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.

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.

I purchased this product with the hope of having a great firewall to protect my local area network. Unfortunately, it was not up to the task. On my first day of using it my NetGate 1100 just blinked out. And I could not log into it. So I have to plug it into my computer via USB and use a console. I was able to reinstall the software via the factory settings feature on the menu and get it running up again. An hour later it blinked off again and would not work. Basically, it crashed. I once again went to the console and set it back to factory settings. But that was it. I had no faith in it. I could not have confidence it would not continue to happen. My guess is that it got to hot, even though I had set it upside down so as to allow the heat vents to face up. Why anyone would put heat vents at the bottom of an a top enclosed device is beyond me. I sent it back. One day was all it took to crap out on me. Because of what happened, I do not trust NetGate for hardware. I will probably get a mini computer and use that for PFSense.

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..

While configuring VLANs on this pfSense firewall I discovered the internal switch caused an interesting requirement to match up internal ports as well as the physical ports to the new VLAN. Once installation documentation was studied this became understandable, however, it was not expected from marketing documents. This is why I give this a 4 - star rating instead of 5.

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.

We've been deploying Pfsense & Netgate For a few years now for our corporate clientsWhatever you throw at this firewall it can pretty much handle it We use the 1100 For our PBX Phone systems No complaints on handling the traffic.

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.