pfSense

Open source firewall software with a free Community Edition and a separate commercial Plus edition sold by Netgate

As of 1 September 2026, pfSense is free to use. A FreeBSD-based firewall and router platform. Softwr lists it under Networking. pfSense is made by Netgate (Electric Sheep Fencing, LLC), available on Linux.

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Overview

What pfSense does

pfSense turns commodity or purpose-built x86-64 hardware into a firewall, router and VPN gateway, with a web-based configuration interface covering stateful firewalling, traffic shaping, VPN (IPsec, OpenVPN, WireGuard) and a large package ecosystem for extending functionality. It began as a fork of m0n0wall and has been developed for two decades as an open source project. The commercial split buyers need to understand is that pfSense Community Edition (CE) is free, open source, and can be installed on any compatible x86-64 hardware with no vendor lock-in, while pfSense Plus is a separate commercial edition, developed and sold by Netgate, adding features like real-time threat intelligence feeds, centralised reporting and certified support tiers. Plus comes bundled at no extra charge when buying a Netgate appliance (from around $189 for an entry-level unit), but running Plus on third-party or white-box hardware instead of CE requires migrating from a CE install to Plus software through Netgate's official channel, and the terms and availability of that path have shifted over time, so a buyer intending to run Plus on non-Netgate hardware should confirm current eligibility directly with Netgate before assuming CE and Plus are interchangeable on any box. Buyers choosing CE are typically home users, small businesses and hobbyists wanting zero licence cost and full hardware flexibility; buyers choosing Plus, usually via a Netgate appliance, are businesses wanting vendor support, an integrated appliance, and Plus-only features. The trade-off is that CE gives up official support and some newer features in exchange for zero cost and hardware freedom, while Plus gives up some of that freedom for support and a more polished feature set.

What people use it for

A home user or small business wanting a free, fully-featured firewall on commodity hardware with no licence cost
A business wanting an integrated firewall appliance with vendor support, typically buying a Netgate appliance bundled with pfSense Plus
A team wanting to evaluate advanced features like real-time threat intelligence before committing to Netgate hardware or a Plus migration
An organisation replacing an expensive commercial firewall with an open source alternative while retaining the option to add commercial support later

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about pfSense.

pfSense CE and pfSense Plus are not simply the same software with a support contract layered on top; Plus is a separately developed edition with its own feature set, and moving between them is a migration, not a toggle
Running Plus on non-Netgate hardware depends on Netgate's current migration terms, which have changed over time, so a buyer planning to use white-box hardware with Plus should verify current eligibility rather than assume it works as it did previously
CE has no official vendor support channel; a business relying on it for production firewalling without a support contract is self-supporting on community forums
Some newer features and threat intelligence integrations are Plus-only, so CE users do not get feature parity going forward even though both editions remain under active development
Netgate's own appliance pricing and the terms of the CE-to-Plus migration path are not always clearly presented in one place, requiring some digging to understand the real total cost of a Plus deployment on non-Netgate hardware
As with any self-managed firewall, security depends on the operator applying updates and correctly configuring rules; there is no managed security operations layer included even in Plus

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of pfSense

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

pfSensevs
MikroTik RouterOS
MikroTik RouterOS: For router and firewall hardware sold with a one-time perpetual software licence rather than a free-versus-paid edition split
pfSensevs
OpenVPN
OpenVPN: For VPN connectivity specifically rather than full firewall and routing functionality
pfSensevs
Cisco Meraki
Cisco Meraki: For a fully managed commercial alternative, though one with a mandatory recurring licence unlike pfSense CE

Pricing

What pfSense costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

pfSense CE

Free

Full firewall and routing functionality
No vendor lock-in to hardware
Community support

pfSense Plus (via Netgate appliance)

On request

Bundled with Netgate hardware appliances from around $189
Threat intelligence feeds
Certified support tiers

Capabilities

Features

Stateful firewall and NAT
Core firewalling, port forwarding and NAT rule management through a web UI
VPN support
IPsec, OpenVPN and WireGuard VPN configuration built in
Traffic shaping and QoS
Bandwidth management and prioritisation rules
Package ecosystem
Extend functionality with community and Netgate-maintained packages such as Suricata and pfBlockerNG
CE and Plus editions
A free, hardware-flexible Community Edition alongside a commercial Plus edition with additional features and support from Netgate

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

What is the difference between pfSense CE and pfSense Plus?

CE is the free, open source edition installable on any compatible hardware; Plus is a commercial edition from Netgate with additional features and support, typically bundled with Netgate appliances.

Can I run pfSense Plus on my own hardware?

It is possible through a migration from a CE installation via Netgate's official channel, but the terms and availability of that path have changed over time and should be confirmed directly with Netgate.

Is pfSense CE really free with no catch?

Yes, CE has no licence fee and no hardware lock-in, though it comes with community rather than vendor support.

Keep looking

Where to go from pfSense

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for pfSense, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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