--- title: Netgate pfSense Reviews meta_title: 'Netgate pfSense Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 326 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Netgate pfSense works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.7 review_count: 326 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-06-22' parent_category: name: Network Security url: https://www.g2.com/categories/network-security --- # Netgate pfSense Reviews **Vendor:** Netgate **Category:** [Firewall Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/firewall-software) **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 326 ## About Netgate pfSense pfSense® Plus software is the world’s most trusted firewall. The software has garnered the respect and adoration of users worldwide - installed well over three million times. Made possible by open source technology. Made into a robust, reliable, dependable product by Netgate. ## Netgate pfSense Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users enjoy the **ease of use** of Netgate pfSense, appreciating its intuitive interface and helpful documentation. (3 reviews) - Users value the **customizability** of Netgate pfSense, appreciating the freedom to configure their routers as desired. (2 reviews) - Users find the **easy setup** of Netgate pfSense intuitive, facilitating quick and efficient configuration for admins. (2 reviews) - Users value the **control and flexibility** of Netgate pfSense, appreciating its reliability and user-friendly interface. (2 reviews) - Users value the **robust security** features of Netgate pfSense, ensuring reliable and flexible protection for their networks. (2 reviews) - Control (1 reviews) - Users highlight the **excellent customer support** of Netgate pfSense, enhancing their experience with prompt assistance when needed. (1 reviews) - Users love the **customization options** of Netgate pfSense, enabling tailored configurations for unique network needs. (1 reviews) - Documentation (1 reviews) - Users highlight the **ease of implementation** of Netgate pfSense, allowing quick setup and configuration within minutes. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **complex configuration** challenging, particularly for newcomers, making initial setup difficult without prior experience. (2 reviews) - Users find the **difficult learning curve** intimidating, especially those new to networking and advanced configurations. (2 reviews) - Users find the **expertise required** for Netgate pfSense challenging, particularly if they're new to networking. (1 reviews) - Users find the **high resource usage** of Netgate pfSense to be unintuitive, leading to significant hardware memory consumption. (1 reviews) - Users note **integration issues** with the CE edition, indicating a need for improved support and security enhancements. (1 reviews) - Users find the **lack of guidance** in pfSense challenging, especially without prior network knowledge or experience. (1 reviews) - Users find the **steep learning curve** of Netgate pfSense challenging, especially for those new to networking. (1 reviews) - Limited Options (1 reviews) - Poor Interface Design (1 reviews) - Users find the **poor support services** of Netgate pfSense problematic, making troubleshooting and upgrades frustrating. (1 reviews) ## Netgate pfSense Reviews ### 1. Easy Setup, Reliable High Availability, Needs Better Hardware Performance on Entry Level Hardware **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shawn L. | Senior Systems Administrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I like that Netgate pfSense is easy to configure, making setup straightforward for both my team and clients. The tech support is great, which I find really helpful whenever issues arise. The High Availability (HA) feature works great for us, especially in our government client's networks. It's nice to be able to patch the firewalls during business hours, knowing that if one firewall fails, the second one will pick up without any interruption, and VPN access remains smooth. I also appreciate the better update cycles compared to FortiGate or Sonicwalls, as it seems there are fewer patch releases to deal with. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Some of the hardware appliances seem underpowered. The lower end appliances are slow to apply updates, don't have enough memory for some of the packages, and are just overall sluggish when navigating the GUI. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Netgate pfSense offers better update cycles with fewer patch releases, is easy to configure, and provides great tech support. The High Availability works well, allowing updates during business hours without downtime and ensuring VPN accessibility. ### 2. Reliable, Flexible, and Built for Real Control **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** MD D. | QA, Computer Software, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2026 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** What I like most about Netgate pfSense is how much control it gives you without being overly complicated. It’s reliable, secure, and flexible enough to handle everything from basic setups to more advanced networking needs. I also appreciate that it’s not a closed system **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** If I had to point out a downside, it would be that the interface can feel a bit overwhelming at first, especially if you’re new to networking. Some advanced features take time to understand, and the learning curve can be steep. It’s powerful, but you do need some technical knowledge to get the most out of it. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Netgate pfSense solves the problem of having limited control and weak security with typical off-the-shelf routers. It gives you advanced firewall protection, better traffic management, and reliable VPN options in one place. For me, that means more control over my network, better security, and the ability to customize everything based on my needs instead of being stuck with basic features. ### 3. Easy to use, good performance, and great value for money **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** JONATHAN GABRIEL C. | network systems technician, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 08, 2026 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It is easy to use and, for the price, it works well. It integrates well into our service as we reach a server. The performance is good. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** it is a bit outdated compared to the new generation ones **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have a server where it was not possible to establish a VPN connection with another firewall, and that's where pfSense helped us. ### 4. robust networking solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tony C. | Platform Software Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 30, 2026 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** the ability to configure your own router HOWEVER you want! **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** a little bit unintuitive to manage system resources, sometimes eats up a lot of hardware memory. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** - ability to adapt to different custom hardware - ability to provide configurations for firewalls and traffic monitoring - native integration with WireGuard and Tailscale - native pfblockerng capability ### 5. Great Features for Self-Starters, but Support Can Feel Dismissive **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Scott B. | Unix Linux System Administrator III, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 15, 2026 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It has great features if you will research them **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Support is the RTFM type. Only interesting issues tend to get help the the rest you are made to feel bad for asking. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** It was a great firewall that only costs you time. ### 6. Best Firewall Routing ever **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ruben T. | CEO - Founder - Owner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 02, 2025 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Time to learn how to communicate the requirements to the product (having experience in firewall from other platforms) **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There is no NGF and SDWAN does not have Spanish support from Netgate. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Practicality to develop, almost all solutions in one box. ### 7. PfSense+ || Netgate ||Supermicro || Product review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shaik B. | Security Architect, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 13, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Awesome product I have ever seen in free of cost. Very powerfull opensource Firewall with full bundeled packed. Its very easy to use software and hardware, I can customize many things as like I can add additional ports and SSD ect.. I took only 30 minutes to make this product live very smooth and easy to implimentation. Yes, I have TAC Enterprice support so I get very good quick and premium support as I usually get from many other premium Firewall provider. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Since this is opensource, If you know the concept then only this product is helpfull or else you will feel very dificylty to impliment itself. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** PfSense+ solved my many problems from the traditional Firewall. 1, Cost. 2, URL filtering. 3, End users tracking. 4, multi WAN as I want. 5, Load balancing as per my priority. 6, Captive portal and IPS/IDS. 7, User identity and self hosted RADIUS. etc.., ### 8. pfSense - reliable and user friendly. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 05, 2025 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The interface is easy to use, well organized, and easy for admins to setup. Their support documentation/forums are well documented and up to date. I think it's secure when integrated with the right platforms and packs cool useful features. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The CE edition could have better support, although kept up to date, they can improve on security and some integrations. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** VPN integration and configuration/management, radius and simplifies traffic management. ### 9. Network admin **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** deepak s. | IT Admin, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 12, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Easy to install, Easy to understand, Easy to implement, rules creation and log check process use full and easy tounderstand and reporting pasrt also very stroing and use full bandwidth management and capping very easy.Very fast customer/tesc support. User it on daily basis. easy to integrated packages. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Backup process may have auto process for tackn and installation. CLI past have some comlications. path and storage auto cleaning process issue and version dependancey. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** VPN services at the time of covid very use full for us and we sun the app poeration smoothe for WFH user and we adopted this process and function till now. ### 10. pfsense is one of the appliance that is recommended for stock router replacement **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohd, R. | Software System Staff Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 17, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfsense allow you to build your own router using your CPU that is no longer in use. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** It is a bit hard to configure for the first time. But netgate did provide the user guide for installation/configuration that you can use as reference. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfsense is a replacement for my stock router that is provide by ISP. I want to explore the available options. ### 11. Is a good option for basic needs **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2025 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Is easy manage using the web interface. Comes with a good logic and help to solve the basics needs for standard connections **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Dont have options to interact confortly using CLI or scripting **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** centralize the solution to keep the connectivity managed easily ### 12. Fantastic when deployed in a virtualized environment **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chris G. | President, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense is easy and fast to deploy on a variety of platforms, depending on the use case. As an enterprise service provider, we assist our customers with the deployment and hosting of systems in our cloud environment as well as on-prem datacenters. These are typically customers who for reasons of their own are not willing to trust a public cloud with their data. Having the ability to choose a hardware solution or virtualized installation of the pfSense software grants lots of freedom in design and deployment. The web-based interface is intuitive and responsive. It's certainly competitive with other offerings. We have engaged with support on a one-off as well as TAC subscription basis and find Netgate / pfSense support to be first rate. We appreciate having a trusted partner. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense update management can sometimes be a bit ungainly. We'd really appreciate the ability to enable automated updates, especially to patch security threats. Or perhaps even a notification that would be sent to the pfSense admin when a new update is available. Oftentimes the only time a user realizes there is an update is when they log into the web interface, and many of our users can go weeks or months between log-ins. A push or email notification would be helpful in this regard. Lower-end pfSense appliances from Netgate have shown themselves to be a bit flaky. They will lock up on updates, or sometimes lock up for no reason at all. When this happens, we've noted that even a reboot of the system doesn't bring it back online and it must be accessed via emulated serial console (over USB) in order to manually walk it through a startup sequence. This is extremely problematic at remote / unstaffed locations. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense is great at the customer edge. IPSEC tunnels are quick and easy and perform especially well in our virtualized environments. In addition, the built-in OpenVPN with the client config builder is a great timesaver. We're also experimenting with multi-tenancy options that allow a single installation to reach across multiple VLAN'd networks, providing unique internal subnets and routing for each. ### 13. Great open source firewall, good hardware **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christian H. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I have been using pfSense for many years. First on my own hardware and later on netgates hardware. The System is easy enough to use but also gives you the ability to have fine tuned rules. I think because the pfSense Firewall software is open source and has a very large community you have a higher chance to find solutions to edge cases than with other non-open source firewalls. Some solutions might feel a bit hacky but there's always a way to get the software to behave like you want **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I have had a few clients which have the 1000+$ Netgate 7100 hardware firewall which have had heat related problems (total freeze if the temperature exeeds a value that it was easily reaching in normal use). After opening the case I realized the heat sinks were mounted in the wrong orientation (not with, but against airflow) which seemed to be a production error because later versions of this firewall had the fans on the side and the rotated orientation would make sense there but not with the version my customers had. After fixing the orientation of the heat sinks I had no more overheating problems though. Thanks to the standard hardware it was easy enough to fix. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense is a good blend of a for-profit company and open source software. They benefit from the large community which is there because it is open source, and companies benefit from having Netgate as a primary contact for support. The market for open source firewall software is not very large and pfSense is the main choice for people who want to use open source and selfhostable software. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > Thank you for your detailed feedback on your experience with pfSense. We're glad to hear that you find the system easy to use and appreciate the fine-tuned rules it offers. We apologize for the heat-related problems with the Netgate 7100 hardware firewall, and we appreciate your understanding and resolution of the issue. We value your continued support and feedback as we strive to improve our products and services. ### 14. pfSense is a no-nonsense part of our network security **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kevin B. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I can configure just about anything in pfSense. It is a much better value offering than other vendors, and due to its open source nature, I was even able to fix a bug in the ACME package that handles Let's Encrypt certificate renewing. The interface is not extremely modern but it is very functional. I also buy Netgate hardware for my devices, but this is not a requirement, which I love. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There is controversy in the community about some of Netgate's historical practices around a competing project called OPNsense, so any time a question or problem is posted, a pack of seagulls descend on the post to say they use OPNsense instead. Great, thanks? I do hope that Netgate continues to ignore the drama and make a great open source product I can depend on. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Provides a configurable, extensible firewall that serves as the backbone of our small business network. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > We're glad to hear that you find pfSense to be a valuable and versatile solution for your network security needs. We appreciate your feedback on the open source nature and the ability to customize the system to your requirements. ### 15. Stable and Secure with feature rich plug-ins. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nicholas O. | ICT Consultant, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 31, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Switching from a rather locked down routing software to PFSense has been a great experience. Configuration of PFsense from the Setup Wizard to customizations such as the implementation of site-to-site VPNs, HAProxy, DNS and PFBlockerNG. The abiliity to also have a Configuraiton Backup and easily spin-up a virtual Router should the physical hardware fail is also a relief. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I haven't really experience anything that I dislike all that much. I suppose, it would be nice to have a Dashboard that could auto-populate with features that would be of interest rather than having to determine yourself what you want to visualise. Though, I suppose that's the power of running your own Firewall - You can control what you do and don't want to see. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** PFSense solves the issue of being able ot ensure router's have up to date software. Previously, router's were supported for a few years and then support was dropped by the vendor. With PFsense, since it's software you can move along with it provided you keep your system updated. You also have the added option of using their own hardware which is also feature rich and well supported. PFsense has also made it easy setting up site-to-site VPNs allowing for a choice between VPN technology such as Wireguard or IPSEC. ### 16. Great experience and great hardware **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Emmanuel G. | Ingénieur en cybersécurité, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 28, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The first upside of using pfSense is of course the ease of use, and the great interface. It may not be as complete as what Palo Alto offers for example but realistically, the price range is not the same. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I have to say, I don't really like the firewall logs, I think there is room for improvements like for example pagination on live monitoring. It would be awesome to see an application based firewall, even if it comes with a specific version of pfSense. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense permits me to have a VPN connection to my home network while I'm elsewhere and I need to get a specific file, or just want to browse the internet without ads. It also gives me the ability to open ports (for example for game servers with friends) and to do strict firewall rules. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > Thank you for sharing your positive experience with Netgate pfSense. We understand your feedback about the firewall logs and live monitoring, and we'll take that into account for future enhancements. ### 17. Wide array of hardware with flexible software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Michael P. | Assistant Professor, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The pfSense software is widely-known and very flexible. There are considerable resources on the Internet, from books to videos. Good technical support from Netgate. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I'm used to configuring routers and firewalls for my advanced home network. pfSense had a learning curve for me. It would be nice if there were a more intuitive visual interface where it's more obvious that firewall rules and DHCP servers are based on interfaces, and aliases are definitions that go into the rules and such. Also, it should be much easier to analyze and reduce bufferbloat and other common connection nonidealities. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** The Netgage 1541 provides more than enough throughput for my 1.6 Gbps Internet connection. It provides support for the isolated wireless networks in my house, and has two 10 Gbase-T connections for connecting to my primary switch. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > We appreciate your positive feedback about the flexibility and resources available for pfSense software. We understand your concerns about the learning curve and user interface, and we are constantly working to improve the user experience. ### 18. The perfect Prosumer router **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Monty C. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 02, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** My Netgate 6100 is fast, simple, and secure. It also has enough oomph to run any reasonable combination of a reverse proxy, an IPS, ad blockers, and has a pleasantly functional web UI. And it never breaks a sweat. I expect it to be a great router for ten solid years. Probably longer. It's the best investment you can make for solid home internet. Buy simple WAPs and update them every so often. Keep your router the same. It's perfect. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The pfSense documentation could be a little better. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** I work efficiently and effortlessly whenever I need a new network service. I can even prototype public services with relative comfort, knowing that it tries very hard to keep the bad guys away. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > Thank you for sharing your positive experience with the Netgate 6100! We're glad to hear that it's performing well and meeting your needs for a reliable home router. We understand the importance of clear documentation and will take your feedback into consideration for future improvements. ### 19. Great product with exceptional support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sergey P. | Architect, Middleware, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 31, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** - pfBlocker with advanced firewall features - DNS resolver with Unbound - advanced network segmentation (sorry, but we need something in addition for that) - certificate management with LetsEncrypt and acme - advanced HAproxy capabilities (we need secure access, right?) - advanced IDP/IDS features, like suricata (although some argue about it usefulness, but better to try it first personally and then judge). - squid. Everyone loves Squid. - exceptional technical support **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** traffic balancing and automated failover. It's not that I don't like it, but I wish the installation was a little easier, let's take UDM pro as an example. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Tech infrastructure is no longer “not our business.” Needless to say, the cornerstone of any infrastructure is the gateway, preferably an enterprise-grade one. And "enterprise grade" doesn't mean we have to break the bank to get Aruba or Cisco for our home lab. Netgate with pfSense+ is an affordable enterprise alternative that allows you to experience most of the features required by demanding customers, asking for enhanced protection of their OCP/K8s clusters ### 20. I use pfSense as Firewall **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Cho Lin M. | Senior Network Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I like pfsense firewall. Because it is opensource and can get HA feature **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I don't know pfsense advance feature. I want to use more **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense give HA feature. I like it. ### 21. pFsense - the understandable and highly capable firewall stack (for you) **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Paul M. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 05, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfsense covers all of the core use-cases for my new and existing networks alike. Firewall, router, traffic classifier, DHCP server IPv4/6, OpenVPN server and client, Wireguard server and client, Certificate Management and Authority, User Manager, DMZ and multi-WAN (incl PPPoE), all with excellent logging incl Syslog to aid traffic analysis and debug. It's very easy to use (which is not true of all firewall software), and it's stunningly robust. Run it on a PC/SBC with multiple NICs or on a dedicated appliance for optimized footprint and power consumption. Support for HA, external packages (OpenVPN Client Export one of the most labour saving of them all), a thriving community and both free and paid support all make for a very predictable experience. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There is no one security platform that's perfect, they've all got nuances and application sweet-spots. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Support for OpenVPN - free in pFsense, but a paid for option in other appliances. OpenVPN laptop clients and site-to-site VPN clients, we have sme very complex teleworking IP use-cases. Support for Wireguard for lightning-fast mobile device (dial on demand) remote access). Support for IPv4 to IPv6 Tunnelling (Hurricane Electric) as our ISP doesn't natively provide any IPv6 addressing on our WAN, but our products need IPv6 for testing. Total containment of traffic for those "less trusted" interfaces. ### 22. Satisfaction **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** My general confidence in its high security level (on the condition that its configuration is errorfre) **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** 1. Sometimes I experience uncertainty in how to interpretate and/or configure and understanding consequences of firewall configuration commands. a. One example of my experience: I did create firewall commands for an OPT interface (on SG-1100, as well as on SG-2100), in order to setup Netgear WiFi Routers R6020 to the OPT Interface as their WAN. However, when I looked at Netgear router logs, there used to be an abundancy of log entries indicating DOS Attack. Therefore, I assume that I didn't manage to secure the OPT interface against incoming traffic from the Internet. b. Another example that I do not understand: Log entries in pfSense (System, General) containing text "now monitoring attacks", quite a lot of entries. 2. Use of PHP in pfSense which, to my knowledge, is not a completely reliable web language, and often is subject to security vulnerabilities. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Secure Electronic communication from my home (Stationary computers, Laptops, Smart phones, WiFi AP and router (since a few days, no longer including Netgear WiFi routers having OPT as its WAN interface) **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > Thank you for your vote of confidence and feedback! We appreciate it and are constantly working to improve our documentation and provide clearer guidance for our users. ### 23. It is the best router/firewall one can have either at home/small office or even large corporations! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Georgios T. | Remote Support Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It is simple, stable and versatile! Also their support is fast and reliable! Security is top-notch and it offers anything I would like to have in a router! **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The price if I may say so, I am a home user for my personal usage and the price is outta my league but I love the software and I will re-adjust my personal needs just to keep my subscription active <3 **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** A lot of different VPN implementations, pfblockerng to block even contintents out of my game servers that I want to keep avail only in EU and North America. ### 24. Great product, great support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sener A. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 08, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** As MSP, we rely on pfSense and Netgate in many scenarios. Of all the pfSense deployments we have, we are maybe 50-50 on the Netgate Hardware vs. our own phisical/virtual appliances. It is just so versatile and we can deploy it easily in any oocasion, on demand. Software and its capabilities is no doubt one of the biggest reasons we stick with it but Netgate's amazing support is definitely the reason we keep coming back. I don't think I had a ticket wait more than one hour for a response even for devices without valid support contracts. I also rarely need to exchange messages with the support more than twice per incident. I am truly amazed by their knowledge of the product(s) they are supporting. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Centralized management and high availability could get tricky at times. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Remote access. site to site connectivity ### 25. Netgate Stands By Their Products **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ron M. | Senior Producer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 16, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The best thing about pfSense is the support team. I am a small business and manage my own tech, and the willingness of the support team to communicate with and educate someone in my postion is noteworthy. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I have not experienced any downside.It may seem overwhelming to a non tech end user but that is my fault not the product. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** There were three instances I can remember that Netgate customer service solved for me. 1.There were mulitple power outages and the multiple cylces stopped my 3100 from working and requried a highly technical work around that customer service walked me through and solved. 2. The unit was dropped and the plastic cover was damaged and I was shippped a new cover no charge. 3. I was setting up a port forward so that I could view my surveillence NVR on the road. My ISP was blocking all traffic and even though there were no issues with the 3100 Netgate support helped me find a work around. ### 26. PfSense Virtualized .. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Prazin Bhakta S. | Network Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Ease of Use and implementation on any virtualized platform **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Need to reset whole routing daemon when ospf or bgp has peer issue. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Its open source and very easy to deploy anywhere. ### 27. pfSense is THE solution for SMB and Small SaaS Providers **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jerry R. | Senior Partner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense is a free solution by the packet masters at Netgate. It has more features than any single system is likely to use and has professional Netgate support available. It is regularly updated and (after RTFM :) easy to us, assuming you have some understanding of network layers. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Documentation does not always keep up with upgrades. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense allows us unlimited VPC (Virtual Private Clouds) environments in our data center. This allows us to offer complete infrastructure and disaster recovery to our clients. ### 28. Like pfSense software a lot **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Patrick D. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I like its flexibility and, for me at least, logical layout. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** It can be a little complex, but that's the nature of networking. I moved away from using a Unifi USG because of its lack of flexibility, so a little complexity is the price one must pay. I prefer that over the more cookbook approach that Unifi takes. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Flexibly manage traffic among a set of VLANs and connect to two other sites and our AWS cloud servers and apps. ### 29. Robust hardware with state-of-the-art software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Qamar B. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 16, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Fast, reliable hardware with always up-to-date feature rich software. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** not widely promoted or available in my region (to be specific in Malaysia/South East Asia). **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Over the years I have used various open source softwares with PC and Server hardware but was disappointed with difficult to learn software, not enough community support, lack of features and updates. Until I discovered Netgate pfsense by watching Tom's videos on Youtube (Lawrence Systems). I was influenced by Tom and how he reviewed the product, so I searched and found a local vendor selling the product. I replaced my old hardware and software with Netgate 6100 appliance, I use it in a multi WAN enviornment supporting about 30+ users on LAN. Netgate always provides timely updates and support is top notch. ### 30. Great pleasure to work with Netgate **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ludovic D. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** We start with community products (pfSense virtual machine) and now with hardware products. With two products, even with free version, we have lot a features, easy support and great fiablilty. We has some issues but support come back quickly to us. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Some issues with update (hardware don't restart after update) or update was not detected by products... **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Great firewall with a lot of features (NAT, GeoIP, IP Reputation, ...) VPN support compatible with Fortinet VPN **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > Thank you for sharing your positive experience with Netgate pfSense! We're glad to hear that you find our products feature-rich, reliable, and easy to support. ### 31. Non-nonsense firewall with powerful protection **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** pfSense is very light weight and simple to deploy. It meets the needs for nearly all firewall needs. Community support is very deep and if there has been a question previously asked the Community usually has already answered it. If you are concerned about its open source roots in a production environment you can rest assured that you always have TAC support. TAC support is very knowledgeable and they have the answers. They don't guess or use trial and error methods to solve your problems. The integrations with pfBlocker, OpenVPN and HAProxy make the firewall much more useful without additional costs. Our company install pfSense nearly everywhere because it’s easy to use and it works. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I haven't found a significant dislike to pfSense. I suppose the biggest hurdle when deploying pfSense firewalls is dispelling the myth that all open source software is somehow inferior to commercial alternatives. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense provides a cost effective alternative to commercial firewalls that are poorly documented and supported. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > We're thrilled to hear that you find pfSense lightweight and easy to deploy, with strong community support and reliable TAC support. We're glad to provide a cost-effective alternative to other firewalls. ### 32. Full featured Layer 3 Solution for SME Networks **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Telecommunications | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Stable routing and firewall solution, supporting HA, IPv4+6, boot environments, multiple routing alternatives, DoH and DoT, Wireguard and other VPN solutions. Firewall supports interface-based rules in addition to address-based ones, which is essential when WAN addresses or GUAs are dynamic. Freedom in selecting hardware platform, either Netgate's or third-party. Boot environment support makes it simple to switch between releases and configurations. Well-documented with a helpful community in addition to paid support. Integrates easily with Layer 2 switching and AP solutions from other vendors. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Nothing. Even the smallest pfSense+ deployments require a yearly fee. pfSense CE is available for those who want a fee-free solution. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Switched to pfSense+ primarily for full-featured v6 support: GUAs + ULAs, interface-based firewall rules that enable firewall rules to track dynamic GUAs. Was previously using another vendors integrated L2+L3 solution. pfSense makes it simple to combine its powerful L3 features with other vendors L2 solutions. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > Thank you for sharing your positive experience with Netgate pfSense! We appreciate your feedback and your support for our product. :) ### 33. Wide set of features with easy disaster recovery **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christoffer L. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 29, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** For us the pfsense makes the maintenance work of our external enpoints very easy to comprehend. We sadly had a crashing pfsens hardware but luckely we had a recent backup, we restored the backup to the new hardware and just like that we where up and running again. We where in contact with support to get a new firmware for another one and the support is fast and very informative. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** It can sometimes be hard to fine tune settings for very specific needs, but that most likely lack of competence on our side. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** A competent loadbalancer for http traffic and wireguard VPN. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > We're glad to hear that you find pfSense's disaster recovery feature helpful and that our support team was able to assist you efficiently! ### 34. Enterprise & Small Business ready **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** James E. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 28, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** I have deployed 6100's in secure facilities and small businesses a like and im constantly impressed with the robustness not only of the software, but also the support model. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** A few lacking "features" to make administration on mass is a niggle, nothing major **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Multi Tenant buildings with fail over, CE+ secure networks for CNI and List X solutions **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > We're thrilled to hear that you find our software robust and our support model impressive. Thank you for your feedback! ### 35. The best Firewall in the market **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Paulo T. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 22, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The fact that the product is in the prodiction for long time and its origins are in the opensource. I use in the infant stage when the name was m0n0wall. Then the product grew and convert to pfsense and now witht he appliances that are the best option for the enterprises. The fact that you can add packages and all those is being maintined and you see the improvement version by version. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I only see one issue with pfsense. This is the lack of MFA to administer the GUI. We have the radius that works well in the user validation for VPN and WiFi; but still not MFA for the admin. You can have your admin network and limit where the administrators log in, but still is missing that. The big issue is that some Cyber insurance companies are requesting that like a must in any appliance and the fact that there is nothing makes the system not in compliance. This is not complex to deploy on PFSense. Every day I see more and more companies asking for it and basically there is not a good reponse on this matter. I really would like this to be coming in the product in the next release. Right now over EU and North America we have a lot of companies pushing for this on their devices. This is something that I belive should be addressed with a level of High Importance. I have customer close to change platforms because somethign that is so basic for them is not there. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** PFSense is an excellent Firewall. It has good packages to secure your operations. IDS/IPS, pfBlocker are some of the best must install in all our deployments. VPN offers a good way to connect networks and people. I think product today is in a good stage of development and it has to continue with the improvemet and features that is showing the advantages that is has over its alternatives. ### 36. Why pay annual fees for firewall? **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Peter H. | Owner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 03, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It is an open source based piece of hardware which is high performance and easy to use. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There is a fairly steep learning curve before you can use it most effectively. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We needed both a firewall and hardware VPN for performance. This option allows us to do both without having to pay an annual software license fee. ### 37. One stop shopping for most small to mid sized applications **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gary B. | ERP admin, Oracle Developer, Oracle SQL queries, Data Extract, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Ease of use, Sense of security, and lots of add-on's to grow into later on. Configuration is relatively easy once you learn what its about and have some hands on experience. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Updates happen about 3x per year and Im not sure if that is enough in todays environment. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Separating VLan traffic and filtering that traffic ### 38. Working with PfSense for 7 years **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Demis v. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 14, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** PfSense has helped me and the companies I've worked with in many ways as general firewall solution as specific requirements. From complex datacenter applications to simple on-premises firewalls at branch offices. It always works and is simply the best bang for the buck. Ready to use PfSense+ appliances have gotten better and better over the years and are my preferred choice over de community edition. Community edition is still a good choice for specific needs or low budget requirements. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There are no specific functions I dislike, but there is always room for improvement :) I can't really point out anything specific at this point. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've used PfSense for many different cases. As virtual appliances and ready to use PfSense+ hardware appliances. Specific for a general firewall solution but also as a OpenVPN server with FreeRADIUS as MFA installed or virtual appliance for handling many site-to-site VPN's. It has always met the needs and requirements. ### 39. Does everything I need it to do **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Steven K. | Member Board Of Directors, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Easy to install and use. Reliable. I have 4 sites set up for NAT, DHCP, and Site-to-Site IPSec tunnels, and they work great! **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Needs Wireguard support integrated as a first-party feature, not an add-on. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use my pfsense appliances for persistent, always-on Site-to-Site IPSec tunnels. These allow WFH and off-site backup. ### 40. Enterprise Firewall/router/VPN server, and so much more. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kiba D. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 08, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** 1) The software is open-source, so I could learn/play with how it works first. I could then decide if I wanted to move forward in using it. 2) It was easy to use. 3) There was tons of good documentation and even youtube videos on every feature I was interested in. 4) The support is awesome, I got a reply in 30 mins, on a Sunday on a long weekend to a ticket I submitted. The reply was from someone who actually read the ticket! (so rare on a ticket system's first response). The back and forth was precise and knowledgeable, I understood my problem and the solution straight away. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I've had a version upgrade that remotely fails, so kept working, just didn't upgrade, and needs an onsite visit to manually backup the configs, connected a USB stick with the latest firmware, and a console cable to wipe and install the new version. Not ideal as I have a fair number of remote customers. However, I'm hoping this is a one-off situation. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** A dedicated firewall at an affordable price for very small businesses. ### 41. Ten years of experience in using pfssense, more than forty firewalls administered. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Luca D. | Sistemista, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The software is flexible, working well in KVM-type VMs that I mainly use. With a little practice you can do anything with it. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There are required features that have been lost for years and never implemented, such as a centralized administration console for sets of firewalls. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Routing, centralized VPN, firewall. ### 42. Simplicity makes small office firewall setup easy **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jack W. | Sole proprietor, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It's open source with the very best open-source ethos and practices. A high-quality exhaustive manual makes setup, implementation, modification, and troubleshooting easy. No vendor "we'll get back to you on that" horror story here. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Some of the repository committers are a little superficial when problems are reported. There was a DNS issue with the latest release that the dev team seemed reluctant to admit exists! However, with the usual crowdsourcing efficiency of open source, the user community was able to rub the developers' noses in it, so to speak :) **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** pfSense on my Netgate device solved the One Big Eternal Problem of maintaining a small business firewall: HOW MUCH TIME IS THIS THING GONNA TAKE ME!?!? Answer: very little. Easy setup. Easy maintenance. Easy dashboard reviews of critical factors via the very nice PHP web interace. Easy-to-use command line if I have to drop to command line, ### 43. Solid enterprise solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Trevor Green . | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 14, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Simple use for basic needs as well as vast depths to fine tune and secure infastructure. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Reliance on 3rd party utilities (pfBlockerNG for example) **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Solutined as a replacement/upgrade for older Sonicwall appliances. Various remote user connections (OpenVPN) Site to site connections (IPSec) Exposing some web services to external (HAProxy) ### 44. One of the best **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shane C. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Very easy to use. If not, community support is there. Been faithful for the past 7 years **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Don't have any dislike so far. Appliance and software working great! **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Allowing us the have multiple networks and Using VLAN makes it easier to have control over the it infrastructure. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > We're thrilled to hear that you've had a positive experience with Netgate pfSense for the past 7 years! ### 45. Incredible support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Construction | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The documentation is incredibly detailed, and easy to follow. Everything just works. Any snags I've run into have been quickly resolved. Setup is super easy, and the capabilites are well beyond what I imagined **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** I have yet to find anything I dislike. The application has been perfect for our environment **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** The business culture in this area is hesitant to spend money. Trying to sell a "Brand Name" firewall and subscription for 3x the price and the same capabilites would have been impossible ### 46. Economical Pfsense for small businesses **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Oscar D. | Técnico de Sistemas, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 15, 2024 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** They are very economical for being open source for companies that want to set up a firewall. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** It does not have a central console to manage multiple PFSense, support only in English. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** We wanted to connect two offices using OpenVPN. **Official Response from Esther Cheng:** > We appreciate your feedback and are pleased to hear that you find Netgate pfSense to be a cost-effective option for businesses looking to set up a firewall. We understand the limitations you've mentioned and are constantly working on enhancing our product to better meet the needs of our users. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. ### 47. Powerful protection that is easy to use **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John K. | Director of IT, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** A very active community and excellent documentation **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** There are a lot of options that might overwhelm some people and some obscure features do not work as well as they should **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Protect my network and filter unwanted content ### 48. Great appliance with great support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 01, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** It's a very efficient firewall and network management platform. I much better protected with this than with my ISP's router. Give me a lot more flexibility on how I want to segment my network. The TAC Lite support that comes with the appliance is great, the team is very fast to respond and resolve issues almost always on the first email. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** It's a bit complicated to setup but with some good research it's easy to find answers. There is a great community supporting it. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Achieve proper security with the increasing number of smart wifi devices on networks. I want to keep my personal devices secure and make sure my smart home doesn't turn on me ;) ### 49. 10 years of pfSense Community Edition led me to buy NetGate hardware when the old hardware died **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David G. | Programmer Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 21, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** The router and firewall software are absolutely top notch. I got a CCNA when it first came out and spent years with Cisco hardware and Microsoft software and thought I was dealing with the best, but a jerkoff tech kid I had to work with during a gig at IBM introduced me to pfSense Community Edition and I was instantly hooked. It's beyond comprehensive; it can do anything I'm called upon to do easily, and I'm confident it can do anything I can imagine doing. I'm not a network guy -- networking to me represents a 2-3 day chore at the beginning of a project where you slog and you Google and you tweak until sometime after 2 in the morning -- *ping* -- it starts working, you don't dare touch anything, and you get to start your job 3 days behind. pfSense is the antithesis of that. Its documentation is fantastic, its support community unparalleled, and this time around when I replaced my hardware and just went with NetGate hardware it was even better. I had trouble getting it configured and their engineers quickly helped me isolate the problem (the ISP), very kindly helped me undo the hacked-together spoof-based solution I had come up with, and then helped me factory reset and configure the router correctly. As I said, I'm no network guy -- but I know a lot of them, and I'm sure they'd agree. Go with pfSense. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** The only thing I can think of is the problem of "overchoice." The software is incredibly "plastic", which can be a good or bad thing -- if you're prone to address networking problems by just throwing switches and seeing what happens, well -- they give you one hell of a lot of switches. But I for one appreciate it. They provide guides and wizards that work great, and if you go through the docs and read the community boards you never get the sense that their support group has lost interest in some aspect of their product and just hands you the rope to hang yourself with (my general experience with Microsoft, for example). **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Basic road warrior VPN use, providing a safe way to protect a public server inside our network ### 50. Regularly suggest others use Netgate appliances and pfSense. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John V. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 03, 2023 **What do you like best about Netgate pfSense?** Open-source backed with included updates. Enterprise features, regular community involvement. **What do you dislike about Netgate pfSense?** Would like a (lower-level) command line interface for more rapid configuration. **What problems is Netgate pfSense solving and how is that benefiting you?** Firewalling, NATing, routing participation (via FRR). Remote access and site-to-site VPNs. ## Netgate pfSense Discussions - [OpenVpn best report's?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/openvpn-best-report-s) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [What is pfSense used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-pfsense-used-for) - 7 comments - [Can pfSense be used as a router?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/can-pfsense-be-used-as-a-router) - 11 comments - [Is pfSense any good?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-pfsense-any-good) - 3 comments - [Is pfSense still free?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-pfsense-still-free) - 5 comments - [View Netgate pfSense pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/netgate-pfsense/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-06-23+19%3A51%3A04+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=0e747119-9b69-4503-a97a-509b26c5359f&secure%5Btoken%5D=af938e7d468e76d3cad210d4c9d2848362fc7869dfd8aac8d3b2e235bb719d12&format=llm_user) ## Netgate pfSense Integrations - [AWS Lambda](https://www.g2.com/products/aws-lambda/reviews) - [FortiGate SD-WAN](https://www.g2.com/products/fortigate-sd-wan/reviews) - [IconRadius](https://www.g2.com/products/iconradius/reviews) - [Sophos Firewall](https://www.g2.com/products/sophos-firewall/reviews) - [Tailscale](https://www.g2.com/products/tailscale/reviews) ## Netgate pfSense Features **Administration** - Policy Management - Logging and Reporting - Application Gateway - Concurrent Sessions **Agentic AI - Firewall Software** - Autonomous Task Execution - Adaptive Learning **Usage** - Multi-Device Usage - Multiple Concurrent Connections - Protocol Choices - Unlimited Bandwidth - No Log Storage - Varied Server Locations - Unlimited Server Switches **Functionality** - Virtual Private Network (VPN) - Antivirus - URL Filtering - Availability **Miscellaneous** - Live Customer Support - Open Source Code - Multiple Payment Methods **Monitoring** - Load Balancing - Continuous Analysis - Intrusion Prevention - Intrusion Detection **Generative AI** - AI Text Summarization **Artificial Intelligence - Firewall** - AI Firewall ## Top Netgate pfSense Alternatives - [Sophos Firewall](https://www.g2.com/products/sophos-firewall/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (723 reviews) - [Check Point Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs)](https://www.g2.com/products/check-point-next-generation-firewalls-ngfws/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (510 reviews) - [WatchGuard Network Security](https://www.g2.com/products/watchguard-network-security/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (248 reviews)