What do you like best about the product?

Various plugins of relevant networking technologies.

What do you dislike about the product?

Nothing problematic using the system; some additional features might be helpful.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Required a firwall and VPN solution for a research network segregated from the corporate network.

What do you like best about the product?

The amount of power and flexibility pfSense brings to your network is outstanding. The integrated VPN ability means connecting to my network from the outside is easy and doesn't require additional hardware. The complete control over how packets flow to and from the internet, and even across LANs; means I have control that lets me keep my network running efficiently and securely. If you're used to dealing with just the hardware your provider gives you, pfSense is a significant step up.

What do you dislike about the product?

The learning curve can be a bit steep. pfSense doesn't make any assumptions, and you'll often have to tell it that you want traffic moving across LANs. It can all be a little daunting if you're not used to dealing with actual firewall configurations. But once you get over that hump, you'll find a level of control you didn't think was possible.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

When my provider decided to add IPv6 to its stack, I found they provided inferior and limited options for routing it. An all or nothing firewall setting with port-forwarding that required you to specify the IP on both sides was a far cry from what it could do for IPv4. Plus they only wanted to route one subnet of the many they offered my connection. No such limitations with pfSense. I also wanted to prevent IoT devices from using external DNS services. pfSense allows me to force all connections to a DNS server to the ones on the local network. It also allows me to specify which IPs from the outside world get routed to which machine; very handy if you have two machines using the same port range and want provider A to hit one machine and provider B to hit another.

What do you like best about the product?

It's been very reliable and stable from the first day I configured and installed it in my home office network.

What do you dislike about the product?

There is nothing I dislike about the product!

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I need to have all my equipment show their network presence in a specific city and country. I have two appliances with pfSense installed, one that is resident and the other a traveller.

What do you like best about the product?

The freedom of options.
The versatility to host it on my own hardware, whether that's bear metal or even virtualized!
The ability to tweek additional setting that you don't usually find in a conventional router & make it work how I want it to.

What do you dislike about the product?

I tried to think of something anoiying about pfSense but Nothing comes to mind.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Stability & options.
The only time pfSense stops working on me is when the electrons stop flowing (power outages). :-D
The choice of options is mine.
If there's a requirement needed, pfSense usually fills it.
VPNs have always been stable.

What do you like best about the product?

Extremely reliable and powerful and like the ability to use third party databases to block unwanted traffic.

What do you dislike about the product?

Definitely could better documentation, and yes I bought the book. We need a deeper dive.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

My wife and I both work from home and are on video calls most of the day and the reliability and throughput are fantastic.

What do you like best about the product?

Many things in one, its DHCP Server, WAN Management, with Routing capabilities, can handle multiple LANs, WANs, And VPNs. Stable, free and open-source, firewall with custom rules,

What do you dislike about the product?

It has so many options, and out of them I still don't know the application of 90% of the options available in them. No proper guidance on open platforms to learn and explore most of it.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Basic aspects of multi-wan to multi-lan with separate vlans, configurable open VPN, URL filters, removes ads from the entire network. routing, gateway monitoring, etc.,

What do you like best about the product?

pfSense is one of the easiest-to-use firewalls out there. It works on appliances and off-the-shelf hardware and is entirely scalable. I've tried many other firewall solutions and I keep coming back to pfSense

What do you dislike about the product?

There aren't many small fanless appliances with 10gb sfp+ interfaces.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use many pfSense firewalls for WAN, DMZ, and IPv6 firewalling. I also use pfSense for IPSEC VPN tunnels over both ipv4 and ipv6.

What do you like best about the product?

Load balancing two ISP connections into my office.

What do you dislike about the product?

Training documentation on how to install and configure it for different scenarios could be better.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Internet availability.

What do you like best about the product?

I have been using pfSense Plus as my firewall software for a couple years and have been impressed with its performance and features. I am running it on a dedicated Netgate Device (an older SG-5100 model). Even though this piece of hardware has been discontinued from production, I am under the impression that the pfSense software will continue to be compatible and maintained to run on this device for quite some time. If and when I DO have to migrate, I appreciate that the Community Edition (or open-source pfSense CE) is similar enough to the Plus version that I could just as easily run the software on my own dedicated hardware of choice. I also understand that there is an option to purchase a license to the Plus version which unlocks the ability to run the Plus version on a DIY machine.

At this stage in the game, running the commercial version of the pfSense Plus (closed source) firewall makes the most sense to me. The inherent simplicity and reliability of a full-fledged package with its own specialized hardware and software implemented with added features seems like a decent enough business model for a company - and I have no qualms with this approach. There are certainly FOSS purists among us who will adamantly disagree and oppose Netgate's shift away from the single-stream development model of the firewall software... but I am not one of them, and I appreciate all that the company has to offer.

The web-based user interface of pfSense is straightforward to use, which is important for me as someone who doesn't have a ton of experience with firewall software. The dashboard provides a helpful overview of the system status and traffic, configuration pages are intuitive, for they allow me to customize settings without feeling as overwhelmed as one might with a command-line interface. I also appreciate that the firewall rule builder is easy to use and allows complex rules to be easily created. The software supports various VPN protocols, which has been helpful for me because I have to connect to a VPN occasionally. Additionally, there are several packages that be installed on top of the stock firewall software - which can provide a network administrator with even more customization and other powerful tools.

One thing to note is that pfSense may require more technical knowledge than other firewall software options. However, there is a large and helpful community that provides documentation and support, so I haven't found this to be an issue. Overall, I would highly recommend pfSense Plus as a powerful and easily customized firewall platform that can meet the needs of organizations of all sizes. Although I am running a rather simple network in a small home office environment, I am enticed by the fact that the software is not only highly effective when applied to a niche use-case scenario - but it is just as capable when used in an enterprise-level network build. I am happy that I have become accustomed to the experience of hardening my network against intrusion and malicious attacks by using pfSense Plus. I feel reassured when I consider all the company has to offer, and I look forward to seeing what else they can come up with in terms of community support and feature development. I am looking forward to the years ahead - with what I hope is continued stability and reliability from both an excellent hardware vendor and a great software development firm!

What do you dislike about the product?

I find that the business model of providing support packages on a subscription basis is well out of my reach, financially - but I am happy to know that a decent amount of community support is available on the forums of Netgate and elsewhere on the internet as well. Also, if I were to nitpick upon the gritty details of the matter, I would like to see additional transparency and clarity regarding the shift to closed-source software - and what this means for the future of the Community Edition of pfSense.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

It serves as an excellent security implementation to help harden and secure my network against malicious attacks and intruders.

What do you like best about the product?

Who would have thought you could leverage enterprise firewall security for free?? I was surprised at the robust features available with pfSense. I was able to start with the Community Edition (CE) for free and register for the official version at no additional cost. With the official version, I have the option of purchasing professional support at a very reasonable expense. The cost/benefit of pfSense is over the top and well worth investigating.

What do you dislike about the product?

As flexible as pfSense is, there are some caveats during implementation. The biggest limitation I found was during implementation in a virtual environment. DO NOT add more than three virtual network adapters. Use one virtual adapter and make it a VLAN trunk. Then inside pfSense, use the excellent VLAN features to create interfaces.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I'm using pfSense to replace our older enterprise firewall solution. We looked at several "Next Generation Firewalls" and found that pfSense had all the features we sought at the best value.