An open source security solution with a custom kernel based on FreeBSD OS. pfSense is one of the leading network firewalls with a commercial level of features.
pfSense is available as a hardware device, virtual appliance, and downloadable binary (community edition).
What you get in FREE is community edition.
I like their extensive documentation, well explained, and easy to follow. On a high-level, some of the worth mentioning pfSense features are:
Firewall – IP/port filtering, limiting connections, layer 2 capable, scrubbing State table – by default all rules are stateful, multiple configurations available for state handling, Server load balancing – inbuilt LB to distribute the load between multiple backend servers NAT (Network address translation) – port forwarding, reflection HA (High-availability) – failover to secondary if primary fail Multi-WAN (wide area network) – use more than one internet connection VPN (virtual private network) – support IPsec and OpenVPN Reporting – Keep historical resources utilization information Monitoring – real-time monitoring Dynamic DNS – multiple DNS clients are included DHCP & Relay ready More than some of the commercial firewall features you get in FREE.
Amazing, isn’t it?
Not only that, you also have an option to install packages with just one click.
Ex:
Security – stunner, snort, tinc, nmap, arpwatch Monitoring – iftop, ntopng, softflowd, urlsnarf, darkstat, mailreport Networking – netio, nut, Avahi Routing – frr, olsrd, routed, OpenBGPD Services – iperf, widentd, syslog-ng, bind, acme, imspector, git, dns-server pfSense looks promising and worth giving a try. Check out Kamatera if looking for pfSense hosting.