We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and KerioControl based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."
"Unified Threat Management (UTM) features."
"We use a southern institution that's audited for IT security and the reporting that automatically comes off the unit makes it much easier to meet compliance standards and makes it easier as far as the amount of time that has to be spent to compile that information. If you get your reporting set up correctly when you initially set it up, you just select the one you want and hit print. The auditing trail on it is the best feature."
"I'm able to transfer data over internet network security. With the GRE I'm able to transfer data within one bunch to another bunch in a public way, like the internet. The communication is encrypted and is private. It gives me added privacy."
"The VPN connection portal scan works flawlessly, which was a big plus for us."
"Completely integrates branch offices with perimeter security."
"Cisco products are very secure and integrate easily with other devices."
"We are able to filter a lot of traffic especially when a lot of the traffic is in layer 7."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability. The nice thing with the bigger vendors is that they're very good at scale."
"There is a positive impact on security, particularly the intrusion feature, which helps keep the solution concealed and secure."
"What I have used the most and received the most benefit from is the IPsec technology."
"Its support is very good, and it is stable product."
"The ease of use in the GUI itself is the most valuable feature. The GUI is really the best part of it. We like the traffic rules so we can control who can get to what. It's easy to determine the flow of the traffic itself so we aren't having to guess through command lines and reading out basically command-driven output. It's just a very easy-to-use interface. The interface is the best part of the product."
"All of the features of Kerio Control are equally good. Most valuable to us are the firewall rules, the intrusion detection system, and IP address features."
"One thing we use quite a lot, as well, is the DHCP Server, because we do a lot of work where all our devices need to have static IP addresses. Rather than going around and configuring every box, we do it all through DHCP reservations. It's easier. We've got a record of it. We can manipulate it if we need to change something or change some hardware. It's all easy. Even guys who are not used to using it can pick it up quite quickly."
"Instead of using a cloud-based product for accessing information, and putting my data at risk in the cloud and in someone else's hands, it has allowed me to use a VPN and access my data directly from a laptop when I am out in the field. That has made my life a lot easier, where I'm able to access any information I need to be able access, basically on demand, with an Internet connection. That alone has been great."
"Compared to other solutions, accounting and live monitoring of firewall status are very good features in KerioControl."
"The solution’s firewall and intrusion detection features are quite good because you can see exactly who is attacking you and who is getting blocked."
"The most valuable feature is the reliability of VPN capabilities. The VPN has been very reliable and secure. The security has been very good and the VPN connections are reliable in that they stay up. We don't have a lot of problems with downtime and that type of thing."
"Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial."
"The logging details need to be improved."
"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."
"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."
"It would be ideal if they had some sort of GUI interface for troubleshooting and diagnostics."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"Sometimes I find it difficult to manage. Some configurations are difficult for new engineers, for example."
"I wish it would be more like the next generation firewall technology. There should be more selection between the application and filtering."
"The solution’s setup process could be better."
"Cisco IOS Security should improve its functionalities."
"I think they should bring back remote VPN for users."
"It would be ideal if the solution had more capacity."
"It takes too much time to deploy a policy to FMC. It takes around eight minutes. You can't afford any downtime when you're changing policies."
"There isn't a lot to be improved. It works well as it is, but they can maybe improve the reporting side."
"The solution can be improved to create the capability for larger bandwidths that support our business needs."
"Support responses need improvement."
"I would like to see them develop a bit more flexibility creating VLANs."
"If you have to dive deeper into the firewall or any other features, then you really have to read up a bit about how to set it up properly. Some of my colleagues, in the beginning, jumped in and made a bunch of rules but then it got really messy. If Kerio had a template or guidelines for best practices, at the beginning, that would really help. With Kerio Control it's basically 'find out for yourself.'"
"The trial duration of the product should be extended."
"I find it a bit costly to pay for the products that I am not using. They need to change their model in such a way that you don't have to pay for the products that you are not using. Its local support and scalability are also not good. I am looking forward to a more scalable product that will be able to grow with time and technology."
"I would like to be able to automatically send email from Kerio Control and have it tell me what my external IPs are, because on one of my lines I have a fixed IP address and on the other it is variable. If there were a permanent way for me to figure out, "Okay, my current external VPN and my firm IP is this," it would help. I need to know the IP address to connect with the VPN and, at the moment, one of the lines sometimes changes its IP address without me knowing it. It's a hassle to figure out what it is."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 23rd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while KerioControl is ranked 29th in Firewalls with 54 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while KerioControl is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco IOS Security writes "User-friendly and excels in documentation, making it easier to resolve issues". On the other hand, the top reviewer of KerioControl writes "With VPN, any of our guys can log in to the system and effectively be on board; helps with our customers all over the world". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Fortinet FortiOS, Meraki MX, Netgate pfSense and OPNsense, whereas KerioControl is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos UTM, Sophos XG and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. KerioControl report.
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