Netgate1100 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.

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.

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

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.

I recently got a business level fiber connection for my home so I could move my web hosting here and save the insane fees I was paying for hosting me out in a datacenter. I needed a rock solid firewall /router solution to allow me precise control over ingress ports and to set up a separate VLAN to keep home and business traffic completely isolated.This little NetGate fits the bill perfectly - My connection is only 100 Mib/sec so I did not need the higher end units - this one should serve well up to 500 Gib/sec I think... if you have faster connections get the next model up for throughput/processing etc..

Why did you pick this product vs others?:Tons of features to customize it. Was robust and very small.Only problem it just stopped working after two years. I rebooted and reset multiple times and plugged computer in directly. It would no longer display its menu page/GUI as it used to. Don't know what happened but unfortunately, I will just discard it in the rubbish now.Features:Customize tons of network settings, and wanted to self teach with those features.

I was a computer guy, but then I got more into science, so I am not a computer science expert. What I know is that this is a stand-alone server for VPN, that is what I am using it for, so that I do not leave my machines vulnerable. I port forward VPN to this machine, and then that provides me with secure access to my local network. And it works great with a good interface.