Introduction
FreeSense is a free and open-source firewall and router operating system. It provides a complete web-managed firewall (rules, NAT, VPNs, DHCP, DNS, traffic shaping, monitoring, a REST API, and a package manager) on a pinned FreeBSD 16 base. FreeSense has a single edition: every feature is in the same free build.
Open from top to bottom
Section titled “Open from top to bottom”FreeSense is a fully open derivative of pfSense® CE, itself derived from m0n0wall and built on FreeBSD. Everything is public and Apache-2.0 licensed:
- the base operating system and web GUI;
- the package recipes; and
- the entire build pipeline.
You can build the whole system yourself from source or run the official signed installer and cloud images. There is no proprietary core and no vendor lock-in.
How it is built
Section titled “How it is built”Every release pins exact source, ports, OS-definition, and FreeBSD revisions plus a frozen set of upstream package sources. The world, kernel, and curated package catalog are built from that sealed definition and cryptographically signed with the project key.
Signed packages publish to pkg.freesense.org; installer media and preinstalled UFS and ZFS cloud
disks publish to downloads.freesense.org. Both are served over a global CDN. Installed systems
fetch updates over the air, verified against the project fingerprint, with no phone-home and no
accounts.
No phone-home or project telemetry
Section titled “No phone-home or project telemetry”FreeSense sends no device identifier, telemetry, configuration, or usage report to the project.
Legacy vendor registration, dashboard polling, the device identifier, and automatic cloud
configuration upload paths are removed. Download and package requests identify only as
FreeSense/<version>.
The updater makes unauthenticated HTTPS reads to pkg.freesense.org for the RSA-signed repository
manifest, update notes, repository metadata, and packages. It does not contact the marketing
website for updates. Network services and optional packages you enable may contact the upstream
services you configure; those are functional connections, not FreeSense project telemetry.
Release channels
Section titled “Release channels”FreeSense uses two active channels:
- Stable 1.1.x: supported production releases built from sealed release locks. Necessary fixes
are published as tagged patch releases such as
1.1.1. FreeSense 1.1.0 replaced the 1.0.x line, which stays published but no longer receives routine fixes. - Development 1.2: the rolling line for the next release, rebuilt nightly for contributors and labs. Development receives no support and is not intended for production.
Stable is published for amd64 and, starting with 1.1.1, for generic arm64 (UEFI installer image); 1.1.0 itself was amd64 only. The Raspberry Pi appliance images are available on Development only.
System updates and optional packages have independent build fingerprints. A System-only change does
not rebuild optional packages; they rebuild when package sources or the pinned FreeBSD platform
change. Installer images publish to downloads.freesense.org, while the small independent Stable
and Development channel documents publish to pkg.freesense.org and are read live by the website.
See What’s new in FreeSense 1.1 for the current release and Updates & release channels for the one-way upgrade rules.