Connect to the internet as a central edge firewall
What do you like best about the product?
PfSense offers solid security because it is centered on FreeBSD. The database server enables me to provide the capacity to IP that I want at the user's request with more energy and lower power to clients with less demand. It makes configuring the firewall and NAT very easy and usable. pfSense is a strong traffic-balancer as the clustering performs quite well. Any improvement made to the database is also provided with an interactive product.
What do you dislike about the product?
When an interruption of the Web happens, pfSense starts to work very slowly, I guess because it creates loads to all users allowed to access the network. Also, if the disk mirror adds an extra to a channel faders, it would prevent unforeseen downtime due to hard drive shortcomings.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
In the IT department, we use PfSense for connecting to the internet as a central edge firewall. We also use pfSense to handle loads or fail to comply with incoming applications or network hosting specifications. The VPN interface is also accessible to enable us to link and test whether our products are on the platform, from almost anywhere. In terms of usability, pfSense has outperformed expectations.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
PfSense is an ideal tool to be used as a main firewall or VPN server with many settings, as it helps you to monitor traffic efficiently with less commitment VPN transfers and reduced licensing prices. I would recommend pfSense for small or medium companies that require load handling.
Best Freeware Firewall software for mid size organizations
What do you like best about the product?
The best part of pfsense is its free :) with lots of features. like firewall multiple supported packages, VPN, radius support,etc.
What do you dislike about the product?
There should be multiple approaches for wan link failover.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Using as a security appliance so all the security risk is control through pfsense. Also using it as a proxy which gives me a strong control on giving limited internet access.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Highly recommended.
pfSense
What do you like best about the product?
Fully complete Firewall system, integrates functions of traffic analysis, load balancing, wan link failover, monitoring through zabbix. It is based on free software. Allows you to create routing rules, NAT, vpn ipsec tunnels and much more
What do you dislike about the product?
Knowledge in Linux is required to understand the logs and internal processes of the system
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Increase information security, redundancy of WAN links, load balancing, blocking of malicious traffic, proactive monitoring
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Use it
pfSense
What do you like best about the product?
I like that it is based on free software, it has built-in features of switches, routers, firewall, dhcp server, proxy, it is easy to install, easy to configure, it supports protocols such as tunnels vpn ip sec, and it can be installed on site and in the cloud .
It allows load balancing and redundancy in WAN links.
What do you dislike about the product?
Linux at the hardware level is manual, in many cases if the installation is done on a computer, the network cards will probably have to be installed manually
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Network infrastructure management on a single computer, everything is centralized, dhcp server, vpn tunnels with clients, built-in diagnostic tools, proxy, content filtering, it is also free of licensing, I really recommend it fully
Recommendations to others considering the product:
It is the best option, quality and low cost, all the tools integrated in the same system
pfSense
What do you like best about the product?
It is based on free software, very easy to install, it can be installed on a computer, hardware requirements are low, it allows communication protocols such as tunnels vpn ip sec, vlan, content filtering
What do you dislike about the product?
There are times when the network interface is inhibited or the operating system may be stuck and services must be restarted
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Increase in network security, load balancing, redundancy with multiple wan, creation and segmentation through vlans, integrated dhcp server
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Test it
Works well with AWS networking
I used the pfSense Netgate firewall/VPN/Router to help study for the AWS Advanced Network Specialty exam. Simple to set up, I used it to build VPNs w/BGP between two VPCs and a remote network using pfSense on two sides and a VGW in the middle. The latest version supports VTI interfaces so you can use route-based VPN instead of policy-based VPN. Without VTI interfaces you can set up a VPN but BGP doesn't work as expected. I had no problems setting up VTI interfaces in the VPN configuration, installing OpenBGPD, and routing traffic using CloudHub VPN and BGP to connect the two VPCs and my remote network together.
In my opinion, the pfSense firewall was easy to set up and the interface is fairly intuitive if you're familiar with networking and security. I've used the community edition for a while and the AWS version has the same look-and-feel. There's also a number of open source options that can be added to extend the functionality of the product.
I think the only downside is the pricing. I wish the t2.nano and t2.micro were both priced the same. The t2.nano is great for a trial run. However, if you install any options you'll probably want something larger than a t2.nano and that will create a significant price increase. Then again, Netgate's pricing seems to be much lower than comparable products in AWS marketplace so it looks like it cost less to run than other products with similar functionality.
I would recommend Netgate pfSense if you are looking for a low-cost stateful firewall that is built using open source software and can do VPN and routing too.
1 person found this helpful
Great option of perimeter firewall
What do you like best about the product?
The pfSense is an Open Source project that is being supported by Netgate and offers great perimeter security for small businesses that do not have the money for an ASA, FortiGate or other similar device. The application of traffic policies is very easy to do and personalization of these is very useful with the tools available to the system. It is great the system of packages that extend the functions, for example the package for IDS / IPS Snort is great, the OpenVPN for VPN is very easy to use and so other options that can be incorporated for free.
What do you dislike about the product?
In the last version the support to the unofficial packages was removed, this decision is very annoying because there are many very good packages that are not included in the pfSense library. Another point not so remarkable is the traffic monitoring options that pfSense has, however it fulfills its function for non-demanding users.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The main advantage of pfSense is the cost, which is 0 and thanks to this, contracts were obtained with external clients that did not have enough funds for a commercial perimeter firewall. The function of VPN with OpenVPN and the application of Snort are the best features that have significantly improved the performance and productivity of our customers' networks.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Consider the pfSense in case your network needs port security and minimal protection from the outside. If an active and more granular management of the threats and the traffic that passes through it is required, think about accumulating more resources to acquire another superior product.
Great open source firewall
What do you like best about the product?
Open source professional level firewall. Particularly features like multi-wan and how that is implemented into standard features like NAT etc.
What do you dislike about the product?
Many of the services I would like to run are add on packages not truly part of the system. Those have non-standard configs and interfaces because of it. They can be broken or unstable because of it.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Multi-wan internet supplied by multiple ISP's and used directly without most staff even knowing it. Provides various switching and failover methods for bandwidth or times when an ISP is unreliable.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
While I really like this product, I have moved on to a fork of it called OPNSense that I would recommend over pfSense. pfSense a is good product but much has changed with the project and the company behind it. I put them in second place because that is where there software falls based on most usage. Hope their next release release with all the drastic changes announced a couple of years ago will change my mind.
Will not launch in the US-WEST-2 region
I've successfully launched this in other regions, but it will not launch in the US-WEST-2 region. Please fix this! The system log shows the operating system halting and rebooting constantly.
Great for Site-to-Site
Very easy to use.
The UI is Intuitive.
Site-toSite VPN is very stable.
You can upgrade to a newer version from the UI.
Strongly recommended!
1 person found this helpful
