A year ago I pulled the pfSense box out of the rack and put a MikroTik in its place. I expected to swap it back within a month. I haven't, and the box that used to run pfSense is now a NAS.
The honest summary: pfSense was easier to reason about, MikroTik is easier to live with. The web UI on pfSense is friendlier when you are clicking through firewall rules, and the docs are written for humans. But RouterOS does more in less power. The MikroTik idles at a few watts, runs cold, and has never once needed a reboot that I didn't ask for. The pfSense box had a fan I could hear from the next room and a habit of wedging itself after a package update.
The cost of admission is real. RouterOS makes you understand what you are doing. The firewall is just a list of rules you build yourself, the defaults are sparse, and the first week I locked myself out twice. Winbox helps, the terminal helps more once it clicks, but there is no hand-holding. If you don't already think in chains and address lists you will have a bad time.
Would I recommend it to everyone? No. If you want an appliance that just works and you never want to read the manual, pfSense or OPNsense is the safer choice. But if you enjoy the kit and want something small, quiet and genuinely capable, the MikroTik has earned its place. A year is long enough to stop being a novelty, and I still reach for it happily.