What is the difference between a router with firewall features and a hardware firewall?
Features and price. Lower cost products provide a DHCP server, PAT/NAT services, 1-8 physical ports to network computers and/or wireless service. NAT hides your computer(s) from the Internet which makes it a simple but effective firewall. Higher cost products, but still under $200, provide additional features like built-in stateful packet inspection (SPI), support for Virtual Private Networking (VPN), Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), content filters, anti-virus protection, and more.
