We were using Sophos XG Firewall in our environment before but we need a product that is customizable & provides low cost high security features. pfSense provided us high security features with customizable options as it's kernel is based on freeBSD.

June 22, 2021

Pfsense for best security features

Chirag Deol

Chief Marketing Officer

Boxinall (Information Technology & Services, 1-10 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Sophos XG Firewall

We were using Sophos XG Firewall in our environment but when it comes to cost it's more expensive with limited features. After using [pfSense] we are getting more security features at less cost. After pfSense provides a bundle of security features such as anti-spamming, Sandboxing [and] Content filtering.

May 12, 2021

pfSense: The best of all worlds, community and enterprise supported

James Freeman

IT Consultant

A24.io (Information Technology & Services, 11-50 employees)

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

SonicWall TZ and Checkpoint Halo

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 possible with other higher priced commercial solutions. It keeps our network secure and supports two popular IDS solutions as well and known bad address blocking and management. The availability of ready-built appliances and an enterprise-supported version means the best of both worlds —enterprise-grade when you want it, and free community supported when budgets require it.

May 11, 2021

pfSence is good but not the best

Vipin Sharma

network security engineer

MulitTech Servers (Information Technology & Services, 1-10 employees)

Score 7 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Cisco ASA

PfSence is an open-source product and offering all the normal firewall features Cisco ASA is charging for. If I can get the same features for free, why would I pay. pfSense is mainly used by non-profit organizations where they don't have any budget for firewalls and want normal security for their organization.

June 22, 2021

Good firewall "Pfsence" ....my review.

Neha Sharma

Senior Analyst

R1 RCM (Computer Networking, 501-1000 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Cisco ASA

Cisco ASA is a very good firewall but when we compare the cost and security features then pfSense is better [than] Cisco ASA. There are lots of security features which are missing in Cisco ASA and if you want [those] features in Cisco ASA then you have to go with firepower[,] but firepower cost is very high. [pfSense] provides you all features [at a] very low cost.

May 13, 2021

Extremely flexible with a vast range of configurations and features for very little cost. Highly reliable.

Verified User

Technician in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 1-10 employees

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Reseller

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

pfSense offers more options and scales very easily.

May 10, 2021

The best small-to-medium business software based firewall

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Religious Institutions Company, 11-50 employees

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services

pfSense is a lot cheaper and has higher firewall throughput per dollar than "enterprise" network appliances. It's also significantly easier to configure and learn. It may not have some of the "enterprise" features or the support level that someone like Cisco has, but for small to medium businesses or non-critical functions it's the best software based network appliance.

April 02, 2019

pfSense Review from an SME IT manager

Allan Leung

IT & T Manager

Madison (Hong Kong) Limited (Retail, 51-200 employees)

Score 8 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Routers

First of all, I don't need to be a Cisco professional to manage VPN, load balance, multiple WAN/LAN, Firewall and etc. pfSense has an easy-to-use web interface and I can do everything and add packaged add-on services. Moreover, for Small & Medium Enterprise, IT budget is already a concern. A spare computer + free software license is quite a bit more attractive than Cisco products.

May 28, 2019

pfSense - A great middle of the road solution

Christian Shaheen

Owner

CShaheen Tech (Information Technology and Services, 1-10 employees)

Score 8 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Ubiquiti Networks UniFi

pfSense itself is free and can be installed on just about any hardware so from a hardware cost perspective it can beat out anybody. In terms of features it's above many pro-sumer/small business solutions like Ubiquiti. It can't really stand against high-end gear like Cisco but It can easily handle up to medium-sized businesses.

November 30, 2018

pfSense offers an all in one network appliance that saves time and money!

Aaron Smith

Information Technology Manager

TimeTrak Systems, Inc. (Computer Software, 11-50 employees)

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Ubiquiti Networks UniFi, SonicWall TZ and Untangle NG Firewall

While you can get the performance out of other products, pfSense offers the unique ability to put other services on the same device. Products such as Untagle's NG Firewall and SonicWall's TZ series offer cost effective options for firewall and VPN services, having incoming load balancing and connection proxies on the same device as the firewall offers extremely easy configuration and day to day management of network services.

December 22, 2018

pfSense firewall/router is a lightweight and supported alternative to hardware-based options.

Roger Mialkowski

Sole Proprietor

Zombie Computers (Information Technology and Services, 1-10 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Sophos UTM and Untangle NG Firewall

pfSense requires a much smaller footprint than the heavier options out there. It is slim enough to get the job done while the optional add-ons can extend its overall functionality on an as-needed basis. It also does not limit/cripple functionality and features like the bigger solutions available out there that would otherwise require an upgrade to operate.

March 07, 2019

pfSense is rock solid

Jay Moore

CIO

The National Beta Club (Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees)

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

SonicWall TZ, Check Point Next Generation Firewall and F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall

I have not seen a single thing that these other products do that pfSense does not. In fact, the performance/throughput of pfSense is better in my opinion.

February 07, 2018

PfSense decent Open Source Firewall to reduce costs!

Victor Arana

IT Manager

Stoneleaf Construction LLC (Construction, 51-200 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Fortinet FortiGate, Sophos UTM and Cisco ASA

It's an open source solution can support from 50 to 700 user without sweating and with the half of the standard bundle investment that will take to deploy a FortiGate UTM, or a Cisco ASA, also a Sophos UTM that are quite remarkable units but to pFSense saves you money and will cut the lack of extras that has other branches using their plugins and the easy deployment steps this is a Firewall based on an open source software well fed for clever IT admins or pro Linux companies.

February 13, 2018

iron firewall for your services

germary zambrano

jefe del departamento de informatica

ministerio de educacion (Computer & Network Security, 1-10 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Smoothwall SWG

pfSense is a new and innovative platform that has learned from the errors of older systems, which helps it cover the needs that aren't covered by Smoothwall.

September 12, 2017

Robust, configurable, feature-rich, and RELIABLE network infrastructure at the perfect price.

Jim Rubenstein

Chief Technology Officer

LoudDoor, LLC (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

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).

May 01, 2017

PfSense: A powerful tool in your hand

Paolo Daniele

Senior Network Engineer

TLCWEB (Information Technology and Services, 1-10 employees)

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Opnsense, Ipcop and Smoothwall

Real competition was between Pfsense and OpnSense that integrates first the bootstrap Twitter framework. But with OpSense there are configurations that create some problems with a specific client (we've experienced that by creating an IPSec tunnel both with OpSense and PfSense).

Also with pfsense you do not need complex hardware to release all the potential of this solution.

July 27, 2016

pfSense - Review

Rikia Kosaka

Senior Systems Engineer

Real Estate Digital (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

I've used a number of routers like Cisco, Sonicwall, Juniper, Home based routers, etc. pfSense is like most routers but with the benefit of load balancing and multi-wan. Well many support multi-wan but load balancing is usually a separate device like an BIGiP F5 or Cisco CSS.

May 09, 2016

It's free - what's not to like!

Richard Kiernan

CTO and co founder

Sun Agile Software (Computer Software, 11-50 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

pfSense was chosen due to its excellent community support and forums

July 27, 2016

pfSense - A Great Choice for Network Security

Jim Nitterauer

Senior Systems Administrator

AppRiver, LLC (Computer & Network Security, 1-10 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

Cisco ASA

Neither of the Cisco devices are designed to compete. pfSense does tons more.

March 30, 2019

Very competitive reliable solution

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Mechanical or Industrial Engineering Company, 51-200 employees

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Review Source

Alternatives Considered

SonicWall VPN Clients

Pfsense seemed to always be cheaper and just as good as its competitors.

pfSense Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (23): 89%
8.9

Feature Scorecard Summary

Firewall (11): 85%
8.5

What is pfSense?

pfSense 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 IPv4 and IPv6 support, and intrusion prevention. Within its VPN capabilities, it provides SSL encryption, automatic or custom routing, and multiple tunneling options. pfSense also supports optional clustering and load-balancing, along with proxying and content filtering services. The product can also monitor and report on network traffic.

pfSense Pricing

More Pricing Information

On-premise Editions Pricing
	Pricing Details	Terms
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

pfSense Technical Details

Deployment Types	On-premise
Operating Systems	Windows
Mobile Application	No

Frequently Asked Questions

What are pfSense's top competitors?

MikroTik Routers and Switches, Ubiquiti Networks UniFi, and Sophos XG Firewall are common alternatives for pfSense.

What is pfSense's best feature?

Reviewers rate Firewall Management Console highest, with a score of 9.4.

Who uses pfSense?

The most common users of pfSense are from Small Businesses and the Information Technology & Services industry.