Item: pfSense
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with pfSense

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

pfSense is used to route internal development networks, either tagged or untagged, manage the ACLs between those networks, and forward specific protocols and ports from the outside to a DMZ. pfSense has been deployed in a HA configuration and IDS/IPS has also been set up by using snort. Snort is also used to prioritize some traffic over others.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Filtering and NAT forwarding.
Routing
IDS/IPS
VPN

Cons

IDS/IPS requires tuning and is sometimes too aggressive.
Filtering acts only by specifying ips. Even if less performing and secure, allowing the user also to insert DNS names would be a nice option.

Return on Investment

We use pfSense CE version wich can run on any hardware or VM almost for free. As it perfectly suits our scenario is has and immediate ROI

Usability

The interface is well organized and intuitive. Provided adequate knowledge it allows deep controll over static or dynamic rules, QoS and even on network intrusion and detection with snort.
The IPSec VPNs can easily configured and are veri stable.

Alternatives Considered

Fortinet FortiGate and WatchGuard Network Security

pfSense does almost all what the other brands do and the CE Edition is free even if complete.

Key Insights

Do you think pfSense delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with pfSense's feature set?

Yes

Did pfSense live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of pfSense go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy pfSense again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard Network Security

Likelihood to Recommend

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.
VPN manament and reliability is great either for roaming users or IPSec connections.
pfSense can also be used with snort providing good performances.

pfSense Feature Ratings

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