Robust, configurable, feature-rich, and RELIABLE network infrastructure at the perfect price.
September 12, 2017

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

Jim Rubenstein | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with pfSense

We are a small business, so we use pfSense to manage our office network.

I support ~15 network users, which represent something more like 30-40 devices (after notebooks, mobile phones, tablets, etc are accounted for).

pfSense is used as the primary router to our internet connection, as well as our VPN connect endpoint, local DNS resolution, and internet connection failover. Having all of these services bundled in one powerful, well supported, and robust software configuration platform saves a ton of time and makes managing our internal office network very easy.
  • Point and click configuration for nearly any network infrastructure service you could need
  • Centralized configuration, with documentation, of all firewall rules, dhcp lease rules, vlan routes, etc
  • Fast security updates when vulnerabilities (and patches) are found in any of the software that pfSense uses out of the box
  • Super simple to deploy
  • Light-weight, doesn't need a high end system to run
  • Some services can be clunky to configure if you're not 100% familiar with the technology
  • Service configuration is bound to the pfSense interface, so if the UI doesn't expose configuration for a feature you need (and the service supports it), it's a significant challenge to configure the service outside of the pfSense system. (Note: this has rarely been an issue for us, once or twice in the entire time we've used the software)
  • Using pfSense has allowed us to build a professional network in our small office without needing a lot of proprietary hardware, saving thousands of dollars in IT infrastructure investment.
  • The cost for using pfSense is free, so it's a great option for those who don't have a large IT budget
  • pfSense utilizes all of the industry standard services to provide all of it's functionality, so support for service-level issues is readily available
  • Because of how much work has been put into pfSense to make it rock solid and reliable, we're able to support our network with minimal IT staffing, saving us thousands of dollars/year in personnel alone.
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).
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.