At the beginning of 2022, the company Netgate, which is behind the development of pfSense, made a super interesting statement indicating that users who used this firewall for their home or laboratory could acquire a completely free license of the operating system. which until then was paid. pfSense Plus was initially only available for the computers themselves, but they “opened” the system so that it could be installed on non-Netgate hardware. Now it seems that they have died of success, because the company has decided to reverse this policy and it will never be free again. We explain below everything that happened and the reason for this decision.
pfSense is one of the most powerful, complete and loved firewall operating systems by the community. This operating system has been with us for many years, and is widely used in small and medium-sized businesses, as well as in home and educational environments, since it provides really good security and is not too complex to configure. If you want to know how install and configure pfSensewe have several tutorials in RedesZone, likewise, you can also configure the OpenVPN server built into pfSense.
pfSense Plus can no longer be downloaded
The team of Netgate has announced that the Home+Lab version of pfSense Plus will no longer be available for free download, the decision they made a little over a year ago to offer a completely free license, was to align the business model and better serve their customer and partner base, while investing in the development and support of the operating system. What has made it no longer downloadable is abuse, many device vendors are downloading the free version of the operating system and installing it on their own devices, and then selling it over the Internet. This violates copyright, but also jeopardizes Netgate’s relationship with different companies, and could put customers at risk if the operating system is maliciously modified (supply chain attacks).
From now on, all users who want to upgrade from CE (the Community version that is still completely free) to Plus on a non-Netgate device or virtual environment will need to purchase a TAC subscription. The minimum license cost is $399 per year (TAC PRO), or $799 per year (TAC ENTERPRISE). The free version will only be available on Netgate devices.
What about current pfSense CE users?
This Netgate policy change does not affect users who currently use the CE version because it is the one maintained by the Community, we will be able to continue using pfSense CE without any type of associated cost, in addition, we will continue to receive updates and security patches without any problem as they become available. This is the ideal solution for home users, installation on virtual machines for testing and other uses that do not require any type of TAC subscription or frequent updates.
It must be taken into account that most of the configuration options available in the commercial version are also in CE, and it is a perfect solution for use in home or small and medium office environments since it is completely free and we can install it in any place.
What if I have pfSense Home+Lab already installed?
If right now you have the version of Home+Lab installed when they “opened” the operating system so that it could be installed on any hardware, for now we can continue using it without problems. It appears that it will take some time for the company to transition from the free version of Home+Lab, for now we will continue to have updates with bug fixes and improved features, but updates will be limited compared to the commercial version with a TAC subscription. In case we need to reinstall the Home+Lab version for some reason, there is no possibility to do it right now from CE.
We believe that the pfSense Home+Lab version will converge with the CE version that has always been free, that is, Netgate will completely leave aside continuous updates to focus on the annual subscription model. Within a while, we will be able to verify that Home+Lab will be exactly the same as the CE version, they will surely take advantage of the upcoming CE version 2.8 to make this important change, and thus separate both operating systems as it was before.
It was clear that sooner rather than later Netgate was going to put a stop to the pfSense Plus version for home and laboratory users, because many people install this solution on a commercial level, taking advantage of all the advantages and more frequent updates than the CE version. We knew this would happen, but we didn’t know when, and it only took a year and a half to go back and make all solutions paid, except if you buy Netgate hardware.
