One Year With a $290 AliExpress Firewall: Lessons From the Homelab

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 11:24:13 +1000

A while back I came across someone’s write-up of a 1U firewall appliance they’d picked up from AliExpress for $290. Intel N100, four 2.5G Intel i226-V ports, a PCIe slot for SFP+ modules. Runs pfSense. One year on, they reported zero freezes, zero reboots, quiet as you like, cool enough in a home office with no air conditioning.

That last detail stuck with me. No AC and it just keeps going. That’s the kind of reliability review I actually trust, because nobody’s trying to sell you anything.

Pfsense on Left 4 More

One Year With a $290 AliExpress Firewall: Lessons From the Homelab