I agree… using parts you have laying around is often the best way to go, as it is cheaper and also if you are able to reuse old parts that start to become a bit to old for intended usage, so it’s a good way of recycling electronics. 
yeah an also with Cisco you always know what you get, its no surprises and it is not really much new to learn in that eco system and so far I’m i have to say they do the best stuff… but you have to pay a high price for it… But i would not be surprised if someone soon will challenge them for the top spot.
You dont NEED them. However I have installed the Netgate devices at several customers with a good battery backup/surge protector and have yet to receive a call. Every check-in with a customer the discussion is always centered around something else. Having the extra ports are nice when setting up a dedicated management interface also.
IF you are going to use second-hand hardware for a business at least 3 ports are needed. 2 for personal or dev setups.
I have been trying to find a list of best supported NICs for pfSense, but i can not find any lists in here or on docs.netgate.
Do any of you know if there is any lists of supported hardware?
Use Intel based network cards and avoid anything by Realtek.
I run pfSense on two different fanless PCs, one has a J4125 processor, one has a N100 processor (both of the low budget Chinese variety). I upgraded from CE to Plus when it was free, and subsequently was more than happy to upgrade to TAC-lite support. My only complaint with pfSense has been Kea DHCP. The software indicates that ISC DHCP software is end of life and soon to be deprecated. Unfortunately Kea is not ready for prime time, and has caused me a bunch of headaches with the DNS resolver as well as the WAN DHCP to my cable modem. Reverting to ISC DHCP resolved all of my issues. I don’t think they should be shipping Kea DHCP yet.
They say Kea DHCP and do not force you to switch to it. But by having it there people test and discuss what is lacking so it helps them build it out.
a friend has a EXPI9404PTL quad intel… so i wonder if that can handle everything pfSense can throw on it so to speak… It would be less fun to by it for $20 and then i have to get another one if it cant handle it all. 
sure it is no money to speak of, but it is still stupid to just throw away.
I have two of those Pro 1000 cards in different generations, and the one in my production system starts to slow down a little when you have all four ports working. The total throughput for the card is less than 4gbps.
These days I’m not looking lower than i350 cards, you can buy used for as low as $25 each (if you are lucky) or new from 10Gtek for $80. My used cards just arrived so I’ll be playing with them this week along with two HP T740 computers I just bought cheap.
Intel i225/i226 cards for 2.5gbps though I really want the Realtek 2.5g cards to work. The Realtek seem to be fine in OPNsense, or so people say. There is a Realtek plugin (again OPN) that helps for some cards.
I moved my whole infrastructure to PFSense. I went with PFSense plus, so purchased all the gear from Netgate , specifically the netgates 1541s. My first deployment has been operating without any issues for about 3 years, no downtime besides scheduled downtime for firmware updates and hardware maintenance. Same with the other but shorter times since i have been rolling out this over time.
I have 3 deployments total, my first is for about 1000 users, and over 1300 devices. 2nd is for 600 users and about 700 devices, and lastly, my smallest deployment is 450 people and about 500 devices. This was honestly the best choice I made quite honestly.
rock solid stability, ease of management, tons of documentation, and lastly my budget can breathe a little lol.
Nice, then i can try to get the card cheaper from my friend then.
This is a test/evaluation setup, so i want to keep the price so close to $0 as i can if it don’t work out so to speak.
But thanks for the info
That sounds great to hear with that setup and three years running is really nice to hear about.
Even bad experiences is good to hear about too, as then it dont becomes surprises down the road… Nothing is perfect in this world… if it was, then everyone would use it. *LOL’
I remember when i switched over to linux for daily driver… everyone said it was the best and i will never regret it and its better then windows in every ways… Yeah right. ‘LOL’ Linux fanboy/girl mentality so to speak… its like the movie fightclub… 1st rule, never talk bad about linux. 2nd rule, crush those who talk bad about Linux. 
I do agree that linux is the best server OS though, so i dont regret learning Linux and i will have use for it when i start digging in to pentesting