Netgate pfSense review: score, privacy and prices
1.38
out of 10not in the main ranking (too little published data)
Business VPN / ZTNA median 2.5
- Business VPN / ZTNA
- Jurisdiction:USA, alliance not disclosed
- Data completeness60%
- Checked2026-10-15
- Free plan
In 10 seconds
Strongest against its segment
- Platforms and support5.1 vs 3.9
- Price and fair terms3.8 vs 3.4
- Censorship bypass0.5 vs 0.5
Weakest against its segment
- Network and streaming0.0 vs 2.8
- Privacy and jurisdiction0.0 vs 2.3
- Security and protocols1.1 vs 1.8
How the score adds up
Six sub-scores, each against the median of Business VPN / ZTNA services in the main ranking (None services). Open a line to see which published facts earned points and which were missing or not disclosed.
Netgate pfSensesegment median
-
Privacy and jurisdiction30% of the score · segment median 2.30.0
What earned points
- No-logs policy +2
- Independent no-logs audit +3
- No-logs confirmed in court +1
- Warrant canary +1
- Transparency report +1
- Sign-up without email +1.5
- Account number sign-up +0.5
- Stores connection IP (penalty) −3
- Public incident (penalty) −2
-
Security and protocols20% of the score · segment median 1.81.1
What earned points
- Kill switch +2
- DNS leak protection +1.5
- RAM-only servers +1
- Post-quantum encryption +1
- Perfect forward secrecy +0.5
- Security audit +2
- Open-source clients +1.5
- 2FA +1
- Multi-hop +1
- Bug bounty +1
- Only PPTP / L2TP (penalty) −2
-
Price and fair terms15% of the score · segment median 3.43.8
What earned points
- Free plan +1.5
- Free trial +1
- Trial without a card +1
- Crypto payments +1
- Cash payments +0.5
-
Censorship bypass15% of the score · segment median 0.50.5
What earned points
- Stealth / obfuscation +2
- VLESS / Reality +1.5
- Trojan +1
- Hysteria2 +1
- Shadowsocks +1
- AmneziaWG +1
- obfs4 +0.5
- TUIC +0.5
- NaiveProxy +0.5
- Mirrors or Telegram channel +0.5
- VoIP in the UAE (claimed) +0.5
- Manual configs +0.5
-
Network and streaming10% of the score · segment median 2.80.0
What earned points
- 10 Gbps servers +1
- Dedicated IP +0.5
- Port forwarding +0.5
- MENA locations +0.5
- Torrenting allowed +1
-
Platforms and support10% of the score · segment median 3.95.1
What earned points
- Routers +1
- Browser extensions +0.5
- Split tunneling +1
- Ad / tracker blocker +1
- 24/7 live chat +2
- live chat +0.5
- Support on Telegram +0.5
- Status page +0.5
Netgate pfSense pricing
The cheapest way in is €9.24 a month, paid upfront for the longest term. After that term, Netgate pfSense renews at its standard price. Market median across the main ranking: €3.13 a month.
Real cost over 1, 2 and 3 years
What you pay to keep Netgate pfSense running: the first term, then renewals at the published renewal price. Where no renewal price is published, plans shorter than a year are counted as repeat payments at the current price; longer plans show a dash after their term. Converted to euros at the rates used in our data (1 USD = €0.86). The lowest cost for each period is marked.
| Plan and first term | First payment | 1 year | 2 years | 3 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pfSense Plus software (3rd-party HW/VM), 12 mo | €110.94 | €110.94 | — | — |
| pfSense Plus appliance (from), Lifetime | €162.54 | €162.54 | €162.54 | €162.54 |
Compare Netgate pfSense’s full cost with other VPNs, for any number of devices
All plans as published
| Plan | Term | Price for term | Per month | € / month | Renewal term |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pfSense Plus software (3rd-party HW/VM) | 12 mo | $129.00 | $10.75 | €9.24 | 12 mo |
| pfSense Plus appliance (from) | Lifetime | $189.00 | — | — | — |
Refunds, trial and payment
- Refund window
- 30 (hardware returns only, unused, 25% open-box fee; software downloads/virtual products non-refundable)
- Refund conditions
- 30 days, unused in original packaging, 25% open-box fee; software downloads & virtual products not refundable; shipping not refunded
- Free trial
- 30 (cloud AWS/Azure), cloud marketplaces
- Auto-renewal
- Not stated
- Payment methods
- Visa; Mastercard; American Express; Discover; Diners Club; Shop Pay; AWS/Azure marketplace billing
- Renewal note
- software priced per year; renewal terms not stated
Everything Netgate pfSense publishes
Every fact we collected about Netgate pfSense, as the provider and reviewers state it. Empty fields are left out; key fields we could not find say “Not stated”. “Partial”: only on some platforms, servers or plans.
Company
- Legal entity
- Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate)
- Registered in
- USA (HQ Austin, TX)
- Address
- 4616 West Howard Lane #900, Austin, TX 78728, USA
- Surveillance alliance (5/9/14 Eyes)
- Not stated
- Website languages
- EN
- Right-to-left languages
- No
- Currencies on the site
- USD
Plans, prices and add-ons
- Plans
- pfSense Plus appliance
- pfSense Plus software
- pfSense Plus cloud (AWS/Azure)
- TNSR (contact sales)
- TAC Lite/Pro/Enterprise
- Business Assurance
- Billing terms
- one-time appliance
- annual software
- hourly cloud
- Cheapest price a month
- $10.75
- Monthly plan
- Not stated
- 1-year plan, total
- $129.00
- 1-year plan, a month
- $10.75
- Lifetime plan
- appliance from 189 one-time
- Renewal
- software priced per year; renewal terms not stated
- Family plan
- Not stated
- Prices seen from other countries
- USD: pfSense+ software $129/yr (TAC Lite), $399/yr (TAC Pro), $799/yr (TAC Ent)
- appliances from $189
- cloud $0.08-$0.40/hr
- Other add-ons
- TAC support tiers
- extended warranty
- memory/storage upgrades
Discounts and programmes
- Discount shown
- No
- Student discount
- Not stated
- Affiliate programme
- No partner/reseller program
Limits and restrictions
- Devices at once
- Not stated
- Data limit
- No
- Speed limit
- hardware-dependent
Free plan
- Free plan
- Yes pfSense home/lab free offering; cloud 30-day trial
- Free data
- Not stated
- Ads in the free plan
- No
- Other free plan terms
- no feature or throughput upcharges
Payment and subscription
- Payment methods
- Visa
- Mastercard
- American Express
- Discover
- Diners Club
- Shop Pay
- AWS/Azure marketplace billing
- Bank card
- Yes
- PayPal
- Not stated
- Cryptocurrency
- No store accepts Visa, MasterCard, Amex, Discover, wire transfer, PayPal, gov/edu purchase orders
- Cash
- Not stated
- Gift cards
- Not stated
- Auto-renewal by default
- Not stated
- Email needed to sign up
- Not stated
- Account-number login
- Not stated
- Money-back guarantee, days
- 30 (hardware returns only, unused, 25% open-box fee; software downloads/virtual products non-refundable)
- Refund conditions
- 30 days, unused in original packaging, 25% open-box fee
- software downloads & virtual products not refundable
- shipping not refunded
Free trial terms
- Trial length
- 30 (cloud AWS/Azure)
- Where the trial is offered
- cloud marketplaces
- Instead of a trial
- Zero Cost PoC for cloud
- Card needed for the trial
- Not stated
Server locations
- Countries
- Not stated
- Servers
- Not stated
- Server countries
- Not stated
- Middle East and North Africa
- Not stated
- Virtual locations
- Not stated
- P2P servers
- Not stated
- Obfuscated servers
- Not stated
Network features
- RAM-only servers
- Not stated
- IPv6
- Yes
- Dedicated IP
- Not stated
- Static IP
- Not stated
- Residential IP
- Not stated
- Double VPN / multi-hop
- Not stated
- Tor over VPN
- Not stated
- SOCKS5 proxy
- Not stated
- Smart DNS
- Not stated
Protocols and encryption
- WireGuard✓ Yes
- OpenVPN✓ Yes
- IKEv2IPsec✓ Yes
- L2TP/IPsecL2TP/IPsecYes
- SSTPNot stated
- SoftEther✕ No
- Own protocol✕ No
- VLESS / Reality✕ No
- VMess✕ No
- Trojan✕ No
- Shadowsocks✕ No
- Hysteria2✕ No
- TUIC✕ No
- NaiveProxy✕ No
- obfs4✕ No
- AmneziaWG✕ No
- PPTP✓ No
- Other protocols
- PPPoE server
- Perfect forward secrecy
- Not stated
- Post-quantum encryption
- Not stated
- Manual configuration files
- Yes self-hosted server; OpenVPN client export
- Open-source apps
- Not stated
Censorship and blocking
- Obfuscation (stealth mode)
- Not stated
- Countries it claims to work in
- Not stated
- Mirror sites or Telegram channel
- Not stated
- Calls in the UAE
- Not stated
Security
- Kill switch
- Not stated
- DNS leak protection
- Not stated
- Own DNS servers
- Yes Unbound resolver
- Split tunnelling
- Yes
- Ad and malware blocker
- Yes pfBlockerNG, Snort/Suricata IDS/IPS
- Two-factor sign-in
- Not stated
- Security audits
- Not stated
- Bug bounty
- Not stated
Privacy
- No-logs policy
- Not stated
- Independent no-logs audit
- Not stated
- Trackers on the website
- Google Tag Manager; LinkedIn Ads pixel
- Transparency report
- Not stated
- Warrant canary
- Not stated
- Anonymous sign-up
- Not stated
What the privacy policy says is collected
Yes: collected. No: not collected. Partial: kept briefly or only in part. Not stated: the policy does not say.
- Connection IPNot stated
- Session timesNot stated
Apps and devices
- WindowsNot stated
- macOSremote-access clients via OpenVPN Client Export, e.g. Viscosity bundle; third-party client✓ Yes
- Linuxremote-access via standard OpenVPN/WireGuard clients; third-party✓ Yes
- iOSOpenVPN Connect inline config export; third-party client✓ Yes
- AndroidAndroid inline config export for OpenVPN app; third-party client✓ Yes
- Android TVNot stated
- Fire TVNot stated
- Apple TVNot stated
- ChromebookNot stated
- Smart TVNot stated
- Routersis a router/firewall✓ Yes
- NASNot stated
- Raspberry PiNot stated
- Game consolesNot stated
- Browser extensions
- Not stated
Speed, streaming and gaming
- 10 Gbps servers
- Not stated
- Netflix
- Not stated
- BBC iPlayer
- Not stated
- Disney+
- Not stated
- Prime Video
- Not stated
- Gaming features
- Not stated
- Torrenting
- Not stated
Support
- Live chat
- No support via forum, portal, email, phone, remote login
- Live chat 24/7
- No TAC support 24/7/365 by phone/email/portal for paid TAC
- Email / tickets
- Yes TAC
- Phone
- Yes +1 512-646-4100, support 24x7x365
- Telegram
- Not stated
- Not stated
- Discord or forum
- Yes forum.netgate.com
- Response time (claimed)
- TAC Lite 24h; TAC Pro/Ent 4h initial response SLA
- Help articles
- Yes docs, FAQ
- Server status page
- Not stated
- Uptime guarantee (SLA)
- 24x7 TAC with SLAs (claim)
For teams and business
- SSO / SAML
- Not stated
- Admin panel
- Yes web GUI
- Dedicated gateway
- Yes
- Zero-trust access (ZTNA)
- No classic firewall/VPN gateway
- Identity providers
- RADIUS; LDAP
What users say
Reviews never change our score. Ratings are smoothed: a source’s average across all VPNs counts as 50 extra reviews, so a few five-star reviews cannot outrank thousands.
-
Trustpilot
3.57 of 5, smoothed
From 5 collected reviews (raw average 2.60; all VPNs 3.66).
The company replied to 0 of 3 negative reviews (1–2 stars).
Ratings shown on the platforms themselves: Trustpilot TrustScore 2.7 (5 reviews).
38 Reddit and forum threads mention Netgate pfSense (titles and search snippets only).
Latest reviews and related rankings
Latest reviews
Short excerpts with a link to the original. We do not reproduce reviews in full.
Trustpilot · 1★ · 12 Jul 2025 · US
I’ve been a longtime tech user
Original reviewTrustpilot · 1★ · 08 May 2025 · US
Negate is the Worst!
Original reviewTrustpilot · 5★ · 13 Sep 2024 · DK
Nice products for SMB networking.
Original review
Rankings by user reviews
In our rankings
Netgate pfSense appears on 2 topic pages. Its place on each:
Similar VPNs
- eduVPN1.35
Also similar to Netgate pfSense
Owner and jurisdiction
Sources and changes
Collected 2026-10-15. No changes recorded since the first import.
- Website
- https://netgate.com
- Pages checked
- https://netgate.com; https://www.netgate.com/pricing-pfsense-plus; https://www.netgate.com/pfsense-features; https://www.netgate.com/company/privacy-policy
- Other sources used
- price_24m_pm/plan_names/live_chat/live_chat_247/response_time_claimed: https://www.netgate.com/pfsense-plus-software/software-types; money_back_days/refund_conditions: https://shop.netgate.com/policies/refund-policy; payment_methods/card: shop.netgate.com footer payment icons; registration_country/address/phone: https://www.netgate.com/contact-us; card_required_for_trial: https://www.netgate.com/pricing-pfsense-plus; crypto: https://shop.netgate.com/pages/how-to-order (snippet); macos/ios/android/linux: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/recipes/openvpn-ra-client-macos.html, .../openvpn-ra-client-ios.html, .../openvpn-ra-client-android.html, .../openvpn-ra-client.html (snippets)
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