Pfsense Vs Iptables – Which one will better suit your needs?

Pfsense and Iptables have similar firewalling and functional capabilities, but which one will work best for you?

Pfsense and Iptables are two of the most commonly downloaded and used software in the open source market today. This is because they are both very efficient and reliable in their functions which revolve around manipulating firewall rules to suit the user’s requirements. They are both free and available directly from the internet and are relatively easy to download and run, with an array of freely available documentation online as well as wide online communities of users who are always ready to help a fellow programmer. They are very similar in capability, but vastly different in use making it very difficult to objectively asses and rank one as better than the other. At the end of the day, an accurate decision on which one is best can only be made in light of the potential user’s needs and requirements from the software.

What are the differences between Pfsense and Iptables?

Feature	Pfsense	Iptables (Winner)
Operating System	Free BSD	Linux
Pricing	Free	Free
Packet filtering	Yes (basic)	Yes(Advanced)
Speed	Very Fast	Moderate
User Interface	Graphical User Interface	Command line Interface
	Download here	Download here

Pfsense Vs Iptables – How do they compare?

• Packet Filtering

Pfsense filters web content using a wide range of basis like; protocol, interface, source or destination IP as well as TCP flags. It also allows for advanced filtering such as unicast reversing or anti-spoof. Iptables can do all this in addition to allowing the user to load a wider range of modules that offer more intensive packet filtering basis such as state, statistics and even time. Iptables allows for very many target extensions on top of allowing the user to write rules to filter a packet once it has been passed to user-space.

Therefore Iptables gives a far more advanced and reliable scope of packet filtering than pfsense does.

• Ease and process of configuration

Pfsense and iptables are widely used for system configuration. Pfsense has an inbuilt configuration line together with lists and tables of variables which the user can manually add or remove rules as well as other configuration files. Iptables does not have this feature and instead only uses iptables command to load or save rules from a file of commands or write the bash scripts one at a time.

This implies that pfsense gives the user a wider leash in terms of configuration rules, compared to iptables because it allows you to transverse and group rules in any way you desire.

• Overall performance

The determining factor for the overall speed of these two software seems to be their packet filtering process. As mentioned above, Iptables has a more thorough and advanced packet filtering process than Pfsense, which makes its waiting time for packet approval a bit higher. In addition to this, Pfsense tends to pass packets within an already trusted and established connection, enabling a majority of packets to pass without being subjected to the set firewall rules, making the entire process very short and rather quick. Iptables, on the other hand, has set rules that ensure that every single packet is subjected to all of the set rules before it passes through the system. This means that a longer set of iptables rules translates to a slower system and imposing rules on a packet in the user-space further slows it down.

Therefore, Iptables is slower that Pfsense, but far more efficient.

• User Interfaceh

Pfsense uses a GUI while Iptables uses a CLI. The major result of this is that rules are effected faster and more efficiently on Iptables, as is the nature of software with CLI. All other implications of this are relative to the user: For a novice programmer, Iptables may seem very intimidating to configure, while to a user who is experienced in Linux commands, the configuration is very easy, especially because it revolves around the same rules, but with small variations.

This makes Iptables more efficient in effecting system changes, while making it difficult to use for a new user, but simple to an experienced Linux programmer.

Pfsense Vs Iptables – A comparison review

Pfsense

Pfsense is a free and open source software that was originally developed to help web developer build their own routers and other networks from scratch. This intention allowed it to have a rather wide scope of web uses and application areas including routing and firewalling. In firewalling, it allows the user to add or remove files manually from the table of rules as well as add different configuration files, all from an intuitive and easy to understand GUI. This makes it the perfect firewall and routing solution for first time inexperienced software users.

Pros

• It is freely available to download and use
• It is very fast
• It is easy to configure and use

Cons

• Its packet filtering is not very thorough

Iptables

Iptables is a system software that is built to enable the user to remove or add firewall rules to those that come with a standard Linux Kernel Firewall, through a basic Linux CLI, thereby enabling the firewall to meet their specifications. It uses a variety of basis for its packet filter protocols beside the basic interface and destination IP to include statistics and state filtering allowing the user to fully explore the capabilities of their firewall. An additional security layer is that the changes can only be made by a user with root privileges, the system manager, which centralizes power and monitoring in the computer system. It is very thorough, ensuring that all web packets go through each and every firewall rule before being authorized to pass through the system.

Pros

• It is freely available to download and use
• It has very thorough packet filtering procedures
• It is very efficient

Cons

• The rule set may be difficult to understand and follow for a new user

Conclusion

Pfsense and Iptables both have similar capabilities but spanning different ranges. For example, both have packet filtering, but Iptables is more thorough and both require almost similar configuration, but pfsense gives the user a wider range of rule and configuration options. This implies that they can both do similar jobs but to varying degrees because Pfsense has all the speed while Iptables has all to cool features.

Verdict- So which is better, Pfsense or Iptables?

They are both very capable and versatile software, however, I would go with iptables for its greater efficiency, despite its lower speed.

FAQs

What is Iptables used for?

Iptables uses a Command Line in Linux to enable system administrators to effectively control and monitor web traffic through a set of firewall rules. It is designed to allow the user to make the most out of the Linux kernel firewall

What is pfsense used for?

Although pfsense was originally developed to allow users to build their own routers from scratch, it has gained a wide variety of uses. It is used as a firewall, a router as well as an overall web system manager.