Netgate 1100 pfSense+ Security Gateway | VPN, Router, Firewall | Lifetime TAC Lite Support | 3X 1 GbE Ports | Protect Your Network with This Fully Featured, Professional Network Security Appliance.

Nice firewall!
Works well. The web interface is well thought out and also works well. Small form factor is helpful.

No support 1 month and no response from them!
Over a decade ago, I set up pfSense on a Soekris Net5501 by using an image on an SD card and connecting by a serial cable to configure everything. The hardware is getting old and I wanted a reliable replacement firewall.Buying this from Netgate was a serious mistake.I had configured my old firewall 100% on my own and it ran well for over a decade. When I made updates, there was no problem. When I got tied up with deaths in the family, moving, building a new house, and so on, for a number of years, that old pfSense firewall just kept chugging along, working perfectly.I felt, after that long, it was time to update, but I didn’t want to mess with putting an image on an SD card and dealing with a serial cable. I don’t have the time I did in the past, so I ordered a simple box, running the same software, that was backwards compatible. Supposedly I could load the configuration from my old firewall directly into the new one and that would be it.Well, no. I had issues with DNS from the start, but it didn’t look like firewall issues. It looked more like flakey ISP issues. I had to go to the forums and, after FOUR days exchanging messages and spending hours each day, I finally got the new configuration tweaked so we didn’t keep losing connectivity repeatedly. During this time, I wrote a letter to Netgate – to Sales, since they promise “zero to ping” tech support, but they don’t have that contact email anywhere on the website. Hell, unless you pay for tech support, you have only the forum. A month later? Not one single reply on that email. (I was hoping Sales would at least say, “We gotta make sure this guy doesn’t complain to others and badmouth us,” and send me to tech support, but they ignored it.)So now, while the whole country is on lockdown, I’m finding it takes 1/3 of a second for a ping to this device on a network that was working perfectly until I replaced the old pfSense firewall with the Netgate one running a new version of pfSense.I don’t know what’s wrong with this system, but it keeps malfunctioning and creating issues that slow down connections when an old version of the same software, on old hardware, worked perfectly.And help? No. They don’t give it. Not even zero to ping. They don’t care.Time to go back to the old hardware. It worked. I guess I’ll just have to bite the bullet and go through the old fashioned upgrade process because I sure as hell can’t count on Netgate’s equipment to work properly.

Great little POWERFUL router.
Let me say this upfront:If you’re clueless about networking, DO NOT BUY THIS! This is not a beginner’s router. It is a very powerful router and the configuration can be very complex.If you have half a clue about networking, read on-I’ve been running pfSense for years on old PCs and love it. But the old PCs get flaky when power gets removed (they don’t always come back up).This little bugger does EVERYTHING the PC version does and it recovers from power losses correctly!If you have never used pfSense, it’s a steep learning curve but it is POWERFUL! It does things that only high-end professional routers can do.I’m running multiple site-to-site VPNs, Road-warrior VPNs, port forwarding to dedicated servers, DMZs, and pretty complex firewalls to keep everyone out of where they’re not supposed to be.You can’t do this with a consumer grade SOHO router.

A firmware update has been available for 8 months, and it frightens me to attempt installing it.
After 18 months of ownership, I can confidently say that Pfsense is a powerful tool by which to mess up on a grand scale.I’m not what you would call tech illiterate. I have a degree in application programming and can deftly use OOP and procedural languages, have built my own gaming PC, and repair and hardware mod retro consoles as a hobby. My original university major was computer networking and I gave it up for the much easier prospect of applications development, which may be hard to believe for some. Computer networking and its equipment is legitimately the only thing in my life that gives me anxiety just *thinking* about having to reconfigure it.One errant checkbox will take down your entire home network, prevent any access to the web UI, and require using the serial access port on the device to roll back a change. This isn’t hyperbole — I had this happen this afternoon. It’s actually become such a predictable series of events that I leave the USB cable permanently attached to the Pfsense appliance, and tacked up an extension cable from my PC right next to it so that I can pop them together at a moment’s notice just to do this in PuTTY. This would actually be my first recommendation if you’re not a networking genius and buy this appliance: download PuTTY and commit these steps to memory from the Netgate docs: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/solutions/sg-1100/connect-to-console.html (which also reminds me that this firewall will only present console options on device startup and will output nothing when successfully connected to while already running, so memorize the console options while you’re at it too.)My next recommendation is to buy a small USB fan, connect it to one of the USB ports on the firewall, and point that thing right at the appliance. The advertising claims passive cooling has you covered, but it doesn’t. My network is tiny with only 20 devices total (4 or 5 online at the same time, max) and it took less than two hours for me to notice the melting plastic smell. The plastic casing was legitimately hot to the touch, as in physically recoiling to avoid burning myself.I would also recommend that you familiarize yourself with Youtube channels like Lawrence Systems. You’ll be getting the bulk of your information on how to do anything from them. Netgate says TAC Lite support is included with purchase, but all that does is get your Pfsense appliance online and connect one device to the internet. If you’re going to be adding wifi or, god forbid, anything classy like VLANs, then they aren’t going to be of much help unless you shelled out 400 extra clams. The “official” sources of free home user help like Netgate forums or the Pfsense subreddit has the distinct air of disdain for anyone that isn’t writing their own routing microcode, and the largest portion of problems seem to go unsolved. When one tries what is suggested in a thread, the problem still exists and then the thread just ends where, presumably, the OP gave up and went back to their off the shelf Nighthawk.Finally, I would make my most important recommendation of all: don’t buy this if you aren’t a) capable of setting up enterprise networks with one hand while solving sudoku with the other, or b) willing to dump an entire day off (or weekend) into figuring out how to make a single change or addition. This firewall is not a turn-key solution and you will find yourself chewing fingernails down to bleeding while on your 20th Google results page attempting to find any guidance on how to fix your problem.After unloading all of that, I have to be fair and say that it does what it does well when left alone. Your average consumer wifi router is designed to be idiot proof by offering little to no security, which is evidenced by its plug and play nature. Pfsense trusts nothing by default and you must then go out of your way to allow traffic you want flowing through your network. After initial install complications and finally getting a working network, it gave me zero problems until the next time I decided to change something. It has gracefully recovered from multiple power outages with little more than a system log entry, and has been belting out routed packets for a year and a half. The sheer volume of packets it drops on a minute by minute basis boggles the mind, and this was all crap that was assaulting my home network for years beforehand.There have even been a few instances of pure simplicity. One instance of something that floored me was installing Tailscale. This was apparently a joint effort between Tailscale and Netgate to make a literal set it and forget it feature. It was literally one package download and install from the web UI and it was done. Complete connectivity to Jellyfin when outside the home, that I can be confident is secure. It was magnificent.Overall, I don’t feel like 3 stars is harsh. It’s competent but unforgiving. While I estimate it’s been problem free for 90% of its time in my home, that last 10% was spent in a state of headache-inducing aggravation while attempting to solve a problem and having nowhere to turn.

Está bien. Un poco caro, por eso solo le doy 4 estrellas.

Good firewall. Thanks.