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by briHass 4141 days ago
PFSense has a note about that choice in their FAQ: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Why_was_FreeBSD_chosen_ins...

Another lover of PFSense here. I started out with M0n0wall, but there were a few items that drove me to pfSense ultimately (the slightly strange way setting up rules/port forwards, and the need for different IPSEC encryption algos for a corporate firewall connection.) I have pf humming along on an older Alix2d3 kit, and have had ZERO problems. I now see that there's a more powerful APU board that will be my upgrade path when this box dies, or I upgrade my internet beyond ~50mbps -- whichever comes first.
1 comments
gonzo 4140 days ago
that FAQ is a little old.

The statement that the "pf" in OpenBSD is "better" isn't necessarily true. The "pf" in FreeBSD and pfSense is a bunch faster, even on single-core.

the IPsec in FreeBSD and pfSense (especially AES-GCM) is also, much faster than that found in OpenBSD.

OpenBSD has a problem: it doesn't scale on multi-core CPUs, and the world has gone multi-core. FreeBSD took years to get this right (forking Dragonfly along the way due to disagreement about the MT model.)

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