Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router (ARM64/Graviton)

My primary use case for Netgate pfSense is network security and firewall management, and I use it to configure stateful firewall rules, NAT, traffic segmentation, and VPN connectivity. I particularly value the flexibility of implementing granular access controls and secure remote access without relying on a proprietary firewall ecosystem.

In my organization, we use Netgate pfSense for VPN-based remote access and to restrict traffic between network segments. I combine WireGuard with Netgate pfSense, and by defining firewall rules around source and destination subnets, I can limit VPN clients to the services they needed instead of granting unrestricted LAN access. This approach is truly important for access management. This approach centralizes access control, reduces unnecessary network exposure, and makes troubleshooting easier through firewall logs and connection state monitoring.

Another benefit I want to add about my main use case with Netgate pfSense is the ability to manage firewall policies, NAT, VPN access, and network segmentation from a centralized interface, which is quite useful. Stateful inspection and granular rule ordering help control traffic flows, while logging simplifies troubleshooting. The modular architecture also allows additional capabilities through packages when needed. For our production deployments, I prioritize measuring VPN performance, CPU utilization, and rule processing overhead under realistic traffic loads.

Netgate pfSense has positively impacted my organization by centralizing firewall policies, VPN access, and traffic segmentation in one interface, which we truly needed. Stateful inspection simplifies connection management, while VLAN-based isolation helps restrict unnecessary communication between network segments. Granular access controls improve control over internal and remote connectivity, and firewall logs make troubleshooting more systematic. It is flexible in terms of configuration, which reduces dependency on proprietary network management tools. The main operational benefit is improved visibility and more consistent enforcement of network access policies, and the actual improvement in uptime, throughput, and administration time should be validated from monitoring data.

In my opinion, the best features Netgate pfSense offers, in order of priority, are stateful firewall capabilities, OpenVPN and WireGuard support, and VLAN segmentation. The first one is the stateful firewall, which is granular rule-based and based on source, destination, IP, ports, and interfaces with connection state tracking. The second best feature is the support for OpenVPN and WireGuard, which is important to secure our remote access and site-to-site tunnels so that the access control stays reliable and working. The third feature is VLAN segmentation, which supports logical network isolation with inter-VLAN traffic control through firewall policies.

Stateful firewall rules and VLAN segmentation have made a difference for my day-to-day work by making network administration more reliable, predictable, and secure. As an example, I can separate management devices from general client traffic using VLANs and then apply inter-VLAN firewall rules to allow only required services. Stateful inspection automatically tracks established connections, so return traffic is handled without creating separate reverse direction rules for every permitted session. This reduces rule complexity, limits unnecessary lateral access, and makes troubleshooting easier when there are connection drops and various problems.

Netgate pfSense can be improved in several ways. First, I think the user interface should be clearer. Simplifying navigation and providing clearer dependency mapping between firewall rules, NAT policies, interfaces, and adding visual graphs would be helpful. I also think built-in dashboards for real-time throughput, packet drops, CPU and memory utilization, VPN tunnel health, and connection counts with configurable historical retention should be added for first-glance visibility.

Centralized monitoring would be helpful by adding more detailed historical dashboards for throughput, VPN health, CPU utilization, memory usage, configurable retention, and threshold-based alerts. With policy validation, clearer configuration differences, and one-click rollback to reduce the risk of lockout or unintended traffic disruption, this could improve the experience significantly. Version control functionality similar to GitHub would provide valuable change tracking.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for about six months.

From my experience, Netgate pfSense is quite stable. For production environments, I think monitoring CPU and memory utilization, VPN tunnel status, uptime, and failover procedures before applying changes is essential. Netgate pfSense is quite stable, and I have not faced any crashes with Netgate pfSense until now.

Netgate pfSense is scalable for small offices or remote work network environments, provided the hardware matches the workload. It supports a lot of capabilities, and scaling can involve upgrading hardware or deploying redundant firewall nodes. However, for reliable capacity planning, I would benchmark latency and connection handling under realistic traffic loads rather than solely on advertised interface speeds.

The customer support for Netgate pfSense is good, and they are capable. They have good engineers, and community forum documentation is also useful when customer support is not available. I would prefer to see support response time expectations clearly defined, and I think they should integrate AI or hire more humans to mitigate the total response time of customer support.

Previously, I relied on basic router firewall capabilities and manually configured network access controls, so I did not use an enterprise-grade solution for this. I considered Netgate pfSense for its more granular stateful firewall rules, flexible NAT configuration, and VPN support. The centralized web interface and detailed connection logs also make policy management and troubleshooting more systematic without requiring a separate commercial firewall appliance for every function.

I have seen a return on investment from using Netgate pfSense, primarily through cost avoidance and reduced administrative overhead by consolidating firewall, NAT, VPN connectivity, and VLAN segmentation into one solution. For example, consolidating traffic rules, NAT, VPN connectivity, and VLAN management into Netgate pfSense can eliminate the need to maintain multiple separate network appliances. Instead of troubleshooting connectivity across different management interfaces, an administrator can review firewall logs and connection state from one dashboard, which can save approximately one to two hours of routine administration per month, or possibly per week in a small deployment depending on complexity. I treat that figure as an illustrative estimate because I do not measure the result, but the ROI is quite noticeable.

I think Netgate pfSense is a cost-effective entry point.

I evaluated several alternatives before choosing Netgate pfSense, including OPNsense, MikroTik RouterOS, and conventional router firewall solutions. I compared them based on stateful firewall capabilities, VPN controls, configuration flexibility, hardware requirements, and the licensing cost. Netgate pfSense stood out for its integrated routing and VPN features, centralized web-based management, and its flexible deployment options alongside the availability of an affordable commercial license edition, which made it suitable for evaluating network security functionality without a large initial software licensing investment.

I rate Netgate pfSense a seven out of ten.

I give Netgate pfSense a seven out of ten because it is truly good, but every product has something to improve on. It is a reasonable rating that reflects my actual experience with Netgate pfSense. It communicates the product problems overall but still has room for improvement in usability, monitoring, and troubleshooting, and the dashboard improvement would be transformative for me. If the dashboard is improved, I would confidently give it a nine out of ten.

In my opinion, Netgate pfSense is a network security solution rather than an AI-driven security solution, and I prefer to rely on human troubleshooting rather than AI-driven security because AI can sometimes make mistakes. Its governance model benefits from explicit administrator control over firewall rules, and I would prefer AI-assisted features to remain optional and operate under least-privilege principles, with auditable decisions and human approvals for policy changes. Logs would be helpful for every AI activity.

Netgate pfSense does not provide a native general-purpose AI engine for generating security recommendations, so AI accuracy and reliability are not measured metrics. Its traditional firewall enforcement is deterministic and rule-based, making traffic decisions predictable when policies are configured correctly. For third-party AI integration, I would evaluate detection precision, false positive rates, response latency, and consistency against labeled traffic samples.

Netgate pfSense is deployed in my organization as a private cloud on a local server.

My advice for others looking to use Netgate pfSense is to start by testing it in a lab or a virtual machine. Running a virtual machine to deploy it before production deployment is affordable. Define the requirements for throughput, concurrent connections, VPN encryption, VLAN segmentation, and high availability, then size the hardware accordingly. Document firewall and NAT rules, apply least privilege access policies, and maintain tested configuration backups. Monitor CPU, memory, interface errors, and connection states under realistic traffic loads. Finally, test recovery and failover procedures to ensure that a configuration error or hardware failure does not cause an extended outage.

The main use case for Netgate pfSense is to set up VPN servers in the cloud. I set up VPN servers in the cloud for clients, and then connect the clients' NAS devices and employees' PCs to those servers. We can use a static IP address, so we can provide static-IP access for customers who need access restrictions.

Netgate pfSense has had a significant impact on my company as we mainly used it to build VPN environments for our customers, and it made it very easy to understand each employee's VPN usage status.

The specific metrics and results I obtained include data transfer volume, and since we can see traffic per individual, it became easier to identify issues such as whether someone might be watching videos.

The best feature of Netgate pfSense is that it supports almost all VPN protocols, and it can issue certificates to each user.

A situation where the certificate issuing and protocol support were particularly convenient is that recently we often switch from OpenVPN to WireGuard, and since we can issue certificates to each individual user at that time, it is very easy to use.

Regarding Netgate pfSense's governance features, we can see everyone's traffic volume, so we can set rules to limit excessive use by imposing transfer limits, and I think that part is valuable.

One area where Netgate pfSense could be improved is that there are not many plugins for two-factor authentication.

Although plugins for two-factor authentication exist, the problem is that we have to use external services such as Deffsense, Tailscale, or Headscale.

Regarding processing robustness and reliability, I think it is still not as advanced as Claude, so for now I am still using Claude to configure Netgate pfSense.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for approximately one year.

Netgate pfSense has very high stability; the server has never gone down, and there are not many updates, so the level of completeness is quite high.

Regarding the scalability of Netgate pfSense, we have not tested scalability yet. For now, one unit is sufficient, so I cannot provide detailed information about scalability.

Before Netgate pfSense, we used SoftEther, but with SoftEther alone there were various failures, so we switched to Netgate pfSense.

I evaluate specific metrics and ROI by noting that our clients have become almost fully remote, so in the sense that they would not have been able to go fully remote without this investment, the ROI is almost close to 100%, definitely over 90%.

My experience with pricing, implementation costs, and licensing is that the implementation cost was difficult at first and was a bit high. However, by using AI support such as Claude, we were able to implement it relatively easily.

We also considered OPNsense before choosing Netgate pfSense, but the implementation cost was a bit high at the time of deployment, so we used Netgate pfSense instead.

My advice to others considering implementing Netgate pfSense is that if you want to implement two-factor authentication, OPNsense has more plugins available, so that might be easier, but it is possible to implement two-factor authentication with Netgate pfSense as well.

I would rate Netgate pfSense about 7 out of 10. The reasons I give it that score are first, ease of use, and also the richness of features; the reason the score is not higher is that two-factor authentication is difficult.

I use Netgate pfSense as a gateway device, where I manage network security, routing, VPN, and traffic management. I'm using the firewall for user authentication as a multi-WAN, or SD-WAN, and all those things are mainly used by the firewall only.

Netgate pfSense has positively impacted my organization because before Netgate pfSense, we were using a router for NATting and various tools for security management. Now, I can do all those things via the firewall only, which has helped me considerably, and all things are shown on a single dashboard.

The best features Netgate pfSense offers in my experience are its firewalling and NAT. In firewalling, stateful packet inspection as well as advanced NAT are used. VPN support is also excellent, with IPsec, OpenVPN, and WireGuard all supported. For load balancing, failover, and SD-WAN, it is being used, and the best aspect is about its security services, for example, IDS, IPS, DNS filtering, and GeoIP blocking.

Vendor backend support must be improved and customer support can be improved. I would like to see improvements in VPN for Netgate pfSense because sometimes the CPU shows heavy load, configuration is a little bit complex for OpenVPN, and troubleshooting is the main concern.

You could add AI for troubleshooting with Netgate pfSense because it will be easier for new engineers.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for the last two years.

Netgate pfSense is stable in my experience.

Netgate pfSense's scalability is strong but conditionally for stability models. It has no hard-coded limits.

The customer support for Netgate pfSense can be improved. I do not say it is bad, but it can be better.

I was not satisfied with the firewall I previously used before Netgate pfSense.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Netgate pfSense is that the pricing is good compared to other vendors, but licensing can be improved as it is a little bit confusing.

We work as a partner with this vendor, not just as a customer.

I have seen a return on investment with Netgate pfSense because it helped me in all these areas.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Netgate pfSense is that the pricing is good compared to other vendors, but licensing can be improved as it is a little bit confusing.

I have not evaluated other options before choosing Netgate pfSense.

I rely on VPN the most in my daily operations because many of my users are working from home, so I provide the RA VPN to the users for remotely accessing my servers that are placed inside my internal network.

I definitely advise others to use this firewall device, as it is truly useful, time-saving, and money-saving. My overall rating for Netgate pfSense is eight out of ten.

I primarily use this for a small single-site, multi-source setup with multi-WAN inputs. I have a main fiber connection and a couple of failovers, and I manage different networks across different segments.

I really enjoy the flexibility of the interface setup configuration for my network VLANs. It is very easy to configure and set, and when I am doing multi-inputs with internet providers coming in, it is very easy to manage and set up with very little effort.

I think the package management and the updating process in Netgate pfSense could be better. Whenever there is a release, knowing that you cannot update any of the packages until you have done the actual operating system update can be confusing. Beyond that, I do not have any major issues. There are generally some user interface updates and tweaks here and there, but this is a lower priority.

They come out about every 12 months, and I know that is one criticism against Netgate pfSense that they are a little slower on development, but honestly, that is probably preferable because it is not constantly updating.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for about eight years in my career.

Netgate pfSense rates a 10 for stability, and I have experienced no issues there.

Scalability works well. I would say it is probably going to be a nine.

They are very responsive. Within an hour, two hours, or three hours, I generally get a response. I have only had to contact them maybe two or three times for very minor issues, but there is no issue there. I think they are very responsive.

I have used UniFi primarily in the last couple of years, probably three years now, and I have it as a separate site. It is nice, but it is not nearly as configurable. The biggest differentiator is the Netgate pfSense software, particularly the ability to do VPN with regard to Tailscale and OpenVPN, which is very easy to use, whereas UniFi is not ideal. Additionally, the security in UniFi is open by default versus Netgate pfSense, which is closed, and closed is always going to be preferable.

For an entirely new site, it would take some time to configure and set up. If you are coming from an existing setup or configuration, you effectively export the configuration, upload it, and make some minor updates. Even with a booting environment, it is easy to go back or revert to an existing configuration if you make a mistake, so it might take some time, but it is not overly complicated. I would say it requires minimal effort, especially if there is a plan in place ahead of what the structure will be.

One person can do it, but you are going to need to be testing. Honestly, it is not anywhere near as complicated as a larger, more legacy offering, so I think it is very easy.

You are going to have manual updates in terms of the releases, checking those out, doing some testing, and confirming in non-prod environments. It is not that complicated. Even if you have the boot states, you can pretty easily do an operating system update and it is easy to manage.

I use Netgate pfSense for my side gig customers' firewalls, and also for my home firewall.

One aspect I appreciate most about Netgate pfSense is that it is easy to administer and very straightforward.

I see the benefits of Netgate pfSense immediately due to cost. It costs significantly less than Ubiquiti, Cisco, or other firewalls out there, and it is just easy to manage, which saves me and my customers money.

The packet inspection feature of Netgate pfSense is valuable; I have had to use it for troubleshooting and it provided the necessary data.

The dashboards for managing network traffic patterns and security threats in Netgate pfSense are simple and give me what I need.

Netgate pfSense's plugin ecosystem is very easy to manage; I simply point and click on the plugin and it installs directly, which is very well done.

The stability of Netgate pfSense is rock solid; I have never had any problems with stability.

The initial deployment of Netgate pfSense is very easy; you install it and it just works on the first try.

The downsides of Netgate pfSense include a lack of graphics to show a customer. I would prefer to see a more graphical UI similar to Ubiquiti.

Setting up fault tolerance on Netgate pfSense is difficult to do, and I do not enjoy that part.

I have been using Netgate pfSense for approximately 15 years.

The stability of Netgate pfSense is rock solid; I have never had any problems with stability.

I have contacted Netgate technical support regarding Netgate pfSense once. I had a hardware failure in one of my Netgate pfSense nodes and they provided an easy fix and got the customer back online quickly.

The initial deployment of Netgate pfSense is very easy; you install it and it just works on the first try.

For a new technician with no experience with any Netgate pfSense products, it would be easy for them to deploy for the first time because they can reference Google or the Netgate pfSense community web pages.

One person can easily do this.

Netgate pfSense costs significantly less than Ubiquiti, Cisco, or other firewalls out there, and it is easy to manage, which saves me and my customers money.

The pricing of Netgate pfSense is incredible; I love the pricing, which is the best part.

I prefer Ubiquiti because of the ease in setting up fault tolerance and the user interface on Ubiquiti.

Netgate pfSense requires just a monthly reboot on the firewalls and that is all. I would give them a 10 out of 10 as they are good. I give this product an overall rating of 8.

I would use Netgate pfSense both at work and at home, as I really love their interface, the rule management, and their collaboration, especially with FreeBSD. Everything that they have done with the OpenVPN parameters is impressive, and it is basically everything I need. The ease of use is exceptional, and whatever I need to do and change is just two to three clicks away.

What I appreciate the most about Netgate pfSense is the ease and straightforward nature of the platform. I can set up a new office in less than 10 minutes.

What I appreciate the most about Netgate pfSense is the ease and straightforward nature of the platform. I can set up a new office in less than 10 minutes.

The benefits of using Netgate pfSense are that I can set up VPNs in less than two to three minutes, and then just deploy the file across my networks, where everybody would be connected in less than an hour.

The dashboards of Netgate pfSense bring all the necessary information that I need at a glance, and it is actually a live update every three to five seconds. It is spotless, and I have been able to catch issues before they hit operations.

Something that I do not appreciate about Netgate pfSense and I wish they would change would be the feature limitations. If I have pfSense Plus, I have all of the features, but if I am using my own spin-off server, which I cannot get pfSense Plus with, I do not get all the features, so I have to forcibly buy the hardware to get pfSense Plus.

I have been using Netgate pfSense since before they were acquired by Netgate, so it was more than 10 years.

Regarding the stability of Netgate pfSense, I have not seen any instability regarding lagging, crashing, or downtime. It all depends on the hardware on my home-brewed pfSenses. If I am using their hardware, it has been spotless with no issues.

The scalability of Netgate pfSense is great, as it can grow with what you need. It all depends on the equipment that you have, and at this moment, I have their highest tier, and I have been able to allocate more than 15,000 users, and it has not even reached 60% of utilization, so I am satisfied with four 10 gig uplinks.

I have contacted customer support of Netgate for all the equipment that I have bought, and it has been hands-on and perfect. I have needed images and I get the images in less than 24 hours when I need to do a special type of format that I do not have access to anymore, and I need to perform a format on it. In less than 24 hours, I would have the latest image which I could then install on the equipment. Hardware-wise, I would get in less than 48 hours the RAM or hard drives that have failed and were under warranty, so no issues on that.

If I were to put the support of Netgate pfSense on a scale from 1 to 10, I would give a score of nine.

I have used alternatives to Netgate pfSense, and it would be OpenSense. I just used it for not more than 20 minutes and I said goodbye to it.

The initial deployment of Netgate pfSense will be easy, since I have done it a couple of hundred times.

The deployment of Netgate pfSense goes the following way: the first thing is to just set up my WAN, my LAN, setting up the netmask, subnet, and gateways, and then just opening the NAT and doing all the NAT configurations, which is automatic if you have it set on auto. Then I just create my first firewall rule for an allow-all, and the setup is complete. Then I just need to start doing all the pretty tough magic that might be required, so for my type of setups, everything is less than 30 to 45 minutes. Afterwards, hardening depends on the business case.

All of this setup process of Netgate pfSense can be done by one person; you do not need a team for this. You can do it all alone.

The pricing of Netgate pfSense all depends on the hardware that I need. For a large office, the last appliance that I bought was around $2,000 and it is working perfectly with no issues whatsoever. I have no complaints about it, as my only complaint is when I want to do a home lab or something, and then I need to forcefully buy Netgate products to get pfSense Plus, but besides that, the pricing looks good.

Netgate pfSense requires a little maintenance on my end, as the maintenance part that I only get from them would be their software updates, and that is basically it. After that, everything is on my end: hardening, firewall rules, and all that kind of work. Besides that, it is just their quarterly or twice-a-year updates.

I have not really explored the packet inspection feature of Netgate pfSense that much, so I know I have it; I just have not played around with it right now.

I use the integrated VPN provisioning of Netgate pfSense, and it has not affected my network security setup at all; it has been flawless.

I would rate this product a 10 out of 10.

The typical use case for Netgate pfSense is VPN connectivity, content blocking, and IDS/IPS. Users typically implement it for these specific purposes.

The best features of Netgate pfSense include its open-source nature, and one of the most appealing aspects is the absence of recurring expenses, as there are no licensing fees. Users get enterprise-class firewall networking with this product.

Customers who use other firewall products such as Sophos or FortiGate often conduct research and choose Netgate pfSense because the yearly expenses of other firewall products are higher compared to pfSense, which has no licensing fee. While there is no yearly licensing fee with this product, users still receive all the enterprise-class firewall features.

The stateful packet inspection feature is enterprise-class, and when compared to other firewall products, it matches their capabilities effectively.

Areas of Netgate pfSense that can be improved include the customers' requests for antivirus protection, which they refer to as Unified Threat Management, available in other products. Unified Threat Management can match up with other brands as well.

I have around one and a half years of experience working with Netgate pfSense.

Netgate pfSense is definitely a scalable solution.

The technical support from Netgate pfSense deserves a rating of 10 on a scale of one to ten, where one is the worst technical support and ten is the best.

The initial setup of Netgate pfSense is easy because it has a wizard. Users can run the wizard and set up the firewall within five minutes.

Netgate pfSense comes with Netgate appliances, in which pfSense is loaded, ensuring compatibility with different hardware platforms. The solution proves to be stable in operation.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.

I usually use it on premises, and I use it for different purposes. I use it for network security for my infrastructure, and I use it for my web servers and data servers that are on-premises.

My main use cases for Netgate pfSense are proxy servers and IDS/IPS, blocking ads, clearing the network for adware and malware, and monitoring the network flow.

As an open-source solution, Netgate pfSense is highly flexible because a person with kernel-level or code-level experience can control the firewall as per their requirements, and there are multiple packages and tools readily available to integrate with Netgate pfSense. In the IT industry, most of the tools can be integrated with pfSense.

Adding packages to Netgate pfSense is very easy. I just need to search for the required package and then install and configure it.

Netgate pfSense has a very intuitive dashboard. The information is readily available on the dashboard.

Netgate pfSense has routing facilities that help minimize downtime while having multiple internet connections. If one bandwidth goes down, it automatically diverts to the other.

Netgate pfSense helps prevent data loss by monitoring data transactions and network protocols, allowing us to block certain amounts of data and implement policies to reduce malware and firewall threats.

From my perspective, the best feature of Netgate pfSense is the load balancer, as I usually take multiple internet connections. I can use both internet providers' bandwidth as a single network bandwidth, which helps in a very smooth network traffic flow. Netgate pfSense has a very interactive and intuitive dashboard that provides all the major and informative information that is readily available.

Netgate pfSense has positively impacted my organization because when we look at other firewalls or alternatives, they are costly.

For my requirements and use cases, it is sufficient for me, and I have never faced a need for additional features. AI would always be a plus point, and if pfSense could change its framework from FreeBSD and PHP to a different language and Linux OS, that could enhance security.

I have been providing services for network solutions and network security, and I have been using Netgate pfSense for almost four to five years.

Netgate pfSense is definitely stable; I've multiple sites using it, and they are live right now. I've at least 20 sites operational.

It is a scalable product. I would rate its scalability a seven out of ten.

I have never used the services of Netgate, but I can rate the product itself as a 10 out of 10 because it has been very helpful to me.

I have previously used Fortinet and Sophos. The major reason I switched from Fortinet and Sophos to Netgate pfSense was to mitigate the financial aspect, as those alternatives were costing us lakhs.

Deploying Netgate pfSense is very easy because I used to deploy it on my personal hardware. Whatever spare hardware I have, I install it directly on that. Installing and configuring it is very easy for me.

I deploy Netgate pfSense for various companies. There are many startups in India that require a cost-effective solution that allows them to use their hardware and provide basic security.

Deploying infrastructure for a new company takes me approximately one day, unless there are separate requirements to configure, such as creating usernames and passwords for each user, which may take two to three days.

I do everything in-house by myself. I am the only person involved in the deployment.

I have seen a return on investment with cost savings after implementing Netgate pfSense, as other firewalls would cost me lakhs of rupees while pfSense is free.

Everything we need is covered in the free version of the open-source pfSense. I have never used the licensed version or required certified partner help to implement or deploy anything.

If we are not purchasing any support or incurring any Netgate costs, the total cost of ownership for Netgate pfSense is zero, as it is freely available to download and install, requiring only hardware for deployment.

The cost of other firewalls goes to thousands and lakhs of rupees compared to pfSense, which costs zero. If we opt for Fortinet, it costs about one lakh thirty thousand Indian rupees for the firewall, and then it costs up to almost fifteen to twenty thousand annually for the user subscription. With Netgate pfSense, all those things get covered at zero cost.

I did not evaluate any other options aside from Netgate pfSense because it was the only solution I could find that effectively met my needs. It works for our use cases.

In terms of data-driven decisions, there is a package that can help me understand each and every packet and time. I have not gone through that avenue yet, but it allows us to get all the data for data-driven decisions.

There is a paid feature to increase performance, but there are multiple tweaks available in the advanced settings that can help increase bandwidth or usability based on requirements.

I have not used pfSense Plus on Amazon EC2 VMs because there was no requirement.

I would rate Netgate pfSense a ten out of ten.

We have been building local firewall systems since 2008.

The main use cases for Netgate pfSense are its exceptional stability and reputation as a premier network operating system worldwide. Millions of people are using it, and we have rolled out a new hotspot system that works from the cloud. The service is running under the pfSense portal.

Netgate pfSense impacts our organization positively because it's open source and has a free edition, which helps us significantly in building our own systems for our customers. It helps in building a new firewall system for the Turkish market. It helps us substantially.

Netgate pfSense's best features are that it's open source and flexible. We have implemented IPsec VPNs, site-to-site VPNs, and client-to-site VPNs.

We appreciate the flexibility of the Netgate pfSense solution, but we have waited approximately two years for new updates to the Community Edition. We are now moving to OPNsense.

I appreciate Netgate pfSense because we have been using it for approximately 18 years, which is a considerable amount of time. We are waiting for pfSense to integrate AdGuard, Pi-hole, or Zenarmor directly into the pfSense kernel. When I install packages, such as Snort or OpenVPN client export tool, I need to install AdGuard or Zenarmor because it's very challenging to ban TikTok, YouTube, or social media for our customers. In the early days, we managed this using SquidGuard, but since the blacklist has changed, we are struggling. There are many other blacklists I have tried, but I couldn't make them work. It has to be much easier for engineers to implement this. It's easy to integrate AdGuard into OPNsense; it becomes a function under the firewall. You can easily switch blacklists on and off, and create custom blacklists to block all social media with a toggle. We would appreciate such facilities in pfSense as otherwise, we have to manually enter all the websites, DNS resolver, and DNS overrides. Writing numerous rules on the LAN side during installation takes considerable time.

We have been using Netgate pfSense since 2008.

Netgate pfSense is a stable solution for me.

It's a scalable solution. Two months ago, I purchased a brand new server edition, a Lenovo ThinkSystem server with 128 GB RAM. I installed this pfSense server in a data center, and it's working fine. Many people connect via VPN; three or four sites are connecting site-to-site, and we also established another IPsec connection to one of the biggest ISPs in Turkey. It's working great now.

We have never asked for technical support from Netgate. We rely on the resources on the web for information.

Two months ago, we switched to OPNsense, and we are now studying OPNsense. We made a strong decision to switch to OPNsense because of the large solutions. There are many facilities, such as AdGuard and Zenarmor, which can be easily installed under OPNsense. We are studying OPNsense, and we will likely switch to OPNsense in 2025 because we are still waiting for a stable version of pfSense. 2.7.2 is very old, and we have switched to the 2.8 beta version, but we are still making our tests now.

Since we have been using pfSense for almost 18 years, we have learned extensively about Netgate pfSense. We have worked extensively and watched many educational videos from the United States, and we have made ourselves ready for pfSense. If one understands the system, it's easy to handle, but without knowledge, it's very challenging for everybody. Many people try to work with pfSense in Turkey with the free edition, the Community Edition, but they couldn't succeed because it's a complex system. It's a vast ocean, and understanding every protocol is necessary. Basically, all firewall systems are the same. Brands such as Cisco, FortiGate, and Sophos sell well in Turkey, and we are competing with these companies. Our target market is the small market, not the big companies or holdings, especially in the hospitality sector, where we deal with hotels and motels.

We would appreciate seeing facilities similar to OPNsense for Community Edition. In Turkey, people generally don't want to pay for yearly subscriptions to firewall systems. We barely recouped our investment for our Safe Hotspot system in Turkey. Competing with other brands such as Sophos, FortiGate, and Cisco is challenging. These brands also require annual payments, and due to Turkey's economic conditions, everyone is eliminating such costs. We have produced our hardware for pfSense, but it was not Netgate; it was only pfSense in the early days. We made our own rack mount 5 or 8 port firewall systems in Turkey and sold many.

The initial setup of Netgate pfSense is not complex; it's very easy. I can even have one of our resellers burn a pfSense USB stick and install pfSense without knowing anything about it.

Because the Community edition is free, we only charge for our services to the customers. In Turkey, we cannot demand normal pricing; if we were in Europe or the United States, we might collect more money from customers. The conditions in Turkey are very challenging, and collecting payment is difficult. We often charge half or one-third of the price compared to Europe.

We would like to buy Netgate hardware, but when I checked its price in Europe, it seemed expensive.

I would rate Netgate pfSense a 10 out of 10.

I prefer this product because it is open source. Another thing is that it is Unix-based, so it is not affected by viruses or attacks. Support is also available.

With the right hardware, its VPN capabilities and performance are amazing.

From my usage, controlling the bandwidth for each user is valuable. Also, the availability of working as a backup or aggregating downloads is useful. All these capabilities are key.

Its interface is simple and easy.

Maybe they can add two-factor authentication.

I have been working with this solution for almost four to five years.

It is very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

It is scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

We have 60 to 65 users.

I have not taken any technical support from Netgate. I was able to get all the information from the web or Netgate forums. I did not use their technical support because it is an open-source and free edition.

I used OPNsense.Using the module for controlling the bandwidth for the users in OPNsense required payment. There was also a subscription, and I dislike subscribing to any service.

It was not complex. It was straightforward. They had a wizard with ten steps. I just had to fill in the information.

It took me about 45 minutes to be completely up and running with my configuration.

There were no third parties involved. It was implemented on-site.

I am using the free version.

I would recommend pfSense to others. It is free. Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.