PePLink vs pfSense
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Okay, been looking at comparative products to pfSense and now questions - how does a product like this http://www.peplink.com/ compare to pfSense?
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Why dont you just compare their feature lists???
Features of pfSense:
http://www.pfsense.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40&Itemid=43Features of PePLink:
http://www.peplink.com/document/PePlink%20Balance%20Series%20Datasheet.pdfpfSense: free plus Hardware. pfSense runs on about every Hardware. Scale depending on your needs:
–> http://www.pfsense.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=49PePLink: €399.00 to €3,299.00
At first glance i'd say pfSense has a LOT more features.
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Perhaps you are right - I'm not an expert of pfSense, but I am using using it for two companies. Some of the terms, descriptions, and diagrams of products like PepLink is much better than pfSense. I mean, pfSense has me sold, but I also feel that PepLink pdf you linked to has better description of its capabilities and features. By having something like that - graphical features / options, people can better comprehend things - not everyone is a freebsd/pfsense guru; or for that matter linux knowledgeable. What pfSense has is not only features, but also ease of use with the fw - only if it has better documentations. Still a pfSense user here…
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Well this could be one of the main difference between pfSense and PePLink.
the pfSense's description "feels" like an engineers work. With all the flaws engineers have (i.e. too honest with their own boundaries)
the PePLink description "feels" like an economists work :D
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Okay, been looking at comparative products to pfSense and now questions - how does a product like this http://www.peplink.com/ compare to pfSense?
Probably the most significant reason to get the Pep would be for the multi-WAN traffic shaping, which pfSense is only just about to gain in 1.3ß. If you can hold out for 1.3 then pfSense will have all the ongoing benefits of the open source solution.
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Over the last year of trying to get pfsense (just base, without any additional modules) to perform properly it just became clearer overtime that in order for pfsense to be able to perform close to the proprietary appliances you have to throw in 'very' expensive hardware (expensive at the router level). We ran it on a 1.8GHz Athlon with 1 and 2 GB of RAM and tried various network cards. Everytime you mention here that you are getting very poor throughput going for example to another host on the same network as the WAN interface, etc. you will most likely be told you need to buy Intel Nics and all other Nics are pretty much 'crap'.
It turns out that even smallest routers and up to Cisco equipment don't have such 'highend' nics and certainly not such 'highend' cpu's/ram and still outperform pfsense in the same setup by a wide margin.
Unless you are willing to put in the money for all these items you might end up in better performance shape if you go with a PepLink or other multi-wan appliance.
I have high hopes for 1.3 and will be testing it again when first releases appear. In the meanwhile we had to take it out of usage.
Just some other thoughts. -
Over the last year of trying to get pfsense (just base, without any additional modules) to perform properly it just became clearer overtime that in order for pfsense to be able to perform close to the proprietary appliances you have to throw in 'very' expensive hardware (expensive at the router level). We ran it on a 1.8GHz Athlon with 1 and 2 GB of RAM and tried various network cards. Everytime you mention here that you are getting very poor throughput going for example to another host on the same network as the WAN interface, etc. you will most likely be told you need to buy Intel Nics and all other Nics are pretty much 'crap'.
It turns out that even smallest routers and up to Cisco equipment don't have such 'highend' nics and certainly not such 'highend' cpu's/ram and still outperform pfsense in the same setup by a wide margin.
Unless you are willing to put in the money for all these items you might end up in better performance shape if you go with a PepLink or other multi-wan appliance.
I have high hopes for 1.3 and will be testing it again when first releases appear. In the meanwhile we had to take it out of usage.
Just some other thoughts.But when you are talking about Cisco, Adtran, Sonicwall or any other pre boxed unit, they design the product around a specific hardware (including nics) and test that hardware.
I am sure that the engineers behind the pre built devices had to find the pefect match of performance and price that worked.With a product like PFSense, you have to deal with many different Motherboards, CPU, Memory. BIOS settings, and yes NIC's. So yes, it is a bit harder to get the "perfect system"
but look at all the variables that are taken into play.If someone recommends to use Intel nic, it is because you are getting the collective experience of other users and their success and testing.
I am sure no one is just saying get intel nics just so Intel can make more money.I have used Many pre built boxes and you can certainly run into bottle necks on them also.
Look at it this way…..
If i have a Server that needs another nic, do i want to use something that has a proven track record or install a $15 off the shelf nic in a clients server?