Software Alternatives & Reviews

pfSense VS GoAccess

Compare pfSense VS GoAccess and see what are their differences

pfSense logo pfSense

pfSense is a free and open source firewall and router that also features unified threat management, load balancing, multi WAN, and more

GoAccess logo GoAccess

Open source real-time web log analyzer and interactive viewer that runs in a terminal in *nix...
  • pfSense Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-20
  • GoAccess Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-02

pfSense videos

pfsense Firewall Setup and Features in Depth Version 2.4

More videos:

  • Review - Pfsense: 5 Reasons to Use It
  • Review - Netgate SG-3100 Teardown / Speedtest / Review of this powerful pfsense packet pusher!

GoAccess videos

Goaccess Tool Review

More videos:

  • Review - GoAccess: Open Source Real-time Web Log Analyzer and Interactive Viewer
  • Review - GoAccess - Web Log Analyzer

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to pfSense and GoAccess)
Cyber Security
100 100%
0% 0
Analytics
0 0%
100% 100
Monitoring Tools
77 77%
23% 23
Web Analytics
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare pfSense and GoAccess

pfSense Reviews

Best pfSense Software Alternatives and Competitors
pfSense Software firewall is a robust, open-source security solution that is compatible with any hardware and can be tailored to meet your specific needs. It is a widely used technology, and many individuals seek dependable, popular software solutions with multi-device support, multiple concurrent connections, and protocol selections. Despite its usefulness, pfSense has...
The Best Open Source Router OS Software for Large or Small Networks
pfSense is a free and open-source router and firewall operating system based on the FreeBSD operating system. It is designed to be used on standard x86 hardware and can be deployed as a virtual machine or on dedicated hardware. pfSense offers advanced features and capabilities that are typically found in commercial routers and firewalls, making it an ideal solution for small...
Best free Linux router and firewall distributions of 2023
pfSense is one of the most popular operating systems today. It's a BSD-based system, similar to OPNSense, but with a longer history. pfSense started in 2004, and since then, it has grown to be the most well-known open-source platform in the industry. Although it gradually loses users to OPNsense, it's still an excellent system for new users because it has the most extensive...
Source: teklager.se
11 Best pfsense Alternatives To Secure Your Network
Unlike those of other available pfSense competitors, its capabilities allow it to be compared to commercial firewalls. You can also customize the pfSense firewall to match your needs based on the level of security and protection you want, as well as your specialist knowledge.
Top 7 pfSense Alternatives
Wait, I said alternatives to pfSense so what is this doing on the list? pfSense Plus recently forked away from pfSense community edition (CE). Over time pfSense Plus and pfSense CE will continue to diverge. pfSense Plus is expected to have more features.

GoAccess Reviews

Top 5 NGINX Log Analyzer Tools – Driving Business Growth with Data
GoAccess is a free log analysis tool suitable for IT professionals who need quick access to real-time server data and reports. The program runs as a command line in Unix/Linux operating systems and can evaluate log formats including Nginx, CloudFront, Apache, Amazon S3, and Elastic Load Balancing.
Lightweight alternatives to Google Analytics
I record people for 7 days on my site, and shove the data into https://goaccess.io/ which sends me the result in a crappy email summary, without IP addresses. So I'm effectively keeping zero in the long term, although I *am* retaining *some* data in the short term.
Source: lwn.net
Best Log Management Tools: Useful Tools for Log Management, Monitoring, Analytics, and More
GoAccess is a real-time log analyzer software intended to be run through the terminal of Unix systems, or through the browser. It provides a rapid logging environment where data can be displayed within milliseconds of it being stored on the server.
Source: stackify.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, GoAccess should be more popular than pfSense. It has been mentiond 52 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

pfSense mentions (10)

  • Need some help on setting up home network
    Https://pfsense.org (netgate hardware is used in businesses). Source: about 1 year ago
  • Is pfsense.org down, or is it just me?
    I am having trouble seeing available packages, updating pkg, or getting a response from pfsense.org. Is anyone else seeing this or am I going to spend the rest of my day chasing bugs? Source: over 1 year ago
  • Help with VLAN
    From the PIA Client to pfsense.org PING pfsense.org (208.123.73.69) from 10.6.112.128: 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 208.123.73.69: icmp_seq=0 ttl=49 time=49.455 ms 64 bytes from 208.123.73.69: icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=51.927 ms 64 bytes from 208.123.73.69: icmp_seq=2 ttl=49 time=49.333 ms 64 bytes from 208.123.73.69: icmp_seq=3 ttl=49 time=49.133 ms 64 bytes from 208.123.73.69: icmp_seq=4 ttl=49 time=49.027 ms ... Source: over 1 year ago
  • Can Surveillance Station record offsite cameras ?
    The above setup is critical to a reliable system. I'd use enterprise quality routers for a store and home connection. I personally use https://pfsense.org but there are many to choose from and several open source. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Exposing Synology to web: best/practical practices?
    What I would do is put that thing in DMZ and install a good router behind it like https://www.pfsense.org. No affiliation, just been my router for many years. There's also it's sibling https://opnsense.org. There are many, just get a enterprise quality router. Source: over 1 year ago
View more

GoAccess mentions (52)

  • You don't need analytics on your blog
    If one wants server-side metrics with a little more info than the author's "hacky little script", there's always goaccess [1], which functions in broadly the same way. I even use it with Firebase Hosting-hosted sites via [2] (which I wrote). [1] http://goaccess.io/ [2] https://github.com/Silicon-Ally/gcp-clf. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Using Analytics on My Website
    > Just use GoAcces for fuck's sake. GoAccess seems pretty cool and is probably a good task for the job, when you need something simple, thanks for recommending it: https://goaccess.io/ Even if you have analytics of some sort already in place, I think it'd probably still be a nice idea to run GoAccess on your server, behind some additional auth, so you can check up on how the web servers are performing. That said,... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • How do {you} analyze apache log files?
    Maybe, if it's just local and need just information, maybe https://goaccess.io is an option. Source: 6 months ago
  • Ask HN: Looking for Google Analytics alternative after v4
    You have a request coming in, and a response going out. This can be logged, via your webserver or a framework for analysis [1]. The analytics you mentioned don't require JavaScript. [1] goaccess for example https://goaccess.io/. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Show HN: Why Google Analytics May Not Be the Best Option for Your Website (2023)
    I run goaccess on a cron job and have paired it with a MaxMind GeoIP database so that you can see where people are coming from etc. https://goaccess.io/. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing pfSense and GoAccess, you can also consider the following products

MikroTik RouterOS - The main product of MikroTik is a Linux-based operating system known as MikroTik RouterOS.

Matomo - Matomo is an open-source web analytics platform

OPNsense - OPNsense® you next open source firewall. Free Download. High-end Security Made Easy™. Offers Intrusion Prevention, Captive Portal, Traffic Shaping and more.

Google Analytics - Improve your website to increase conversions, improve the user experience, and make more money using Google Analytics. Measure, understand and quantify engagement on your site with customized and in-depth reports.

OpenWrt - OpenWrt is an open-source firmware based on Linux for wireless routers

Plausible.io - Plausible Analytics is a simple, open-source, lightweight (< 1 KB) and privacy-friendly web analytics alternative to Google Analytics. Made and hosted in the EU, powered by European-owned cloud infrastructure 🇪🇺