Pfsense Vs Free BSD – How do they differ
In the search for a solution that covers routing, firewalling and service features, while allowing the user to change the code as required, Free BSD and Pfsense often come up. How do they differ?
Pfsense is a free software that was initially developed to help web developers build their own physical routers and routing systems from scratch. This approach to its development allows it to have a very wide range of features and functionalities that can be classified as routing, firewalling and service. Free BSD is an open-source and free Operating system that is Unix-like and descends from the distribution of Berkley software. The software Pfsense is based on a free BSD Operating system. It is not plausible to wholesomely compare the two is that Pfsense is a software, while Free BSD is an Operating system.
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So, why would they be compared?
They are often compared to each other because they perform almost all the same tasks and have similar features, while supporting similar applications. The wholesome nature of Pfsense is such that it works more like an independent Operating System than a single-Purposed software. It performs Routing tasks, Firewalling and other security takes like packet filtering as well as allowing the user to have service applications that could be used for network system management.
Conclusion
The major difference between using Free BSD as it is and using Pfsense, which is based on Free BSD is the web application that manages Pfsense. This translates to its user interface and configuration protocols. Simply, Pfsense has similar capabilities and performance to Free BSD, but with a more user friendly User Interface.
FAQs
Is Pfsense free?
Yes it is and can be downloaded from the official Pfsense website. However, the developers offer a user the option of paying for an improved version, Pfsense Pro that has better features or just paying for Product support.
