KeepSolid VPN Unlimited vs. pfSense

If you need to access sites from your home country while travelling, a dedicated VPN is well worth your time and money. Free versions are limited, maybe useful if you only need to check email, but for ad-free consistent service, this is an excellent value. I suppose you could use a VPN to guard your privacy, but this doesn't fit my usage scenario.

Incentivized

pfSense is incredibly budget friendly and capable for organizations of all sizes. My specific scenario, working for a non-profit organization, requires budget consciences decisions without compromising security and function. pfSense has helped tremendously in accomplishing this. It specifically tackles advanced routing, static routing, remote access, intrusion prevention, in a single platform, mostly available for free.

Incentivized

• No distractions, works quietly in the background.
• Dozens of servers to choose from.
• Lifetime access price well worth it.
• Covers multiple devices.

Incentivized

• Easy to use. Good user interface design! Easy to understand and easy to set up.
• Lower hardware requirement. 3 years ago, we used an old PC to run it. Now, we have changed to a router device with Celeron CPU and 8GB RAM. It runs smoothly with a 1000G commercial broadband.

Incentivized

• Streaming servers aren't the greatest, sometimes fail.
• Not quite so seamless on mobile devices.

Incentivized

• There is no API for making changes. This can be a hindrance in environments where auto-deploying something needs firewall rules or HAProxy configs updated. Since all settings are stored in an XML file and then configs are generated from that, even manually updating config files cannot be done.
• Beware that some network cards can have issues. pfSense is based on FreeBSD, so it's best to look on their compatibility list before deploying.

Incentivized

pfSense can be a very elementary firewall but can also be as comples as you want, according your needs. I'd always reccomend a HA solution when used in a company and, for bigger companies, commercial license is recommended. It's also very adptable to everyone's needs.

Incentivized

pfSense+ basic provides "As Available" email support. pfSense+ Pro offers 24 hr turn around email support. pfSense+ Enterprise offers 24/7 phone support.

Incentivized

I tried a few free VPN servers, some via webpages and others via apps, but nothing specific comes to mind, maybe HideMyAss.com and Windscribe. All the freebies had limitations, such as ad-supported, speed limitations, or not allowing scripts to run. KeepSolid VPN Unlimited doesn't have any of these limitations so I could get to work without distraction.

Incentivized

PFSense is not a fully featured and supported enterprise-grade solution; however, it does offer a lot of similar functionality at a fraction of the cost for more minor requirements.

• After a week of constant roadblocks, this VPN sped up my online research considerably.
• Travelling, I was unable to control my IP, the majority of which were blacklisted on the majority of American sites, but this VPN got me around that so I could get to work.

Incentivized

• pfSense has only had positive impacts on our company. We are not a huge company so not having to buy licenses to get all these features have been excellent.
• I was not around when our current sysadmin decided to use pfSense, but I am assuming from day one it was probably a 100% return on investment since it does everything we need it to and it was open source software.

Incentivized