by support
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    • 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
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    • It has done wonders for my career because I come from a Linux background, HPUX, Solaris and AIX. So made this transition to Linux 20 years ago. So it has really put my career at the forefront of what we do in the company. We're still primarily a window shop, but with Red Hat and what they're doing with the Kubernetes integration with OpenShift, with the East Satellite Management, the Ansible stuff, all based on Red Hat. It's taken off at my company and we're very happy about it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots