pfsense? Pros/Cons?

[waggythegeek]

I am working on initiating myself on networking gear in order to further my techification, and I need a modem/router upgrade. I looked at the pfsense website, and it seems to be more technical than I understand yet, and more trouble than it's worth. However, before ruling it out, I thought i'd ask you guys for pros/cons. How difficult is it? How much should a pfsense rig cost? Can I make it wifi compatible? Can I integrate a modem as well? Will it be fast? What about wanting more Ethernet ports than a motherboard has? Any other ups or downs I should know about?

[piemadd]

6 minutes ago, waggythegeek said:

I am working on initiating myself on networking gear in order to further my techification, and I need a modem/router upgrade. I looked at the pfsense website, and it seems to be more technical than I understand yet, and more trouble than it's worth. However, before ruling it out, I thought i'd ask you guys for pros/cons. How difficult is it? How much should a pfsense rig cost? Can I make it wifi compatible? Can I integrate a modem as well? Will it be fast? What about wanting more Ethernet ports than a motherboard has? Any other ups or downs I should know about?

All I know about presence:

 

It is good. Sorry, but the wifi setup that my parents are regretting is the AT&T provided all-in-one. I'm having them buy some gaming one so we can take advantage of google fiber when it comes. I don't know what that router is going to be though. Our current setup randomly shuts down.

[Beskamir]

I use pfsense for my router and I am by no means an expert when it comes to networking. I think that so long as you follow a decent setup guide you should be fine.

[Smite]

Few things to note, pfsense typically isn't a modem b/c that would be modulation/demodulation and typically those are just a pain in the butt and usually not supported by ISPs. What pfsense can do well is firewall and routing. it does this well enough too. if you want wireless you can put a card in the machine to do this but honestly you should use a access point because that's what they are for...

You can make a pfsense box for peanuts you just need nic ports. my personal favorite is using old firewalls such as watchguards and making them pfsense boxes. The bonus is they come with a lot of ports and are rack mountable. 

Edit: forgot to add pros and cons

pros: customizable, scalable, tons of nobs to tune just for your need. reuse old stuff to make it have a purpose again

Cons: can be difficult to setup(initially) if using a pc you need more than one nic which can cost more money. 

Edited February 18, 2016 by Smite

[brwainer]

You can't integrate modem functionality into a PFSense box. you can integrate wireless, but it doesn't do a very good job of it. AFAIK it still doesn't support AC NICs, but I haven't checked on that recently.

 

pros: lots of control over what your router does.

cons: pretty much any computer will use more power than a dedicated router hardware would. you have to assemble it yourself. if you don't use hardware that is known to be supported, you'll run into issues - including hardware that might work mostly or some of the time.

 

Anything you could do with PFSense you could also do with a Mikrotik router, and almost as much with a Ubiquiti router.