I have currently run a medium size SOHO network that can have up to 25-50 users and I am looking to implement a QoS system to better utilize the bandwidth. I currently am using pfSense however, both of its main QoS/Traffic Shaping options leave much to be desired and lacks layer 7 identification. While there are some professional solutions out there that can get the job done in a more all-in-one next generation firewall package, I am searching for something more budget friendly. This network is a free to use community gaming network and all equipment + service fees are coming out of my pocket.
After doing some research I found the Cisco Meraki cloud managed servers but years being a security practitioner has left me with a long standing hatred for cloud managed anything. While I fine with the device needing to connect to download layer 7 application identification information I truly hate anything cloud accessible.
My question being, is there any effective budget friendly QoS solutions that can help with traffic shaping between my internal network and the internet? My end goal is to be able to ensure gaming applications have minimal latency, setting guaranteed bandwidth for web browsing and other low bandwidth applications and lastly enforcing a fair use policy (Evenly distributed bandwidth) for larger usage applications like downloads and streaming.
