Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router
Netgate | 24.11.0Linux/Unix, FreeBSD 14 - 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
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Most functional solution on the market
What do you like best about the product?
I have been using pfSense for over 12 years. It is hands down the most robust solution on the market that literally does everything!
What do you dislike about the product?
The only difficulty I had was learning the UI. Other than that I can't find anything wrong with it at all.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It is truly the Swiss Army Knife. Over the lay 12 years I have had several different problems that it has been the answer to. Site to site, video, voice, even P2P traffic. It has conquered all.
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What do you like best about the product?
Its stable and support is huge on forums. Manuals are very informative also.
What do you dislike about the product?
New versions take times to come out. But team is working and cleaning all bugs before release a version.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Making my internet quicker and secure. And alot of settings to tweak if you want to do some customization.
The pfSense is effective and extremely performant in a data center environment, schools, and universities.
What do you like best about the product?
Simplicity in management and usability.
What do you dislike about the product?
The reports are very simple. I miss "native" authentication for Active Directory.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
He assists me in cybersecurity analysis and network traffic management when used as the core of the environment.
outstanding solution for those interested in building their own router
What do you like best about the product?
I appreciate very much the availability of a community edition, which people are free to install on their own hardware.
Before building my own router, I used routers from various manufacturers, and there was always a compromise between features and price. I noticed over time the performance of router hardware would decrease. Perhaps this was due to middling quality components or inadequate cooling. With pfSense, I'm free to use good quality PC components, which greatly outlast the hardware of purpose-built routers.
Plus, pfSense delivers a good value for the user while providing an environmental benefit. The PCs on which I've run pfSense were older PCs that were no longer adequate to use as a workstation, but they were fine for running pfSense. Thus, I acquired the hardware for free, while keeping these old PCs out of the landfill for a while.
The pfSense software itself is outstanding. For example, the firewall rules are tunable in a much more detailed way than on consumer routers. I depend on pfSense's VPN server. The underlying BSD operating system is very stable and high-performing.
Before building my own router, I used routers from various manufacturers, and there was always a compromise between features and price. I noticed over time the performance of router hardware would decrease. Perhaps this was due to middling quality components or inadequate cooling. With pfSense, I'm free to use good quality PC components, which greatly outlast the hardware of purpose-built routers.
Plus, pfSense delivers a good value for the user while providing an environmental benefit. The PCs on which I've run pfSense were older PCs that were no longer adequate to use as a workstation, but they were fine for running pfSense. Thus, I acquired the hardware for free, while keeping these old PCs out of the landfill for a while.
The pfSense software itself is outstanding. For example, the firewall rules are tunable in a much more detailed way than on consumer routers. I depend on pfSense's VPN server. The underlying BSD operating system is very stable and high-performing.
What do you dislike about the product?
I have nothing negative to say about pfSense.
Perhaps I should mention that pfSense is a bit more complicated a solution than an off-the-shelf consumer router. This slight added complexity is appreciated by those who need a more advanced solution, bearing in mind that one has to have a moderate amount of networking knowledge in to configure and use pfSense.
Perhaps I should mention that pfSense is a bit more complicated a solution than an off-the-shelf consumer router. This slight added complexity is appreciated by those who need a more advanced solution, bearing in mind that one has to have a moderate amount of networking knowledge in to configure and use pfSense.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
When I was running a home-based business, pfSense helped me make use of VoIP technology to handle phone traffic. I depend on pfSense's VPN server to connect to my home servers while I'm offsite.
Simplicity makes small office firewall setup easy
What do you like best about the product?
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 the product?
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 the product 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,
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,
Excellent experience
What do you like best about the product?
The enhanced security features and native OpenVPN access and user managing.
What do you dislike about the product?
We did not find any dislikes in pfSense.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
A good management of OpenVPN connections and an easy-to-use but strong firewall
pfSense: The best you can get from a company you can trust
What do you like best about the product?
pfSense not only offers all the features you would expect from an enterprise firewall, but builds upon the reliability and feature set by implementing a sea of community add-ons and integrations to enhance your experience and general usability.
What do you dislike about the product?
Arguably, the most frustrating thing about pfSense is the lack of easy access externally. Nearly every other server in the rack has a form of SSH installed, but pfSense opts for a web-UI only interface, one that can be frustrating when you need to diagnose and debug an issue with your system. Thankfully, though, the issues with pfSense systems are far and few between, so you shouldn't find yourself missing out on that feature very much at all.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
pfSense gives us peace of mind with the security and dependability that we've all come to expect from our networks. Previously, when working with Watchguard boxes, we had frequent outages and service interruptions, and although their support was excellent, the product required far more support after sales than it should have. With pfSense, we have access to a host of online forums, communities, and support personnel through Netgate that have helped every step of the way.
pfSense a perfect firewall for business
What do you like best about the product?
It's a very robust and versatile firewall. It supports multi-wan, VPN, filtering and more. Fits about any business need at a fantastic price.
What do you dislike about the product?
The occasional issue has happened. However, between community and paid support they have been resolved.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Secure VPN access either for road warriors or multiple branch locations. Strong IPS and blocker packages to keep the network safe.
It was a smooth transition from Sonicwall to pfSense.
What do you like best about the product?
pfSense has a different way of doing things from Sonicwall, but it was a very smooth transition once I went through setting it up. I would recommend pfSense to anyone. The cost is the best benefit, but NetGate offers a superior product that rivals the best names out there.
What do you dislike about the product?
Being open source, many tutorials are available on Youtube, etc. Some are difficult to follow. Getting everything just right can be difficult. However, our support from NetGate has been a great asset.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Our school needed a solution that was both cost-effective and affordable. Being a former Sonicwall customer with older equipment, upgrading was not an option budget-wise. pfSense made the best sense.
Overly impressed. Both by the Appliances and PFSense software.
What do you like best about the product?
I have been using the open source of pfSense for a couple of years now in a virtual environment. Last year, when it came time to replace routers for our customers, we ended up going with Netgate devices with pfSense installed on them. Since then, we have deployed around 50 devices to our small business customers. Most are using the basic routing functionality, but the big attraction was the VPN support that many small business routers lack. Easy set up of IPSec and OpenVPN makes pfSense a must have. Of the 50 or so devices we deployed, we only had one issue of file corruption. Netgate was quick to reply to the support request and provide a solution faster than we could get on site and fix it.
What do you dislike about the product?
The only issue we have with the pfSense software is the lack of central management. This is easily overcome though by forwarding an external port to its internal configuration page then using a firewall rule to limit source traffic to a single IP or network.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The most significant push for pfSense was the work-from-home movement. Many of our business customers need devices allowing their employees to work from home. Using their fantastic documentation, we were able to use the built-in OpenVPN capability and RADIUS authentication to seamlessly integrate with our customer's current server environments.
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