The world’s most popular, feature-rich and robust firewall, router and VPN solutions. Ideal for personal users, professional users, and organizations looking for easy-to-use, powerful, flexible, proven solutions for safely connecting to the Internet. Netgate offers two very powerful, but different, secure networking solutions - pfSense Plus and TNSR. Stephen D. FINANCIAL SERVICES Ideal for demanding service provider and business edge, campus, data center and cloud connectivity environments - where high-speed routing and encrypted traffic handling are required Learn MoreCompare with pfSense Plus Torstein S. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT Whether at home or in the office, safely connecting to the digital world requires three fundamental capabilities at the network edge. Monitor incoming and outgoing network traffic and configure settings to allow or block specific traffic based on a defined set of security rules. Encrypt your traffic so no one can see what you do online, or interfere with your traffic - to and from your location, across the Internet, to its far-end destination. Connect computers and other devices to the home or business to the world, choose the best route for your information to travel, and decide which computers get priority over others. Netgate secure networking solutions can be deployed virtually or physically on premises, and virtually in the cloud. The Netgate 1100 is the ideal microdevice for the home and small office network with up to 1 Gbps routing and 607 Mbps of firewall throughput. The Netgate 2100 delivers unbeatable performance and flexibility in its class. Perfect for home, remote workers, and small business deployments that require more resources for multiple add-on packages and VPN performance. The Netgate 4200 with pfSense Plus software is the most versatile security gateway in its class. The 4200 utilizes the blazing fast performance of 4-core Intel Atom C1110 CPU to achieve benchmark results up to three times faster in routing, firewall forwarding and IPsec VPN than the previous generation of security gateways. The 4200 delivers over 9.2 Gbps of L3 routing across four independent 2.5 GbE flexible WAN/LAN ports. The Netgate 6100 is ideal for pro-home, small/medium businesses, or edge deployments that require flexible port configurations to support 1 to 10 Gbps WAN capabilities across RJ45, SFP, and SFP+ ports. The Netgate® 8200 is ideal for remote office, small/medium business, managed service providers, and enterprise networks with high-speed 10 GbE routing requirements looking for enterprise-class performance in a rack mount configuration. The Netgate 8300, the most powerful appliance from Netgate, it's ideal for medium to large business data centers, server rooms or service providers. This unit is perfect for high-throughput and mission-critical deployments. Read customer stories to learn how pfSense Plus and TNSR software empower their businesses while saving precious budget. U.S. Navy deploys pfSense Plus software on the Netgate 1537 and AWS Cloud for network security and management. The power of open source software is evident. Netgate closes the gap between open source projects and ready-to-deploy, business-assured solutions. Did you know? Netgate packages, tests, and supports over a dozen different open-source projects into commercially-ready products with its software releases. Cutting-edge packet processing performance and feature sets with no-frills, flat-rate pricing that crushes proprietary alternatives. Did you know? With TNSR® software, Netgate uses Vector Packet Processing (VPP) that achieves ASIC-level performance, in software, for pennies on the dollar. No hidden costs. No vendor lock-in. Easily integrated into your existing management framework. Did you know? When it comes to Netgate products you get the complete software offering, we don't nickel and dime you for extra features. But wait, There's more! You can license both of our software products for free Home and Lab use. 24x7 TAC Support with SLAs included to provide the business assurance you need. Did you know? Since introducing 24/7/365 TAC our Netgate Global support satisfaction rating has never dropped below 97%! Over seven million firewall, VPN, and router installs worldwide. Netgate can fulfill virtually any day-to-day or mission-critical secure networking need. Did you know? Netgate software products are deployed across every vertical, business size, and continent. Yep, even Antarctica. Ongoing contribution to numerous secure-networking open source projects including Clixon, DPDK, FD.io, FreeBSD, FRR, pfSense, strongSwan, and VPP. Did you know? Netgate has contributed over 28,000 code commits through May 2021 to open-source projects. pfSense, Announcements 24.08 Sneak Peek: Improvements to Kea DHCP for Improved High Availability and Unbound DNS Resolution in pfSense® Software TNSR, Announcements, Networking Hurricane Electric Adds TNSR Software to its Tunnel Broker Service Appliances, TNSR, Announcements, Releases, Networking Introducing the Netgate 8300 MAX Secure Router 
Home
Office
Cloud
Prioritized office, IoT, and entertainment traffic
Prevent intrusions into your personal network
Secure network access for work-from-home
Stay connected with speed and reliability
Affordable next-gen firewall protection
Secure remote access to other offices and cloud
High-speed inter- or intra-cloud connectivity
Protect cloud-hosted applications and data
Run your own VPN service, or setup high speed site-to-cloud secure connections
Find the Right Secure Networking Software for Your Needs
All-in-one network firewall, router, and VPN solution
Ideal for home, remote worker, business, and service provider network connectivity and protection
"We've been using pfSense for our Firewall/IDS for five years - across multiple work sites with HA CARP configured - and it is outstanding. Just does most things exceptionally well."
High-performance software router with industry-leading price-performance, scalability
"I really put TNSR through the paces. What I found was that I’m incapable of generating enough traffic to stress the box - without a lot of effort - and that frankly, I’ll never generate real-world traffic anywhere near its capacity."
Secure Networking Bases Covered
Firewall Protection
Secure VPN
Routing Control
Deploy How You Like and Where You Need
Netgate 1100
Netgate 2100
Netgate 4200
Netgate 6100
Netgate 8200
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Netgate 8300
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USNS Mercy
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Why Netgate?
Industry-Leading Open
Source Contribution and Leverage
Price-Performance that is
second to none 
Champion of low total
cost of ownership 
Enterprise-class
customer support 
Proven and Trusted the
World Over 
Strong Commitment to the Open Source Movement
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FAQs
What does a Netgate do? ›
Netgate closes the gap between open source projects and ready-to-deploy, business-assured solutions. Did you know? Netgate packages, tests, and supports over a dozen different open-source projects into commercially-ready products with its software releases.
What is pfSense used for? ›pfSense® software is primarily used as a router and firewall software and is frequently set up as a DHCP server, DNS server, WiFi access point, and VPN server, all on the same physical device.
Who owns Netgate? ›Netgate® is a registered mark owned by Rubicon Communications LLC and may not be used without the prior express written permission of Rubicon Communications LLC.
Does Netgate require a subscription? ›Customers who purchase a Netgate appliance do not have to purchase a subscription and have TAC Lite free of charge for the life of the appliance.
What's better than pfSense? ›If you want high customizability and a large support community, pfSense is a good option. If you prioritize an easy-to-use interface and frequent updates, instead, OPNsense may be better. Ultimately, pfSense offers more flexibility for seasoned users, but OPNsense provides a more polished out-of-box experience.
What are the disadvantages of pfSense? ›Challenging web GUI setup and management: Non-expert users may find it challenging to set up and manage the web GUI, particularly when it comes to assigning WAN and LAN interfaces. Limited API and scripting capabilities: Some reviewers have highlighted the lack of an API for making changes in pfSense.
Do I need a router if I have pfSense? ›If you want to connect your home or business LAN to another network or the Internet, you will need at least one router.
Is pfSense completely free? ›pfSense® software is a free, open source customized distribution of FreeBSD specifically tailored for use as a firewall and router that is entirely managed via web interface.
Is pfSense really that good? ›Netgate pfSense is the #1 ranked solution in best firewalls. PeerSpot users give Netgate pfSense an average rating of 8.6 out of 10. Netgate pfSense is most commonly compared to Fortinet FortiGate: Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate.
Is pfSense a VPN? ›pfSense® software offers several VPN options: IPsec, OpenVPN, WireGuard and L2TP. This section provides an overview of VPN usage, the pros and cons of each type of VPN, and how to decide which is the best fit for a particular environment.
Do companies use pfSense? ›
Around the world in 2024, over 2811 companies have started using pfSense as Perimeter Security And Firewalls tool.
Is pfSense a switch or router? ›I have gathered from looking this topic up, that pfsense is meant as a router/firewall and not a switch. I am using this at home and trying to learn a bit more about networking as well. 1st port is wan, 2nd port is LAN and the other two do not get used based on what I see in tutorials.
What is the purpose of Netgate? ›Netgate is an open-source driven secure networking company that provides high-performance and affordable appliance and software-based firewall, VPN, and routing solutions for the home, office, and cloud.
Why do people use pfSense? ›- Open Source.
- Robust.
- Flexible.
- Next-Generation Firewall Features.
- Fault Tolerance and Speed Administration.
- VPN Features.
- No Vendor Lock-in.
- Networking Features.
Some customers prefer to source their own hardware, and that is fine. There are plenty of options. If you are using pfSense Plus on your own hardware, just be aware that CPU, memory, NIC, BIOS settings and disk configurations can affect performance.
Who needs pfSense? ›pfSense is mostly used as a router and firewall software, and typically configured as DHCP server, DNS server, WiFi access point, VPN server, all running on the same hardware device.
Why use pfSense instead of router? ›It is highly customizable
pfSense gives granular access to many features, especially firewall rules. You can fine-tune your firewall rules to your delight, including tweaking rules by port, protocol, IP address, and more. Most consumer router software doesn't allow for direct control of firewall rules.
| General Requirements: | |
|---|---|
| Minimum | CPU - 500 Mhz RAM - 512 MB |
| Recommended | CPU - 1 Ghz RAM - 1 GB |
| Requirements Specific to Individual Platforms: | |
| Full Install | CD-ROM or USB for initial installation 1 GB hard drive |