pfSense CE

Free, open-source (Apache 2.0) FreeBSD-based firewall and router distribution, installed on the user's own hardware or a VM; hosted and developed by Netgate. The curriculum is designed to scale in detail from new pfSense users to senior network engineers, and can be customized to suit the needs of your business. Providing comprehensive network security solutions for the enterprise, large business and SOHO, Netgate solutions with pfSense Plus software bring together the most advanced technology available to make protecting your network easier than ever before. If you purchase your hardware appliance from the pfSense store, our familiarity with the products will allow our support team to provide end-to-end solutions encompassing all aspects of the hardware and the firewall application. It is available as a virtual appliance.

Current Version

2.9.0

Product Page

pfsense.org

Market

Enterprise

Licence

Open source

Price

Free

Record Created

2026-09-20

Last Updated

2026-10-28

Netgate develops and sells pfSense, one of the most widely deployed open-source firewalls in the world. The project began as a fork of m0n0wall in 2004; Netgate is the company behind it, and its business is the same shape as several others in this index — give away the software, sell the hardware, the support and the hardened edition. pfSense CE is the free Community Edition, pfSense Plus is the commercial version with additional features and a support contract, and Netgate Appliances are its own hardware with pfSense Plus preinstalled, from small desktop units to rack-mounted firewalls. TNSR is its higher-throughput routing product. It is worth knowing that pfSense and OPNsense, also listed here, are relatives: OPNsense was forked from pfSense in 2015 after a disagreement between the projects, and the two have developed separately since. Choosing between them is a choice between two lineages of the same original code. Vendor page →

Website

netgate.com

Country

🇺🇸United States

Headquarters

🇺🇸Austin, United States

Year Established

2004

Customers

20K organisations

Users

13M deployments

Revenue

$20.0M (2026)