Enterprise NAC, Community Driven
Free and open source (GPL), proven from hundreds to 1.5 million devices with vendor-agnostic, highly flexible enforcement.
GPL v2+ Licensed • No restrictions • Unlimited devices • Full source code
Why Teams Choose Open Source PacketFence
Complete control, zero licensing fees, unlimited customization
Cost & Licensing Freedom
- • 100% free software (GPL v2+)
- • No per-device licensing fees
- • No vendor lock-in
- • Transparent development
Architectural Flexibility
- • Multiple enforcement modes
- • Vendor agnostic (200+ vendors)
- • Hybrid deployments
- • Fully customizable
Deep Integrations
- • Vulnerability scanners
- • IDS/IPS systems
- • Firewalls & SIEM
- • Identity providers
Community & Transparency
- • Active since 2005
- • Thousands of deployments
- • Regular feature releases
- • Public roadmap
Proven at Scale
Our largest deployment to date
Concurrent endpoints
Switches
Switch models
Years live & up
Core Capabilities
Network Access Control
- 802.1X authentication with EAP-TLS, PEAP, EAP-TTLS
- MAC authentication bypass (MAB)
- Web authentication portal
- Certificate-based device onboarding
Device Management
- Automatic device profiling with Fingerbank
- BYOD self-registration workflows
- Guest sponsorship and approval
- Device lifecycle management
Compliance & Security
- Posture assessment integration
- Automatic remediation workflows
- Quarantine networks for non-compliant devices
- Security incident response automation
Administration
- Web-based administration interface
- REST API for automation
- Detailed reporting and analytics
- Multi-tenancy support
When to Consider PacketFence Cloud Instead
While PacketFence Open Source is incredibly powerful, consider PacketFence Cloud if:
You lack Linux/NAC expertise
Cloud removes infrastructure complexity
You want to avoid managing infrastructure
No MariaDB, FreeRADIUS, Apache, clustering
You prefer predictable OPEX
Over infrastructure investment
You need faster time-to-value
Deploy in minutes vs weeks
Getting Started
System Requirements
- Operating System:
- Debian 12.x (Bookworm) / RHEL 8.x Server
- CPU:
- Intel or AMD 3 GHz, 4 cores
- RAM:
- 16 GB minimum
- Disk:
- 200 GB (RAID-1 recommended)
- Network:
- 1 NIC minimum (2 recommended)
Quick Start
# Download the latest release
wget https://github.com/inverse-inc/packetfence/releases/latest
# Follow the installation guide
https://packetfence.org/doc/PacketFence_Installation_Guide.html
Need help with your PacketFence deployment?
Akamai offers professional deployment, migration, performance tuning, and ongoing support services.