Netgate 4200 vs 6100: which pfSense firewall should you buy?
Updated August 2026 · Written by the Firewall Buddy team — an authorised UK Netgate partner
For most UK businesses the Netgate 4200 (£546) is the sweet spot — it routes a full multi-gig leased line, runs IPsec VPN faster than the 6100, and stays silent on a shelf. Buy the 6100 (from £806.40) when you specifically need its 10GbE SFP+ fibre ports, its extra RAM for heavy IDS/IPS, or 15+ Gbps of raw routing.
Why these two models?
The 4200 and 6100 sit either side of the most common decision point in the Netgate range: the step from a fast small-office gateway to a 10-gig-capable appliance. They're closer in capability than the price gap suggests — and in one important respect (VPN throughput) the cheaper box actually wins, which catches a lot of buyers out.
Both run the same pfSense Plus software with the same features — firewall, unlimited VPN users, VLANs, traffic shaping, IDS/IPS packages — with no per-user licensing. The differences are purely hardware.
Netgate 4200 vs 6100: specs side by side
| Netgate 4200 MAX | Netgate 6100 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (inc. VAT) | £546.00 | £806.40 (BASE) · £894.00 (MAX) |
| Firewall throughput | 8.61 Gbps | 10.1 Gbps |
| IPsec VPN throughput | 3.20 Gbps | 2.1 Gbps |
| Routing (L3) | 9.28 Gbps | 18.8 Gbps |
| Ports | 4× 2.5GbE | 2× 10GbE SFP+ · 2× 1GbE combo · 4× 2.5GbE |
| CPU | Intel Atom C1110, 4-core @ 2.1 GHz | Intel Atom C3558, 4-core @ 2.2 GHz |
| RAM | 4 GB LPDDR5 | 8 GB DDR4 |
| Storage | 128 GB NVMe | 16 GB eMMC (BASE) · 128 GB NVMe (MAX) |
| Cooling / noise | Silent passive | Silent passive |
| Form factor | Desktop | Desktop |
| Software | pfSense Plus included | pfSense Plus included |
Throughput figures are Netgate's official published benchmarks (IPERF3). Prices correct at time of writing — see live prices in our shop.
Choose the 4200 if…
- Your internet is FTTP/leased line up to ~2.5 Gbps
- Site-to-site or remote-worker VPN performance matters — its 3.2 Gbps IPsec beats the 6100
- You want the best price-to-performance in the range
- Your switching is 1GbE or 2.5GbE (no SFP+ fibre)
Choose the 6100 if…
- You need 10GbE SFP+ fibre uplinks — the 4200 simply doesn't have them
- You'll run sustained Suricata/Snort inspection on fast links (8 GB RAM helps)
- You route between fast internal networks — 18.8 Gbps L3 is double the 4200
- You're buying headroom for the next five years of bandwidth growth
One caveat on the 6100 BASE
The 6100 BASE ships with 21.3 GB of eMMC storage — fine for a firewall, tight if you plan heavy logging, pfBlockerNG with large feeds, or long packet-capture retention. If that's you, the 6100 MAX (£894) adds a 128 GB NVMe SSD and is the configuration we usually recommend for busy networks.
Two-minute quiz, or email us a quick description of your network and we'll give you an honest recommendation — even if it's the cheaper model.