Netgate Supports and Sustains Open-Source Networking

Netgate®, officially Rubicon Communications, LLC, was established in 2004 in Hawaii by Jim and Jamie Thompson with a modest $1,000 investment. As a woman-owned and woman-run company with 51% female ownership, Netgate initially focused on producing firewalls and wireless access points powered by m0n0wall, an open-source firewall software. Recognizing the potential of pfSense®, a more advanced open-source platform, the company pivoted to build its offerings around it, laying the foundation for its growth. Now headquartered in Austin, Texas, Netgate employs over 100 people across four continents, delivering secure networking solutions to homes, businesses, governments, and service providers globally.

“Our mission is to make it fast, safe, and cost-effective to connect to the digital world. Our vision is that secure networking should be a right for all, not a privilege for a few.”

Netgate’s product evolution showcases its dedication to innovative and accessible networking. Its flagship products, pfSense Plus and TNSR, deliver robust firewall, VPN, and routing capabilities for both on-premises hardware and cloud environments. With millions of software installs worldwide, Netgate’s solutions operate on all seven continents, including Antarctica. The company’s appliance lineup, from the compact Netgate 1100 to the high-performance TNSR 8300, addresses diverse needs, from small offices to large service providers. By mid-2021, Netgate had released over 70 software versions, earning a 98% customer satisfaction rating for reliability and ease of use.

Since 2008, Netgate has been a driving force behind pfSense, taking on primary stewardship by 2012. Launched on October 20, 2006, pfSense has grown into the world’s leading open-source secure networking solution, with over 13 million installs. Netgate invests significantly in testing, documentation, and community engagement, with the pfSense forum hosting over 400,000 members who contribute to its development. This collaborative ecosystem ensures pfSense remains feature-rich and versatile, supporting applications from secure IoT to enterprise-grade firewalls.

Netgate’s open-source commitment extends beyond pfSense to include substantial contributions to FreeBSD, the underlying operating system for pfSense, as well as other projects like Vector Packet Processing (VPP) within FD.io, where Netgate is the #3 contributor. Additional projects include, Clixon, Data Plane Developer Kit (DPDK), Free Range Routing, Linux, and strongSwan. By enhancing FreeBSD’s stability and performance, Netgate ensures pfSense’s reliability, while its VPP contributions enable TNSR to achieve more than 100x faster packet processing. These efforts promote cost-effective, scalable solutions without vendor lock-in, fostering innovation across industries.

To sustain open-source networking, Netgate combines consistent financial investment, technical expertise, and long-term team dedication, driving continuous project growth. By contributing tens of thousands of code commits and supporting global deployments, Netgate empowers communities to build secure, efficient networks. Its work with FreeBSD, FD.io, and other projects ensures that open-source solutions remain robust and adaptable, delivering high-performance tools that benefit users worldwide in an increasingly digital landscape.