The statement that the "pf" in OpenBSD is "better" isn't necessarily true. The "pf" in FreeBSD and pfSense is a bunch faster, even on single-core.
the IPsec in FreeBSD and pfSense (especially AES-GCM) is also, much faster than that found in OpenBSD.
OpenBSD has a problem: it doesn't scale on multi-core CPUs, and the world has gone multi-core. FreeBSD took years to get this right (forking Dragonfly along the way due to disagreement about the MT model.)
The statement that the "pf" in OpenBSD is "better" isn't necessarily true. The "pf" in FreeBSD and pfSense is a bunch faster, even on single-core.
the IPsec in FreeBSD and pfSense (especially AES-GCM) is also, much faster than that found in OpenBSD.
OpenBSD has a problem: it doesn't scale on multi-core CPUs, and the world has gone multi-core. FreeBSD took years to get this right (forking Dragonfly along the way due to disagreement about the MT model.)