Addressing Licence Changes to pfSense Plus Home and Lab

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Addressing Changes to pfSense Plus Home+Lab
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[@JeffGeerling]

Feeling smug about picking OPNsense for the new office...

[@joaopedroalbernaz]

We need a video from you about this

[@chuxxsss]

Maybe I need that version for my network, Jeff.

[@wiziek]

So you are cheap guy?

[@TheBlaser55]

I will have to try OPNsence based on your choice, Jeff. Hope you put out a video on it as well.

[@joansparky4439]

​ @ wiziek Why is using open-source being 'cheap'? One should be very careful extrapolating from ones own mindset onto that of others..

[@ericneo2]

This seems to be an ongoing problem with open source and open source licensing. Companies want others to contribute but once the product becomes good enough they lock the open source product and change the license by hiding it behind a SAAS subscription with a new user agreement. Seems like it's time the big players and the Foundation need to address this before it gets out of control.

[@bdd7881]

When the companies are young they can do things that don't always make shareholders happy. Once they reach a certain size/income they focus more and more on shareholders/profit and open licensing does not work well with that.

[@northblue8216]

Exactly... Now-a-days, everyone doing SAAS because they want to be next week's new Billionaire with a Russian Super Yacht docked in port, a Bill Gates moon sized mansion, bitches in Dubai, and all of YOUR money in their back pocket and their bank accounts.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

open source allows them the freedom to do this, locking them out is against the tenets of open source.

[@Traumatree]

That's the problem (for us) with the BSD license, and is also the solution for companies to hide and keep what they want.

[@shady4tv]

@@marcogenovesi8570 Actually - Copyleft licenses like the GPL prevent this because it requires you to release any contributions back upstream. The BSD license allows this. besides BSD itself - most projects built from BSD are closed-source.

[@KP_Macro]

I remember when Plus came out, there were people warning that Netgate would be doing this or something similar in the future. Many people didn't believe it or eventually decided to ignore it. Netgate has a weird history and a record of missteps and questionable decisions that they then defended in a not-so-professional manner. Like many, I would be more than willing to pay - even for CE - but not nearly that much.

[@it-monkey3280]

This is true, and it is not that long ago either

[@KimmoJaskari]

I don't want to pay for CE. I would pay (a more sane amount than $399) for plus assuming they managed to differentiate the Plus option and put in features that legit made it better. Without gutting CE to artificially create a rift, anyway.

[@myhometvaccount9365]

if it wasn't for toms videos i wouldn't never have got my head round pfsense, only later did i find out what a idiot prat "man child" jamie thompson was, but i stuck to it because of time/effort invested.. if i had known beforehand..... Thats i would never pay for it, knowing that i was putting money in that tossers pocket, come on Tom lets have the openwrt vids :)

[@thudtheace]

Looks like netgate is going to pull a unity, and that worked out so well for them.

[@forid200]

​@@KimmoJaskariproblem is they want to charge you 399$ for pretty much the same feature set and barely any next gen features built into the core.

[@abbiedogthree856]

Sad I converted to Plus, CE did everything I needed. Time to give OpenSense a second look.

[@zunar_j5_933]

Same here...this is BS.

[@ralph4370]

Switched over a few months ago from pfsense. Since Pfsense CE was not being updated as much. Opnsense has worked flawlessly for me, no regrets, and is updated WAY more than pfsense.

[@rahilarious]

at this point, Netgate updates license more than to CE version

[@MattVickers]

CE would be fine if it supported the zfs boot slice feature. Pushing that to CE would go a long way to solving the issue IMO

[@ericneo2]

@@rahilariousSounds like they're taking business lessons from Suse, Oracle & Redhat.

[@thepontiff7505]

I went to opnsense about a year ago when netgate just kept being insufferable rude pigs. Took a bit of getting used to, but it's rock solid. Now I wouldn't use anything else.

[@LackofFaithify]

be optimistic all you want. Once a company starts these sorts of rug pulls they don't stop. Period. Never have been in the doom in gloom crowd, but this pattern of behavior is a well cemented one in the corporate world. You give a mouse a cookie, and it will inevitably not stop till it gets the house.

[@maxbroomfield5392]

I gave my wife a cookie once…. It all makes sense now, Netgate is my wife.

[@droknron]

They told us to move from CE to Plus because it was better and free for home use. Now if I change any hardware on my box that runs Plus, my license becomes invalid and I have to pony up $400 or revert back to pfSense CE and lose features..... just wonderful. I've already had my license invalidated once when I changed network cards so this is a real possibility again. Netgate isn't a good company, no morals, no ability to stick to what they say etc

[@ericneo2]

At $400 that's 3 times more expensive than Meraki.

[@lllongreen]

400 USD is a complete no go ! if they dont develop CE further or dont make a max 99 USD lab license this will be it for them, but maybe they finally decided to stop the CE version going forward @@ericneo2

[@SpookyLurker]

My pfSense install f-ed up at some point and wouldn't do OS or plugin updates no more. I guess it was a good choice to revert back to OPNsense. I will not do subscription models.. ever.

[@MNetworkSystems]

I've been a subscribe of this channel for many years, so i understand your reasons as you've mentioned it many times before.... But.... i think it could be a very lucrative/wise move to make a start on making some videos about that "other" firewall. It sure would boost the subscriber base! Diversity is key...Lets be honest... at some point Netgate "might" close the door, and when or if that happens it will leave a lot of home users like myself without an option.When that happens you'll already have well produced/trustworthy content to help us switch. It would be really nice to have a channel as good as yours to supply well produced/trustworthy content on setting up that "other" firewall... When that time comes.... You'll already be there ;)

[@lllongreen]

No need to call it the other firewall its OPNSense, and Yes time to make videos about this going forward. And 399 is a no go, 129 USD was already pushing it, 99 USD should be new license for small environment/lab use.

[@techno_john]

Yeah, no, thankfully he doesn't do this. Like he said, he's worked with OpnSense and it's frustrating (I've done the same and had the same conclusion) He's making videos about what *is* working, not what *might* or *could* work down the road. Keep up the great vids Lawrence Systems!

[@vaidkun]

10-15usd per month for home user license sounds not that bad, but the 400USD per year is a bit steep... the worst thing is they had strong push to free plus home/lab licenses that were free and now they just pulled this stuff...

[@ericneo2]

At $400 that's 3 times more expensive than Meraki.

[@maxbroomfield5392]

I could’ve swore Meraki was more expensive than that. IIRC my school pays ~$13,000 a YEAR to keep our MX appliance on.

[@maxbroomfield5392]

Edit: it’s $16,557 for a 5 year license. I was WAY off. But still overly expensive…

[@ericneo2]

@@maxbroomfield5392 PSfsense is $1,197 per device and Meraki is $400 per device both for 3 years. Work out how many UTMs, APs and Switches your school has and times it by the cost per device. The discount you get from Meraki increases as your license period increases.

[@ericneo2]

@@maxbroomfield5392Assuming you have ~ 50 devices and licensed for 3 years... PFSense: 50 x $1,197 = $59,850 Meraki: 50 x $400 = $20,00

[@CraftComputing]

HEY! This is my livestream timeblock!

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Hahaha oops

[@APT4308]

@@LAWRENCESYSTEMSwould be cool if you make OpenSense migration video!!!

[@TechySpeaking]

And mine.

[@kevinhilton8683]

What an opportunity for you to expand your audience and start producing some opnsense videos. You could keep producing videos for both firewalls

[@lllongreen]

1000 % time for OPNSense videos !

[@techno_john]

Sure, if you want him making vids about the frustrations he *clearly* brought out in his video... 🤔

[@go2guy]

Getting sick of companies (Vader voice) "I have altered the terms of service pray I don't change them further"

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

I considered putting that i the thumbnail, but did not want the real tyrant of a company after me....Disney..

[@iankester-haney3315]

It's not the change that bothers me. It just costs so much. For a home use case, $30 to $60 is a more reasonable yearly cost.

[@johanea]

So 5 dollars a month for a year is too much for you? Don't know, maybe unsubscribe your Internet from the ISP so that you save some money for bread.

[@ericneo2]

@@johanea You sound like those Adobe apologists.

[@NeptuneSega]

@@johanea What a moronic take

[@matthewnirenberg]

@@johanea The problem is everything is $5-$25 per month. It all ads up. The solution is to abolish subscriptions and either keep opensource free or to have once-off fee's every major version. Subscriptions are a disease that rapidly cost thousands all up each year.

[@BenTyger]

What the cost of a prosumer embedded firewall? Usually around 200-300USD and will last you about 3-4 years. PfSense is a hell of lot more capable than most prosumer routers. Hardware is the cheap part for pfSense. Old computer or hardware like protecti or Qotom are basically drop in hardware for pfSense. Paying 25-60/year for a router license seems very reasonable.

[@antonmaier5172]

Bybye. Hello OPNSense. Pfsense doesn't appear to do much of developing and bugfixing anyway.

[@arturk3810]

Yep, they feel like bunch of salesmans not developers. More I learn about them the more obvious it is.

[@blademan7671]

They pushed Plus, and I moved to Plus a few months ago. These guys keep changing their tune. Super annoying. Oh well, time to set aside some time and move to Opnsense. I hear Opnsense community is much nicer too.

[@MattVickers]

I would happily pay around $30-40 per year for home use of an open source product. Income from home users will be a drop in the ocean compared to commercial income whether they charge $10 or $200

[@ericneo2]

At $400 that's 3 times more expensive than Meraki.

[@trebekanalbumcover]

I was hesitant to upgrade to Plus because I was afraid of a rug pull. Now, I gotta redeploy to CE. Just disappointing.

[@Dr.Bojie-Chan]

I recently got an email that my 3100 is EOL because FreeBSD no longer supports 32 bit. I have only had it for a few years.... I have supported PFSense for 15 years plus, deployed it for many customers. How could they sell these in good conscience knowing they would pre-maturely hit with EOL? Very frustrating business lately

[@TeflonBilly426]

If I'm reading it right, the 3100 uses an Atom C3338R, which is a 64-bit CPU. They might be EOL that model of hardware, but that doesn't necessarily mean you won't be able to get future updates of pfSense.

[@-Good4Y0u]

And this is one of the huge reasons I didn't upgrade to plus. The other being that my system works fine and I didnt feel like doing an upgrade like that for features I didn't need.

[@JBK63]

Would pay a one time fee but that’s it. Even $129 per year for a home user is too much. Seems like solution would be to either buy one of their appliances or switch to something else.. I think they’ve got one day to straighten this out. As of 9:55 AM this morning this video already has 13,000 views. If they don’t straighten this out quickly it’s going to be difficult to stop the momentum of people looking for alternatives and being aggravated about the whole thing

[@JonathanSwiftUK]

$399 is totally unaffordable for home users. So back to CE. Most likely I'll immediately try Opensense. I thought it said TAC lite is gone. They just screwed themselves, and all of us who followed their advice to move to the free home lab versions. I feel like "how to install Opensense" is going to be trending.

[@EagleSightLabs]

I am in the process of buying the gear to build my own homelab and was looking at using pfSense. I was ok with the $129/year for TAC Lite. It sucks that they just removed that option completely. I feel like $129/year is a reasonable price for home use. Obviously I would prefer it to be free for home use but if I have to pay then $129/year then I'm ok with that. I'll have to load pfSense CE into a VM and see what's features are available there. If it has what I need then I'll go that route because the experience of knowing how to use pfSense is definitely worth it for a career in IT.

[@nadtz]

When people said this wouldn't happen back when I read the writing on the wall (same with Red Hat and other projects) and moved to opnsense.

[@johncavanaugh6481]

Nobody was going to pay $129/yr. Pfsense is now going down a death spiral as the dev/enthusiast community will abandon them. The writing on the wall is clear that they will abandon CE as well. The race is now on to see which project/team will rise up to take this marketshare...

[@mr.needmoremhz4148]

I think one of the core issues they failed to address is the bigger why? Their appliances aren't perceived that good anymore, from a hardware perspective (whether people actually use the computing or not). I think people want to pay extra for a pre-installed box, they are just doing that by buying (mostly) compatible, tested hardware from those other vendors. These vendors ask a hefty fee themselves if you look at it from a hardware POV. I think if they paid a bit more attention to that side of the market and toward the prosumer, much could be solved here. This has been a question mark for me as well. You have the decade old 1537 and the 1541 whom even gotten pricier over the years (where I live). The side of the business they have neglected, in my opinion, is conveniently the one they are blaming others appliance vendors to fill.

[@RandomTechChannel]

Changes like this kept me suspicios moving from CE to Plus that this will happen sooner than later. Sadly that was true. 👎Good luck with convicing the pfSense community that CE will not be ditched sooner than later. Nothing wrong with willing to make money but turning your back on community who preach your products and services is something I cannot agree with. However, all the best to Netgate and their future plans!

[@myhometvaccount9365]

shock horror ... drip drip drip :) watch the community edition *slowly* become the "poor mans edition" over the coming years... money talks and money walks! time to get my head around openwrt over the coming months, so much choice of hardware once reflashed with it, please please please do some vids on it Tom :)

[@marcogenovesi8570]

the CE version has always been the poor man edition with less features, in what world have you been living in

[@TylerB_777]

​@@marcogenovesi8570Ugh we've been here for years and over those years they've been removing features. It's just the reality. Where have you been?

[@williamp6800]

The GL.iNet travel routers use OpenWrt with a much more refined interface on top of it. It’s limited to the particular configurations they want to promote on their devices, but you can drop down to the full OpenWrt interface when you want to.

[@Major_Thorn]

Openwrt is nice for small configs and small home networks. However, it does not have the power behind it for complex configs.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@Major_Thorn it's just a frontend for Linux iptables/nftables/whatever so I'm not sure how "it does not have the power for complex configs". If you just want to replace a router/firewall no matter how complex it's fine. It's the software ecosystem that is less developed (in the sense that yes you have lots of packages but they often do not have a web gui)

[@snakeplissken8887]

The only problem with GL.iNet routers is that they are severely limited by storage and memory.

[@snakeplissken8887]

If you really want to do any meaningful blocking you need more storage and more memory otherwise the device locks up and reboots.

[@garyandersontech]

Ce is not a bad option. Ive been using it since the early 2000s as well. I have clients with IPSec tunnels and remote offices using Ce, and have been for years, no issues. Keep a spare appliance, and a current config backup, and your gold.

[@ericapelz260]

I'm so glad I chose to install CE. Now, I just wonder how long CE will be supported.

[@slipknottin]

As long as they keep offering the community edition for free I’ll keep using it.

[@zeusde86]

boot-envs are cool and such, but another feature you're missing out on it Intel QAT, which is also only available on plus

[@Darkk6969]

I am running the plus version of pfsense on my current Dell OptiPlex desktop PC' and the processor is old so QAT is not available. This shouldn't be an issue for most home labs as they tend to run old hardware anyway.

[@zeusde86]

@@Darkk6969 i don't agree on this. for one, users tend to pick low-power hardware for 24/7 instances, that often is not compatible with old hardware. and on the other hand, ultra-low-power CPUs like an intel atom c3558 (which i run) does indeed support QAT, as it is designed for usecases like networking-devices (beside others). if you get alot of crypto-offloading basically for free in hardware with QAT and AES-NI this is indeed a major benefit, especially for VPN-Gateways.

[@BersekViking]

How do I downgrade? If I backup the config pf-plus and restore it on a CE, it shows a warning message that does not seem to go away.

[@TheJensss]

Bye bye pfSense, im transitioning to OPNsense Maybe the future of OPNsense is a linux based fork? (if FreeBSD is slowly dying)

[@GrossGeneralization]

Remind me again why people want a web interface for this stuff? It's pretty trivial to install freebsd or openbsd and update rc.conf and pf.conf as required. 30 mins in a text editor in exchange for not dealing with some third party changing the rules on me on a whim sounds like a good tradeoff. If you're not competent enough to edit some config files you're probably not competent enough to configure a firewall.

[@kf4hqf2]

Personally, I've paid $5/mo for Arista NG (formerly Untangle) for years, and IMHO it's a much better experience than PFS. Arista Plus version is $150/yr I think, which includes things like Threat Prevention, WireGuard, etc. Maybe worth a look for some.

[@jerryfaircloth]

Glad I switched to OPNSense a couple years ago. Don't think I will ever go back.

[@AdamsLab]

Their reasoning doesn’t make sense and they expect home labs to spend $400/yr for a license.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

Too many businness customers were using "home lab" versions of Pro. That's what happens when you make a "exactly like businness but free" product line

[@AdamsLab]

@@marcogenovesi8570 - Doesn't make sense they had a revenue stream of $129/year (that I paid for) and they took that away...?

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@AdamsLab Do you understand what does "Too many businness customers were using "home lab" versions of Pro." mean? It means companies that should be getting the 400$ and bigger license were paying only 129$. That's a lot less money from their main customer base.

[@Justin-ju8ef]

100% $100/year would make this go away. Nicely communicated.

[@phasechange5053]

The current version should be the new CE then. What bugs me is because i was able to build my own free box i was able to test and use the platform for myself first and then in turn i purchased negate hardware for my actual clients for deployment. This does push a nerve for me it was a perk for supporting them imho. I don't want to support hardware i don't use myself and i don't want to spend more and more $ on my personal network when i don't need too. Guess i need to drop Netgate as an appliance for my customers going forward, it was nice while it lasted.

[@rjy8960]

This is a very good and valid point. You want me to design in your kit, make it easy for me and don't put up barriers to people that will do the sales job for you.

[@linuxdragon57]

I actually bought a PFSense appliance in 2020. I wanted an easy path for installation of PFSense, but more importantly, I wanted an ARM-based appliance. Also, I felt more like I was supporting Netgate for their work on PFSense. Commonly we talk about how Free is Free as in freedom rather than free beer, but I feel that the community doesn’t actually believe that. The dichotomy around the price of free software really needs to change.

[@Flash2171]

I’ve purchased a few appliances from them for similar reasons, but the intel based 6100’s. Awesome product that I don’t have to worry about compatibility or validation of new versions of software.

[@Salad360]

I was debating on upgrading to the free + for homelab. Glad I’m still on CE!

[@gedavids84]

My annoyance is that they insisted we move to plus from CE if we wanted new features sooner (like finally moving away from FreeBSD12).

[@techjeff6227]

I remember running ipcop in highschool on an old HP netserver (8u, ~125lbs full of 18K SCSI drives, 4x1,800W PSUs) that I diverted from a landfill when my ESD company let our computer class have REALLY old systems collecting dust in their warehouse. It was completely overkill and I was way in over my head, but it was a great primer and taught me how to negotiate with Verizon's Tech Support to get them release the 11 day DHCP lease that our home router had been given. Great throwback! 😂

[@JustPlainRob]

"China won't respect our copyright and illegally sells products with our software. You know what will totally stop them? License changes that only our loyal hobbyist users abide by. Screwing them over instead of the problem people totally won't have any negative effect on our brand..."

[@zacharylewis417]

I initially did Opnsense but was having issues with firewall rules. Could not get the dang thing to work. Switched to pfsense and no issues with firewall. Might have to take a crack at it again.

[@Ramss3s]

Why din’t they made an “optional update” button to revert back to CE… 😢

[@x3roxide]

I switched to OPNsense when they pulled the shenanigans last time - haven't looked back. It does everything I need it to do and I feel more comfortable knowing that I don't need to switch and reconfigure due to a licensing issue. If I needed web filtering, I'd pay for something that actually does it properly. On PFSense it always felt like a feature in a beta state.

[@michaeljaques77]

I'm willing to pay, but not $129/yr I don't need or want negate support, i just want the software. I would pay a one time fee of $89, or maybe $19.99/yr. I've bought other software, namely Plex and unRAID. I would have stayed with CE but the compelling reason for plus was zfs and boot environments.

[@ericneo2]

Meraki is $150 for 1 year, $400 for 3 years...

[@michaeljaques77]

@@ericneo2 I'm not paying that much for that either. If they are simply providing the x64 code they compiled anyways with no warranty or support, I don't think it unreasonable to come in well under $100/yr. I'm not asking for free, but I also have a wife who wouldn't blink at $20 but might start to question why if I tell her $129/yr just to have a secure well maintained internet experience from her perspective.

[@JimmyArogen]

399 per year for a firewall is a lot even for my small company. 129 a year I would pay, 399 I might, but will not be happy about it.

[@fordsrmaster]

I'm a bit behind ( 3 months I guess ), but I just watched this video. It got me curious so I just checked my plus version and PFSense+ is reporting the last update was December 9th and I am on the current version ( at least that is what the dashboard is reporting ). Maybe updates stopped after December 31st for me? I'm not sure.

[@operationstayalive]

i just logged into my pfsense, was going to look into installing CE version, but tried to update plus version first. to my surprise it worked. i now have 23.09.1-RELEASE (amd64) built on Wed Jan 10 9:58:00 CST 2024. hopefully this continues to work because i love the interface and features.

[@ErikS-]

About time the complete open source society should go to court in a class action! And show a judge how they gave free contributions to this FREE open source software projects with the understanding it IS FREE and STAYS FREE! These filthy license changes are nothing different than a wolve in sheeps clothing!

[@MitchellWilsonII]

Uggg!! Just built my new firewall and JUST found out about this. I wouldn't care except I went through the difficult process of ensuring my CPU has QAT for encryption (VPN) acceleration.

[@ivanr5315]

I do not disagree with their policy going forward but giving something on which people base their system and then taking it away is not reasonable in my view. Eventually I will have to revert back to the CE edition or move to something else, great!

[@CayoBuay]

I use OPNSense with multiple network handled by firewall rules. It was really easy to get up and running.

[@joshhardin666]

$129 for a perpetual license isn't unreasonable. $129 a year is terrible. $129 for support a year is fine, but for those of us who will never use support or prefer to buy support when we need it (even if that support is another $129) is fine i guess... but for people like me, my ENTIRE ROUTER PLATFORM - hardware and software that i'm running pfsense easily costs less than $129. it's an i5-2500, 8gb of ram, 128gb ssd, and a $30 used intel x540-t2 dual port 10gb network card. full-on 10g networking that's working great at routing my entire homelab including quite a few vlans and my 2gb symmetrical fiber for all my various projects, homelab, 5 node proxmox server with LOTS of vm's and containers, etc. short of deep packet inspection, i'm not sure why someone would pay more than maybe $200 on a 10g router right now (Short of support).

[@marcfruchtman9473]

add to that ... Perpetual licenses don't mean much if the company can "alter" the terms of service in a material way.

[@Darkk6969]

@@marcfruchtman9473 Yep. Like paying for lifetime subscription only to be changed to yearly subscription later. If you want continued support have to pay up.

[@Jeff-hw8is]

Using Protectli FW6C, tried to upgrade to 2023.5 from 2023.1, seem to work but after uninstalling pfBlockerNG, the reboot failed. Not sure if the boot failure was related to the licensing or the package corrupted the OS. Was just trying to get closer to the 2023.09 version. Ended up installing CE 2.7.1. Perhaps I will try installing pfBlockerNG again, but not today. The re-install took a couple hours as I don't do networking often and forgot some of the steps. If netgate lowers the price to under $50/year, perhaps I will go back to plus.

[@michnl1772]

Glad i switched to OPNsense a month ago and get an better Firewall with Zenarmor IDS/IPS built in. No more ADS and Secure in one package.

[@androbourne]

I run my own business as an MSP and can tell you all, the normal enterprise grade firewall licenses go for way more then $125/yr... last one I quoted was a Watchguard T45W license that goes close to $500 and that was just Basic Live Security (mine you still has a lot of security features) the Total Support was like $1k/yr. I do agree the current prices are a little much $125 would be a good price point. Especially when I can get a tried and true Watchguard license for the same price or cheaper.

[@snakeplissken8887]

I believe, and I could be wrong here, but QAT was a PFSense+ feature. I may have to move to OpnSense as it is enabled by default if the hardware is there.

[@AshKirby]

Would be interesting to know how many people bother with the downgrade to CE compared with how many people take this as an opportunity to jump over to OPNsense or try something else

[@orthodoxNPC]

6:09 QAT accelerator support is the best feature

[@marcogenovesi8570]

is QAT really necessary for home/lab use tho

[@TylerB_777]

First the license changes were to keep the code base similar, thus faster updates. That clearly wasnt the case. CE updates are far behind and growing! Now even more restrictions... At what point do you see the writing on the wall?

[@rogeramoe]

OPNSense .

[@philippe_demartin]

Strangely, my pfsense box with pfSense+ Software Subscription Home (Non-commercial use) update without a problem to 23.09-RELEASE (amd64) built on Tue Oct 31 16:56:00 -03 2023

[@alex.prodigy]

thanks Tom for the video I'm pretty sure netflix contributes quite a lot of networking related code , simply because you can't have streaming without networking

[@marcogenovesi8570]

serving content is different from filtering network traffic. Netflix is using as a server, pfsense is using as a firewall

[@alex.prodigy]

@@marcogenovesi8570 that doesn't mean the network stack is not important for Netflix , quite the contrary i would argue

[@SirFancyPantsMcee]

I just started getting into pfsense....😢 Back to looking for other projects.

[@jolness1]

I think the point about someone having to pay for open source development is important. I also am frustrated by the lack of $129 tier and the poor communication though. Sadly companies have to focus on shareholder profits as they grow so they end up doing things that are progressively more at odds with people’s ideal of OSS. I will have to switch to opnsense but can’t justify $400 unfortunately. Even VMware does their program where you can use all of their stuff for like $100 for home use. I do get the decision but poorly handled imo

[@marcogenovesi8570]

"all their stuff" is kind of not what you get for 100$ from VMWare. You get a very limited SINGLE esxi virtualization host and that's it.

[@RebootTechnologies]

I have tested the sophos free firewall and there are some futures I love but still preferred pfsense since the main futures I need is easier to setup

[@bandit8623]

switched to opnsense. was an easy transition

[@derekp6636]

Sad to see but thats the way companies are going. I'm using the CE 2.7 version for now still.

[@DominikZalewski85]

I agree missed opportunity here and some people will go to opnsense just for a sake of doing it. Home lab $99/yr licence will be ok for most and will pay some netgate dev time.

[@cwilliams9635]

I've looked on the site today and I see the Lite TAC license for $129. I feel that they've maybe come to a point where functionality has improved enough for subscription and the support demanded by subscribers may be achievable. I hope the CE version continues and improves.

[@maxherman11]

They haven’t added any truly good features to plus that would make it worth the cost. If they added some AI features, cloud managed environments, a new UI, and some other stuff than maybe. But other than that it’s not worth it. I’ve supported pfsense so much over the years but this is a bridge too far. I’ve never looked into OPNSense but may do so now. How to shoot yourself in the foot as a small company that was built by home users. Yikes.

[@turtletough42]

I am currently spinning up a new appliance with OpenSense to make the switch to them. I cannot support companies who make promises and then negate them down the road.

[@KimmoJaskari]

I'm on CE, and it's doing everything I need it to. As long as Netgate doesn't go full asshole and ditch CE, I'm fine with them charging for Plus. Companies should pay for use. I'll agree that the step from zero to $399 is bullshit high for home users. That's an annual fee, too. Over a five year period I as a home user would pay more to use the firewall than I would for my gaming PC or something. Just a tone deaf pricing point especially coming from zero. But I guess with an appliance you do get the Tac Lite in perpetuity, then? That makes it a good idea to just buy one of their lower end appliances.

[@pjohnson21211]

like you I use CE too....and if this route is unavailable I'll move to another option, did it with m0n0wall and open to do it again. Inertia is the primary reason I'm sticking with pfsense.

[@KimmoJaskari]

@@pjohnson21211 Yeah there are alternatives that will work for most. I enjoy pfSense overall and it's been rock solid so I'd hate to change, but $400 a year is out of the question.

[@theotherguy6155]

I just got my first ofsense up and running and honestly ifnyoubsaw the open wrt is not polished ... I can't imagine what it looks like cause I think pfsense interface is meh at best I mean I set a static route... removed it but it was still in the routing table. That's like a basic thing I should expect from a router. Notnhaving to reboot after changes

[@georgelza]

... $129 is 20x in South African Currency... its to much for me as a home user... it this is their demand... for something I installed and it just sat there, working.

[@jmcbri]

Switched to H+L two weeks ago. *Sigh*. But no hate. They are doing what they think they need to for their org. I'll go back to CE.

[@dfloper]

From a business perspective Netgate decision makes sense. From a home user point of view i am against any kind of subscriptions for software. I only buy perpetual license software or open source. When companies stop offering perpetual licenses i uninstall their offerings and find alternatives. Moved from Photoshop to Corel and Affinity. Maya LT to Blender. And will never install something that needs constant payments to keep working.

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Then use pfsense CE

[@AdamsLab]

Getting rid of the $129/yr option doesn't make sense. I paid for that sub but they don't say what's happening with that...?

[@rahilarious]

at this point, Netgate updates license more than to CE version

[@mx338]

OpenWRT is also just super minimalist, as it is trimmed for efficiency, so you can still load on weak SoHo Routers and even access points.

[@ff34jmr]

The problem here is not the fact the kept maintaining CE edition. Is the fact the developed CE edition os getting slower and slower. 2.7 was released ages after 23 plus. It’s obviously dying out. Time to finally move on to opnsense

[@ElliottPartridge]

Looks like there's now a $129/yr option on pricing (for TAC "Lite")

[@ItsEdSilha]

honestly, this means nothing in the broader picture. I’ve been in the IT business for almost 35 years at this point and only use the netgate hardware.

[@EdFromOhio]

I'm glad I procrastinated and stuck with CE.

[@wizpig64]

homelab and support sound like contradictions, and besides support the feature list for plus is miniscule. what am i missing?

[@LordApophis100]

I'm currently looking into VyOS, looks very promising so far. But it is CLI only for now, but very suitable to deploy with Ansible.

[@rogerthomas368]

But for homelab users the only options are the very dated 1.2.9 stable release or the daily rolling 1.5 build releases from development code branch. Home lab and small businesses are not really part of their target markets, they did try some options to provide low cost current releases to home users over the last few years but those were dropped.

[@LordApophis100]

@@rogerthomas368 Yes, at the moment they don't have Patreon/OC open for access to LTS release. Maybe they now see an opening with the pfSense change and add an option again. Also there is the option to build the LTS image yourself if you have the necessary knowledge.

[@YaroKasear]

@@rogerthomas368 Homelabbers can use any versiom they want, they just don't get to use PRE-BUILT images without money or contributing. But you can easily follow their instructions for building vyOS yourself which costs nothing but time and energy. Personally, I just use their rolling release. There is the occasional breakage, but at least vyOS hasn't pulled any crap like Netgate has from time to time.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

OPnsense and OpenWrt are the main competition for a home user market. pfsense CE still exists too

[@stevehoover6073]

I agree, I dont pay for anything. but I'd gladly pay $129 to keep using using the home lab version.

[@heli.thatSTEVE]

I am confused. I purchased a Netgate router for my home. Do I now have to play for a subscription to get updates?

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Nope, pfsense plus is free with Netgate appliances

[@glennmcgurrin8397]

I imagine Netflix is heavily invested on networking performance which likely benefits firewall use cases, though they probably contribute only limited actual firewall code other than performance tweaks. They also probably have interest in stability and general core functions which benefit everyone.

[@JohnDoe1999-lg7mh]

I would have paid $129 to support the project. I still use pfSense as said, they give back to freeBSD.

[@PinchOfLuck]

Paying THAT much for my home router? Seriously now? Just buy Ubiquity or create your own open source router which is still opensource. Plenty of free solutions out there. And I need to pay I will pay for hardware, not software, ESPECIALLY if it is a recurring subscription of any kind whatsoever.

[@IanHobday]

If only there was a different open source firewall that people could switch to and thus escape the seemingly endless pfsense shinanagens..... Maybe it could be called "open"something, or shorten it to "opn"something.....

[@marcogenovesi8570]

OPNSense and OpenWrt

[@IanHobday]

@@marcogenovesi8570 Yes, that was the point...

[@felocha]

for those dissing openwrt, it's the only open source firewall I am aware of that supports hardware offload

[@BrianSimmons]

I have a "valid" license of for Plus Home/Lab version, but I never actually converted from CE to that version on my firewall hardware. My understanding is that it is impossible for me to change over now. This is the problem I have with the situation (if that is in fact true).

[@garzdiva]

Well you wouldn't wanna convert it even if you could. They're saying existing Home/Lab installations aren't likely to get updates so they really wanna kill that.

[@bassbacke]

I used to own and run a Cisco ASA5505 firefall back in the days and had to pay a subscription fee just to get firmware updates including essential security updates. Later I had a Juniper SRX210 and SRX300 but I never liked the GUI nor CLI. Considering the price of an ASA5505 back then and the additional cost for updates, a Netgate 4100, which is far more capable, looks like a bargain especially since all future updates are included. Currently I run pfSense CE 2.7 on a J4125 quad core firewall micro appliance. - Intel(R) Celeron(R) J4125 CPU @ 2.00GHz - 4 CPUs: 1 package(s) x 4 core(s) - 16 GB SDRAM - 500 GB Crucial SSD (SATA) - replaced shipped pre-installed SSD - 4 x 1 Gbps Ethernet onboard This should give me more than enough performance even for the 1 Gbps fiber connection I'll soon get (fingers crossed). If there is anything I can't do with CE I might go with a Netgate 4100 or whatever is adequate then.

[@NomDayPloom]

One nitpick about the contributions to FreeBSD... Is it fair to say that if those companies dissapeared that the *people* making those commits would just stop committing entirely?

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Complicated topic, if Netgate did not have them on the payroll would the company they go to work for have them committing code back?

[@ranzrumJojoJDDom373]

It is a paid option, but what are your thoughts on Mikrotik RouterOS.