pfSense Plus - pfSense Factory Edition is now pfSense Plus

[R2D2]

So the guys at Netgate decided to fork pfSense into 2 versions:

a) The community edition (CE) will remain open source
b) Factory edition is now a closed source version

More details here: Announcing pfSense® Plus

I've been using Netgate's SG 2440 appliance at home for exactly 5 years now (since Jan 2016) and while this move is not entirely surprising it does not bode well for the CE. Reddit /r/PFSENSE is ablaze with many unhappy users both Netgate customers and appliance/system builders alike.

Alternative is OPNSense. I dual boot it off a MMC card in my Netgate appliance. IMHO pfSense wins hands down. pfBlockerNG doesn't support OPNSense yet.

 

[forgottenuser79643]

It might not be the exact same thing, but you can use the DNSBL (BIND) as a workaround/alternative. I never used pfBLockerNG so i can't really comment, but if you have both tested. How does it fare in your opinion in comparison?

BIND Plugin — OPNsense documentation

docs.opnsense.org

Unbound DNS — OPNsense documentation

docs.opnsense.org

(also possible through DNScrypt and such)

 

[R2D2]

It might not be the exact same thing, but you can use the DNSBL (BIND) as a workaround/alternative. I never used pfBLockerNG so i can't really comment, but if you have both tested. How does it fare in your opinion in comparison?

TBH I've never used DNSBL so I really have no idea how it performs. pfBlockerNG does a pretty good job and the author provides regular bug fixes and updates. My Netgate system software configuration has been more or less fixed since I purchased the appliance in '16. The only items that changed over the past 5 years are an annual Snort subscription starting 2017 and the addition of 2 more WAN connections plus gateway group configurations for redundancy and load balancing.