pfSense vs. VMware NSX

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

Our high-security environments require end to end encryption, but also tend to have larger budgets. Since beginning utilization of VMware NSX, we've been able to meet the unique requirements for our high-security clients, but it does have a large price tag that goes along with it. This isn't a particularly well-suited solution for environments with tighter budgets, but it definitely provides security where we need it and are willing to pay for this solution

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

• Broadcast Suppression: By suppressing broadcast traffic, we have been able to deploy a single VDI network in a /18 network space, allowing for rapid growth and proper DHCP lease timing for a VDI instant clone environment.
• Networking HA: Leveraging internal mechanisms for high availability, it provides disaster resiliency to a virtual networking environment.
• Cost Savings: All available features of NSX are licensed simultaneously. Load balancers, firewalls, and routers are all licensed as features, not per object, allowing for the deployment of as many of these objects as are needed.

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

• Our biggest challenge is gaining acceptance from network engineers who are used to working with other technologies.

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

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.

We use both Cisco ACI and VMware NSX, and while they have different strengths and capabilities, I would recommend VMware NSX, as it can be used in all VMware environments, without costly physical infrastructure changes. Cisco ACI provides some of the same capabilities, but not all. It's focus relies on physical networking changes.

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

• Easy to manage networking and security
• Better visibility into the environments

Incentivized