Netgate 4200 pfSense+ Security Gateway review

The Netgate 4200 is a desktop firewall appliance running pfSense Plus, which comes preinstalled. It uses an Intel Atom C1110 with four cores at 2.1 GHz and AVX2, plus 4 GB of LPDDR5 memory. It has four 2.5GbE RJ-45 ports.

Netgate quotes firewall throughput of 8.61 Gbps in iPerf3 and 3.21 Gbps in IMIX, both with 10k ACLs. Both figures are above a UK gigabit line. The IMIX figure is the lower of the two, and it is still more than three times a gigabit connection.

The gap is IPS. Netgate doesn't publish an IPS throughput figure for the 4200 in the material available. If you plan to run intrusion prevention on a fast line, you can't read the headline numbers as an IPS result.

The four ports are all 2.5GbE RJ-45, labelled PORT1WAN to PORT4. That gives you a 2.5GbE WAN if your service supports it, plus three more 2.5GbE ports for LAN, DMZ or a separate segment. Netgate's comparison PDF notes a Marvell switch for the four ports.

No SFP+ port is listed. If your uplink or core switch needs fibre or 10GbE optics, the stated port set doesn't cover it. The research also doesn't describe VLAN support on this model, so check the pfSense Plus and 4200 documentation if VLAN segmentation is central to your design.

pfSense Plus is the software, and the research lists WireGuard as supported. IPsec figures are published: 3.2 Gbps with AES-GCM-128 in iPerf3 and 1.05 Gbps in IMIX. Because the IMIX IPsec figure is just over 1 Gbps, a site-to-site tunnel on a gigabit line sits close to that figure on mixed traffic.

Owner feedback on pfSense Plus praises flexible VPN configuration and the range of pfSense packages. Those reviews cover pfSense Plus generally, not the 4200 specifically, so they say more about the software than about this hardware.

The research doesn't detail IDS/IPS options, reporting tools or VLAN configuration on this model. Owner comments praise pfSense packages, but treat feature specifics as something to confirm in Netgate's documentation before you buy.

TAC Lite support is included. Netgate also sells Professional and Enterprise support tiers, but the research lists no paid subscription as required for core features. Owner reviews praise the lack of monthly fees and the low cost, again in the context of pfSense Plus generally.

Netgate doesn't list an idle power figure in the material gathered here. A firewall runs around the clock, so that is a gap if electricity use matters to you. The listed 4-core Atom and LPDDR5 memory give no power number on their own, and nothing in the research lets us put a figure on it.

The research doesn't include a firmware release cadence or a list of advisories and fix times for the 4200. That is a real gap for a device that sits on your network edge. Netgate maintains pfSense Plus and publishes documentation for the 4200, but without a record in front of us the security side can't be judged beyond that. Check Netgate's advisories and release notes before relying on it for anything exposed.

On paper, the 4200 offers multi-gig firewall and VPN throughput, four 2.5GbE ports and a preinstalled firewall OS without a required subscription. The unknowns are IPS throughput, VLAN specifics, idle power and security history. With 4 GB of memory and a four-core Atom, it fits a gigabit or 2.5GbE connection with a handful of segments better than a design that needs fibre uplinks.