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pfSense

pfSense

Overview

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…

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Recent Reviews

pfSense

9 out of 10
January 17, 2024
Incentivized
pfSense is used to route internal development networks, either tagged or untagged, manage the ACLs between those networks, and forward …
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TrustRadius Insights

pfSense has proven to be a versatile and reliable network solution, addressing various use cases for organizations of different sizes and …
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Popular Features

View all 11 features
  • VPN (11)
    10.0
    100%
  • Policy-based Controls (11)
    10.0
    100%
  • Reporting and Logging (11)
    8.0
    80%
  • Content Inspection (11)
    4.1
    41%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Video Reviews

2 videos

pfSense Review: With Over 10 Years of Service, pfSense Proves To Be A Reliable Firewall For Business
02:15
User Benefits From Open Source Nature of pfSense When Limitations Are Solved By Others: User Review
03:33
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Pricing

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SG-1100

$179

On Premise
per appliance

SG-2100

$229

On Premise
per appliance

SG-3100

$399

On Premise
per appliance

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.netgate.com/pricing-pfsense…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

PFSense 2.4.4 with LCDproc on Broadband9 Firewall appliance! Tested with 100Mbit leased line

YouTube

Introduction of PFSense Open Source Firewall and Router

YouTube

pfSense installation and setup demo (VirtualBox)

YouTube

Building cloud firewall-router appliances for free: Installing Pfsense in Hyper-V

YouTube

pfSense Tutorial - How to enforce Google Safe Search using PfSense - Guide and Demo

YouTube

1. How to Install and Configure BGP in GNS3 using pfSense

YouTube
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Features

Firewall

A firewall is a filter that stands between a computer or computer network and the Internet. Each firewall can be programmed to keep specific traffic in or out

7.6
Avg 8.5
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Product Details

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 Videos

Pfsense vs Ubiquiti - Which is better for you?
In this video, TrustRadius goes over the pricing, top features, and user sentiment of pfSense.

pfSense Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationNo
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(70)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

pfSense has proven to be a versatile and reliable network solution, addressing various use cases for organizations of different sizes and industries. Users have successfully managed multiple ISPs and performed load balancing, ensuring efficient internet connectivity and reducing downtime. The ability to quickly backup and restore configurations has been appreciated by customers, providing peace of mind and minimizing disruptions. The stability and ease of management have been particularly important for small IT teams, allowing them to efficiently handle network operations.

Many organizations rely on pfSense as their primary firewall, utilizing its features for load balancing, failover, and hosting software and services. The support for multi-WAN and load balancing at both the WAN and load distributing levels has been highly beneficial for users. pfSense has also been successfully used to establish multiple IPsec tunnels for site-to-site VPN connections, enabling secure communication between different locations.

The scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness of pfSense have made it a great solution for small to medium-sized businesses. It can be easily customized and integrated into existing infrastructures, including the implementation of VLANs and time-based rules. The GUI and CLI versions of pfSense have streamlined management tasks, making it accessible to users with varying technical expertise.

Furthermore, the extensive online manual and community support have received praise from users, providing valuable resources for troubleshooting and guidance. The community-supported nature of pfSense ensures that it stays up-to-date with the latest security measures.

Overall, pfSense serves as a reliable network backbone, handling routing, VPN connections, security features, failover scenarios, and inter-VLAN routing. Its versatility eliminates the need for multiple servers in smaller environments while providing essential security functions. Users appreciate its basic security measures and routing features which make it a cost-effective solution for those with limited budgets. With its proven reliability and enterprise-grade features, pfSense continues to be a trusted choice for organizations seeking a powerful network solution.

Intuitive User Interface: Users have consistently praised the intuitive and user-friendly interface of pfSense. Many reviewers have expressed that the well-thought-out web interface makes it easy to configure firewall rules and set up VPNs, allowing them to perform tasks quickly and efficiently.

Informative Dashboard: The extensive dashboard of pfSense has received widespread praise from users. Reviewers have mentioned that the traffic graphics on the dashboard are wonderful and provide all the necessary information at a glance, making it easy to monitor network activity and performance.

Low Hardware Requirements: Users appreciate that pfSense can run smoothly even on older PCs or router devices with lower-end specifications. This is seen as a significant advantage by many reviewers as it allows them to implement pfSense without the need for expensive hardware upgrades.

Inconvenient integration with modems: Several users have expressed frustration that integrating modem functionality into pfSense is not possible, which can be inconvenient for those looking for a more comprehensive solution.

Challenging web GUI setup and management: Non-expert users may find it challenging to set up and manage the web GUI, particularly when it comes to assigning WAN and LAN interfaces.

Limited API and scripting capabilities: Some reviewers have highlighted the lack of an API for making changes in pfSense. This limitation can be a hindrance in environments where frequent updates to firewall rules or HAProxy configs are required.

Users have made several recommendations based on their experiences with pfSense. The most common recommendations are:

  • Users recommend reading the documentation and taking official training for pfSense. This suggestion highlights the importance of familiarizing oneself with the product and its features. By investing time in understanding the documentation and receiving official training, users can maximize their proficiency in network administration using pfSense.

  • Users suggest making the switch to pfSense and using reliable hardware. This recommendation emphasizes the benefits of utilizing pfSense as a comprehensive solution for routing and firewall requirements in network administration. By switching to pfSense and ensuring the use of reliable hardware, users can optimize their network resource management.

  • Users advise doing test builds and hardening before going live with pfSense. This recommendation underscores the importance of thorough testing and securing the system before implementing it in a live environment. By conducting test builds and hardening processes, users can identify potential issues or vulnerabilities, ensuring a smoother transition to pfSense.

These recommendations reflect user opinions on how to effectively utilize pfSense for routing and firewall requirements while optimizing network resource management.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-24 of 24)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
January 17, 2024

pfSense

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IPS/IDS, sniffer appliance, router/firewall, and VPN appliance are all well suited. I would not use it as a caching proxy (squid) and rely on different products.
Daniel Fisher | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
pfSense is great for homelab, home office, and small business deployments. Once you are able to justify their support package, support is very good. For my own use case, the software has been very reliable and updates were smooth.

For very large deployments, you will likely need to go with a larger and more expensive vendor requiring licensing.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Because pfSense is built around open source software, it is very convenient to be able to deploy in the event of hardware failure. We once had a client with a proprietary router that failed. While the router was under warranty, the expected time for the new router to arrive was about 2 weeks. We decided to implement pfSense for the client as a stop gap and ultimately ended up deploying the full enterprise appliance. Being able to get up and running using commodity hardware was a huge win for the client.

We've also had a great amount of success deploying pfSense hardware at apartment complexes. The DNS resolver works great and we've had no issues handling multiple VLANs with various DHCP scopes on it.

Finally, we've had clients that require having a failover cluster. Utilizing the built in CARP capabilities, we've been able to provide a very robust failover system that requires little maintenance and no downtime in the event of equipment failure.
Mario Matinelli | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
pfSense is the most complete solution in terms of features included even though it currently lack of a centralised management interface. pfSense is the most secure System because it is open source. Its code can be reviewed by anyone so any bugs and especially back doors would not go unnoticed. When it comes to security transparency and openness has been proven to be the most effective model. Many large and well known names in the market have been caught several times using poor security practices. The use of back door or poorly written code was discovered when it was already too late due to the lack of transparency.
June 28, 2021

Review for pfSense

Pardeep Sharma | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[I feel] pfSense is good only for small scale organizations and low security required organizations. If you need deep level packets scanning and other various advanced features then [I believe] this firewall is not good for you.. this features provides you very basic firewall features. In current world you have to protect your organization from various types of malware attacks but this firewall fails on that [in my experience].
Pretty Varughese | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
pfSense is well suited for medium & large scale infrastructure that needs high security & custom kernel so that they can integrate & develop there own system as it's based on FreeBSD. It also provides features such as remote VPN & custom rules.
Chirag Deol | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[pfSense] is well suited for Medium & Small scale enterprises as it's cost-effective & provides a number of features. It provides security features such as anti-spoofing, Sandboxing, content filtering. Also, it is easy to manage with the web GUI Console. [pfSense] is less suited for large-scale data center environments as it has not that many advanced security features.
June 22, 2021

Pfsense review

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[pfSense] provides you basic security and routing features. This firewall is well suited for ngo and very small organizations and startups. [In these] type of organizations there [is] less budget for security so this device provides you all basic features [without the cost.]
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
It is well suited where you need to create complex firewall rules either between WAN connections or between internal VLANs. It also is very scalable to allow you to have multiple WAN connections of different types and either prioritize or load balance the connections to different pools of users.

It is less appropriate for a home network environment.
James Freeman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Whilst I would love to see the addition of features like an API and/or CLI (both would be ideal), I love pfSense and would recommend it highly. I use it on my home network as well as in business settings, and it is robust, reliable, and easy to set up. The CARP or high availability functionality is quite easy to set up and works flawlessly. I can reboot my primary firewall and maybe drop 1 ping. It integrates well with my infrastructure including my UPS and has built-in Zabbix monitoring integration.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
pfSense is an excellent all-in-one solution for firewall/routing/VPN and other network-related roles that a small to medium business would need (or even advanced home users). It's extremely powerful and relatively easy to use.

It may be less suited for larger businesses where having an all-in-one product could be a disadvantage where a spread infrastructure is desired, very high scalability is necessary, or specific enterprise features aren't available.
Christian Shaheen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
pfSense is great for companies with medium budgets and advanced networking needs. It is very versatile and can be installed on any x86 platform with as little as 16GB of disk and 1GB of RAM. This makes it great for applications such as hosted environments where you only have VMs. It also supports many kinds of hardware so it can be spun up in a hurry without specific hardware.
Allan Leung | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
Charles R. Coggins III | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
pfSense is perfect for small-medium businesses (IMO). I also believe it would be a great tool for a home user/IT enthusiast who wants a great high-end firewall solution or someone who just wants to learn, but does not want to buy a bunch of hardware or licenses.

I installed pfSense on my Hyper-V with 5GB of space and 2GB of RAM.

I personally think pfSense is flexible enough for a large business and can probably do most things Cisco hardware and software can do, but I guess depending on how big you are you are probably looking for something more "known" like Cisco so if something goes wrong you can throw someone under the bus lol!

pfSense is open source and your support comes from a community of people who use the software where with Cisco if something goes wrong you are contacting another large business.
Aaron Smith | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
pfSense is well suited for many environments as a primary firewall, VPN server, and proxy server. For small to medium offices, it offers dead simple configuration and management. Large corporate environments may look to other big name providers, however pfSense can easily compete with those in performance and reliability. Hardware devices can also be purchased making pfSense an all-in-one solution for even the largest of environments.

pfSense is less well suited for home or home-office environments as it's a little over kill and with high bandwidth home connections, a larger device will be needed for throughput.
germary zambrano | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The scenarios where this software can be used are where companies have a large number of users in the network, to create reliable network structures for services. It's also well suited in companies that create applications or systems that have to launch them to the internet and this system can be managed DNS server to be assigned to these applications.
In short, this system is very complete and can be used in large, medium or small companies. It is only necessary to have a vision of what is required and this software will cover your needs.
Victor Arana | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Pfsense will perfectly fit in to branch offices, mid size companies and will fulfill all the goals to merge all the ISP and have a less exposed web navigation. For those companies that need load balancing, VPN connections with less effort and reducing the cost of licenses Pfsense lets you control the traffic with accurate insight.
Jim Rubenstein | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
pfSense is great for us, in a small business environment. It offers all the features and capabilities that we need, at the right price.

I'm not sure how pfSense would fare in a larger network environment (multiple hundreds - thousands of users) as I've never supported a network with that many users.

For small - medium sized businesses, with a part time network administrator available, pfSense is perfect.
Paolo Daniele | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Great scenario is to use pfsense as a router to protect your network from unwanted access. It is possible to integrate some modules like pfBlocker to deny/allow inbound from specific country or to prevent some spam from an IP address in public spam list databases.
It's useful in a SOHO infrastructure but for a very large company with a high constant bandwidth traffic, there are more powerful tools.
July 27, 2016

pfSense - Review

Rikia Kosaka | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I would totally be fine with putting pfSense in an operations/office space. I would be hesitant to put pfSense in a production environment. Likely reasoning being hardware, however I've seen many new pfSense hardware coming out in the recent days though I have yet to use them.
Richard Kiernan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
pfSense may be deemed too risky an investment for larger organisations as their perceptions that they need to purchase an "enterprise appliance" will carry more gravitas with a CTO or IT head but it's important that potential users understand that most firewall solutions are built off the same Unix derived core code and as such you're paying over the odds for the name not better technology.
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