1.1 for real networks
Signed, upgrade-tested patch releases. Fixes land here first; nothing new is added in a hurry.
About
A new open firewall, taking shape.
FreeSense is a new, free firewall and router operating system. It starts from the proven ideas of the open-sourcepfSense® CE project and rebuilds them as a fully open, independently maintained distribution. It is a new project and still taking shape, but it now has a Stable release path you can run.
Where we are
FreeSense started as a rebuild: take a proven firewall, remove the vendor ties, and build it from source in public on a current FreeBSD. That groundwork is done. Since 1.1 the project has a Stable release path: every patch release is built from a sealed set of sources, upgrade-tested on a virtual machine, signed, and only then published.
The next patch, nightly
Nightly builds of the next 1.1 patch, so fixes can be tried on a test system before they ship.
1.2, built in public
Where new features take shape. Rebuilt every night from source; experimental and meant for labs.
Why FreeSense exists
Firewall software should be something you can read, trust and rebuild yourself, not a black box tied to one vendor's cloud and roadmap. Every part of the system, down to the build pipeline that produces the official images, is public and Apache-2.0 licensed. No accounts, no activation, no phone-home.
We track FreeBSD 16-CURRENT closely, so the base you run has the newest kernel, drivers and security fixes rather than a snapshot from years ago, and we still ship it as signed, tested images.
How it's built
FreeSense is built entirely from source, in the open, on a reproducible pipeline. There are no hidden patches and no proprietary tooling.
Frozen upstream
Each release seals exact source, ports, OS-definition and FreeBSD revisions with a frozen set of upstream package sources, so the build cannot drift between stages.
Automated builds
The world, kernel and curated package catalog are built on clean runners, with our own FreeBSD hardware for larger releases, then signed with the project key.
Signed delivery
Installed systems make anonymous HTTPS reads to pkg.freesense.org for the signed update manifest, repository metadata and packages. They send no device ID, telemetry, configuration or usage report.
freesense ·freesense-system-ports ·freesense-packages ·freesense-os-base
Independent & de-vendored
We kept what makes the firewall work and removed what tied it to a single vendor's infrastructure.
Kept & improved
- The full firewall, NAT, VPN & routing stack
- The package manager and plugin ecosystem
- The proven pf packet filter
- A familiar web GUI, steadily being rebuilt
Removed
- Vendor registration & activation prompts
- Dashboard & config phone-home telemetry
- Automatic cloud config-backup upload
- Proprietary repo client & update settings
- Paid-support and store upsells in the GUI
Attribution
FreeSense is an independent, community-maintained derivative of pfSense® CE, which is itself derived from m0n0wall and built on the FreeBSD operating system. We are grateful to those projects and their contributors, and we retain their copyright and license notices as required by the Apache-2.0 license.
FreeSense is not affiliated with or endorsed by the pfSense project. “pfSense” and “FreeBSD” are trademarks of their respective owners.