3 categories · Named, not rankedpfSense
Standing by category
| Category | Function | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Network access control | Network and edge | 2% | 8 of 111 | 0% | 3 | under 10 labels · led by Portnox Cloud at 35% | |
| Next-generation firewalls | Network and edge | 0% | 63 of 83 | 50% | 4 | under 10 labels · led by Fortinet FortiGate at 73% | =heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
| DDI and IP address management | Network and edge | 0% | 94 of 115 | 0% | 1 | under 10 labels · led by BlueCat Micetro at 15% |
Movement
By model
How each model treated pfSense across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
By framing
What the models said for it
Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.
“Pfsense and OPNsense are excellent free firewall options that provide robust access control capabilities without licensing costs.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · NAC · budget prompt · first choice
“Use firewall/Wi-Fi features (e.g., pfSense free firewall with VLANs/802.1X...)—simplest for very small setups, though less full-featured NAC.” Grok 4.20 · NAC · budget prompt · alternative
“If budget is extremely constrained and you can self-manage: pfSense Community Edition on commodity hardware / Netgate appliance” Muse Glimmer 30B · Firewalls · budget prompt · alternative
“You download pfSense or OPNsense (both are free) and install them on an inexpensive multi-port Intel Mini-PC” Gemini 3.5 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.
“they usually lack the built‑in advanced threat‑intel, seamless updates, and support that commercial NGFWs provide” MiniMax M2.5 · Firewalls · budget prompt · soft negative
“can be free but require hardware investment and technical expertise” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Firewalls · budget prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as pfSense, over the 28 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and pfSense was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
What carried it into the answer
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 24 of the 28 answers that named pfSense and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
Seventy-seven of the seventy-seven domain citations in answers naming pfSense came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
pfsense.com is not in Google's top ten for any of the category's searches. In the answers, pfSense takes 2% of first choices and Portnox Cloud takes 35%.ShowHide
Search and answers
In search
Google, US estimates- Searches for its name, Google
- 14,800 a month (“pfsense”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 2,048 a month
- Organic visits to its site
- about a month
- Searches its site ranks for
- · in the top three
- Sites linking to it
- 1,057
- Paid Google search
- No ads found in the estimate; that does not mean it runs none
In answers
This edition- First choices
- 3 across its categories
- Named in
- 28 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 24 of the answers that named it
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read October 5, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
What it publishes
ShowHide
What it publishes
ShowHide| Kind | Pages | Last 90 days | 2025-10 to 2026-09 | Latest | Categories named |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conference or event | 6 | undated |
How it is countedHide how it is counted
Every page pfsense.com exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. An event counts as online when its address or title says so (webinar, on demand, virtual or online summit); a conference, summit, trade show, expo or roadshow that does not say so is counted as a conference or event, which on a vendor's site is mostly in person. Read September 29, 2026.
Names read as pfSense
Follow pfSense
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
The company
pfSense is its own company.ShowHide
The company
In its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- World's Most Trusted Open Source Firewall
- For
- thousands of enterprises
- Price stated
- starting at $0.08/hr pfsense.com
- Starting price
- 0.08 pfsense.com
- Not stated on the pages read
- Free plan or trial, integrations, certifications, hosting, customers
What pfSense's own pages state, read October 5, 2026: pfsense.com. A claimed page can correct any of them.
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'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, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for pfSense by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where pfSense is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name pfSense, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.