Got a number of users asking me if pfSense is any good as a "free" (as in beer) multi wan solution, rather than spending few hundred bucks for a
ready-to-go, optimized, multi-wan appliance.
Guys, is it REALLY FREE?
We haven't tried pfSense ourselves so it would be unfair if I try to belittle it in any way. But depending on how you do the math, it is NOT free as a COMPLETE solution. Here is the cost structure:
- At the very least, you need a spare computer, see min hardware requirements. (est. US$300)
- Studying, installation, testing, tuning, deploying, testing again. From a few hours to a day or two of hard work (est. US$400 for a good IT professional)
- Obtaining commercial support (est. another few hundreds per year, maybe)
Obviously, I would not say this is a free solution. If you don't agree, I beg to know why.
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Update (June 16): I had tried to make it clear that I was not pointing my fingers to the quality of pfSense at the original post above, but obviously I failed in this regard. ;) People just thought I was attacking the open source model in general. That's not my intention. I tried to bring the cost structure to the table and let everyone rethink the cost of any solution in a big picture.
