Index › Vendors › pfSense/OPNsense · September 2026 Edition

1 category · Named, not ranked

pfSense/OPNsense

8Judge labels

0First choices

1Negative labels

5 of 12Models named it

1Category

September 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table vv2026-09.2, every buyer segment counted.

Standing

4 labels, too few to rank

A product needs 10 labels in a category before a share or quadrant is stated. pfSense/OPNsense was named 4 times in Firewalls, where Fortinet FortiGate led with 61%. The labels and the evidence are below, counted exactly.

By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.

Small business56 of 110

under the label threshold

Mid-market23 of 100

under the label threshold

Enterprisenot named

No model named it for this buyer.

In firewalls · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading

Standing by category

Every category where a model named pfSense/OPNsense for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Next-generation firewalls	Network and edge	0%	23 of 100	0%	4	under 10 labels · led by Fortinet FortiGate at 61%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for pfSense/OPNsense yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated pfSense/OPNsense across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	Alternative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	1	1
Perplexity Sonar	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	1	1
Mistral Small	0	0
DeepSeek V4 Flash	1	1
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	0
Kimi K2	1	1
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	0
MiniMax M2.5	0	0

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct0 labelsNone

Paraphrase1 labelNone

Comparative1 labelNone

Budget-constrained2 labelsNone

Scale-constrained1 labelNone

Negative3 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative8 labels in all, every segment counted; 0 of the 0 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Open-source options (pfSense/OPNsense) for transparency, though with trade-offs in enterprise support” Kimi K2 · Firewalls · negative prompt · alternative

“look instead toward pfSense/OPNsense (open-source) or entry-level appliances from Sophos or Fortinet” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Firewalls · negative prompt · alternative

“Ultra-low budget, tech-savvy teams | Full-featured ... Higher TCO if expertise/support needed” Grok 4.1 Fast · Firewalls · budget prompt · alternative

“an open-source pfSense/OPNsense setup is the least expensive path” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Firewalls · budget prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

No model argued against it.

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as pfSense/OPNsense, over the 8 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and pfSense/OPNsense was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Fortinet FortiGate6 of 84Not in the top three

SonicWall TZ Series4 of 80Not in the top three

WatchGuard Firebox3 of 82Not in the top three

Check Point3 of 80Not in the top three

Sophos Firewall2 of 81Not in the top three

Check Point Harmony SASE2 of 80Not in the top three

Cisco Meraki MX2 of 80Not in the top three

Fortinet2 of 80Not in the top three

Palo Alto Networks2 of 80Not in the top three

SonicWall2 of 80Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named pfSense/OPNsense. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 7 of the 8 answers that named pfSense/OPNsense and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

cybersecuritynews.com5

comparitech.com4

peerspot.com4

reddit.com4

tech-insider.org4

mspcompared.com3

cdw.com2

community.spiceworks.com2

computerweekly.com2

crn.com2

No domain is on file for pfSense/OPNsense, so its own site is not marked.

Pages cited

cybersecuritynews.com/best-next-generation-firewall4

mspcompared.com/best/firewall3

tech-insider.org/cisco-secure-firewall-vs-sophos-vs-watchguard-20263

perkinssecurity.com/index-9.html2

comparitech.com/net-admin/best-small-business-firewalls2

computerweekly.com/news/2240159262/Tackling-the-challenges-of-the-next-generation-firewall2

cyberpress.org/best-next-generation-firewall-ngfw-solutions-for-every-business-size2

d.meter.com/resources/best-firewall-for-small-business2

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as pfSense/OPNsense

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as pfSense/OPNsense; a claim can dispute any of them.

pfSense / OPNsense 1pfSense/OPNsense (Open Source) 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when pfSense/OPNsense's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as pfSense/OPNsense, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at the vendor's own domain is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.