Netgate 2100 pfSense+ Security Gateway review

The Netgate 2100 is a fanless pfSense Plus gateway with five 1GbE ports: one WAN port (an RJ45/SFP combo) and four LAN ports. It uses a Marvell Armada 3720 dual-core ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 at 1.2GHz, with 4GB of DDR4 that is not expandable. That makes it a fit for a small office or a well-organised home network where a supported pfSense box matters more than spare capacity.

Netgate publishes a firewall figure of 964Mbps with iPerf3, which is close to a gigabit line. The IMIX figure is 249Mbps, roughly a quarter of that. IPsec VPN comes in at 254Mbps with iPerf3 and 90Mbps with IMIX. Layer 3 forwarding is listed at 2.20Gbps. Netgate does not publish an IPS throughput figure.

That gap matters if you plan to run inspection. A forum thread says Suricata is used on the 2100, and one owner reports about 540Mbps on a 1Gbps line with inspection-style use. With no published IPS number and that owner report, a full-gigabit connection with IPS enabled looks like a stretch. Plain routing and firewalling on a gigabit line sits closer to the iPerf3 number, though the IMIX result suggests mixed traffic will land lower.

The 2100 has five 1GbE ports in total. The WAN port is a combo, so it takes either RJ45 or SFP. The research lists no 2.5GbE or SFP+ ports. It also does not cover VLAN support, so check the Netgate documentation if you need to split a network into segments.

Five ports is enough for a WAN link and four wired LAN devices. Anything beyond that needs a separate switch.

The 2100 runs pfSense Plus with lifetime upgrades. Netgate states that no subscription is required for the core software, and TAC Lite support is included. Paid TAC Professional and TAC Enterprise tiers exist as optional extras. IPsec VPN is the VPN option listed in the research. The research does not mention WireGuard or built-in reporting, so confirm those against the pfSense Plus documentation if they matter to you.

Storage depends on the variant. The BASE model has 10.6GB of eMMC, which is listed as upgradable. The MAX model has 128GB of M.2 SATA storage.

Owners raise wear as a concern on small eMMC or SSD storage when logging is heavy. Forum advice is to turn off logging for default block rules and to turn off Suricata HTTP logging. If you plan to log a lot, the MAX variant's larger drive is the more obvious fit, though the research does not say how much that changes wear.

Netgate's documentation also carries a warning for older installs. Systems on UFS that were first installed with 21.02-p1 or earlier may lack the EFI space the 23.01 and later loader needs. Anyone buying a used unit should read that note.

The 2100 is fanless and uses passive cooling. One owner reports 6W on EU 230V with a 32GB SSD. For a device that runs all day, that is a low figure, though it comes from a single owner report.

The research does not include advisory history or patch timings for this model. Netgate publishes a product lifecycle page, but its contents are not part of the research here. Check that page for support dates before you commit.

The 2100 offers pfSense Plus in a quiet, low-power box with no required subscription for core software. Its limits are plain from the figures: 1GbE ports only, a 249Mbps IMIX result and no published IPS throughput. It suits modest networks and VPN-light use. If your priority is inspecting a full gigabit line, the owner report of about 540Mbps is the number to weigh.