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Rock solid network firewall platform
What do you like best about the product?
pfSense Plus has truly transformed my network experience. Its intuitive interface simplifies setup, making it accessible to all levels of users, even my coworker, which usually does not have much experience with firewalls can manage it.
What do you dislike about the product?
In a virtualized environment the performance is not the best unfortunately.
Although we use high performance network cards on our hypervisor, it usually achieves about 2.5 Gigabits per seconds. Our regular setups do not reach those speeds, so this issue is not really important to us.
Although we use high performance network cards on our hypervisor, it usually achieves about 2.5 Gigabits per seconds. Our regular setups do not reach those speeds, so this issue is not really important to us.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We use pfSense to access our internal services through a wireguard vpn.
Also we filter our dns requests using pfBlocker which has the benefit of blocking ads and unwanted hostnames.
Also we filter our dns requests using pfBlocker which has the benefit of blocking ads and unwanted hostnames.
Does everything I need it to do
What do you like best about the product?
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 the product?
Needs Wireguard support integrated as a first-party feature, not an add-on.
What problems is the product 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.
Fantastic when deployed in a virtualized environment
What do you like best about the product?
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.
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 the product?
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.
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 the product 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.
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.
Enterprise Firewall/router/VPN server, and so much more.
What do you like best about the product?
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.
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 the product?
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 the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
A dedicated firewall at an affordable price for very small businesses.
Powerful, simple and good value
What do you like best about the product?
I like the ease through which I can set up network services. For instance it took minutes to create a self signed certificate for OpenVPN server and then setup clients on multiple operating systems including iOS. Now I can get to my gear behind the Netgate pfSense firewall using transport layer security from anywhere in the world without breaking the bank or fraying my nerves with complex setup.
What do you dislike about the product?
The process of an upgrade from a blank device to a fully functioning set of services lacked guidance on device but the online guides were adequate.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I am able to access my office equipment while out of the office without having to pay for always on cloud services
Got tech support like you were a fortune 500 !
What do you like best about the product?
Their products are affordable for remote workers/SME who want to cover their network security needs. If you have a problem with an update, you open a ticket and their support team will quickly contact you the same day to help you solve the problem. They are knowledgeable and friendly people you can trust.
What do you dislike about the product?
Technical support is in English only. For some people this can be overwhelming.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It is an easy-to-deploy firewall that reduces attacks on your network and the resulting loss of productivity.
Full option Firewall
What do you like best about the product?
the GUI is user friendly and contain descriptions to help pfsense administrator
What do you dislike about the product?
I have a Netgate 6100 but I feel like the system work a bit slowly
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
it improved the security in my network, I can manage very easyly user authorisation and authentication now and remote VPN connection.
Long time user
What do you like best about the product?
Flexability of running on any hardware. This has allowed me to recover from disaster recovery situations provided there was a backup of the configuration.
pfSense is certainly among one the best value products enabling extremely high firewall speeds in simplistic use case scenarios.
pfSense is certainly among one the best value products enabling extremely high firewall speeds in simplistic use case scenarios.
What do you dislike about the product?
Seperating the community and enterprise edition.
Tendency for software updates to go wrong.
Lack of well intergrated NGFW features.
Tendency for software updates to go wrong.
Lack of well intergrated NGFW features.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
pfSense has been used by some of our customers as a cheap no frills firewall where NGFW features are not needed.
Awesome software and good support
What do you like best about the product?
I have been using pfSense firewalls for years, previously in a HA setup in a production environment, and now as an office firewall for a tech enterprise. pfSense comes with a large feature set, a nice UI and, many hardware options. The documentation is extensive and the support has always been quite responsive.
What do you dislike about the product?
No problem really. Comparing config backup files can be a pain, but it's something you rarely have to do. A nice additional feature would be to enable admins to export settings in different formats, for example export firewall rules to Excel or PDF format.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It basically runs our whole office network : firewalling, dual internet access, DHCP server, internal DNS and NTP server. It also runs an OpenVPN tunnel to our datacenter environment.
Very good firewall and router for all needs.
What do you like best about the product?
It's a reliable and performant firewall that can fit all your needs!
What do you dislike about the product?
Sometimes with the original hardware, the UFS file system causes problems.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It connects different locations from customers and our own infrastructure.
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