We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall 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 most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ability to work in proxy mode, which other solutions, such as Palo Alto cannot. There are some features that are better that come at no extra license or subscriptions cost, such as basic SD-WAN. The DLT is useful, other solutions have the same feature too, such as Palo Alto."
"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."
"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."
"The license management is very valuable. You can get a new license each year, or you can enroll every two to four years. You can get the logs, and you will get the information on the risk in your network and the entire organization. With this information, you can take action on your actives, computers, or devices. You can bring your own device as an SSE."
"The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management."
"Cisco has the best documentation. You can easily find multiple documents by searching the web. Even a child can go online and find the required information."
"The fact that we can use Firepower Management Center gives us visibility. It allows us to see and manage the traffic that is going through the network."
"It is scalable and stable."
"The remote access, VPN, and ACL features are valuable. We are using role-based access for individuals."
"My confidence continues to build upon using Cisco firewalls."
"Protecting our landscape in general and being able to see logging when things aren't going as set out in policies are valuable features. Our security department is keen on seeing the logging."
"I like the IPS feature, it is the most valuable."
"The greatest benefit for the organization is the confidence that we are secured."
"When one of the employees of my customers is using the VPN Client, I have created for them that they will always get a message. When the VPN Client connects to Kerio Control from the outside, they will get an email so they know when they are connected and when they are disconnected what is happening to their network."
"Kerio Control can be scaled easily."
"The firewall and intrusion detection features are good. It has blocked certain things. We have a lot of blocked sites that the staff or anyone using it, the public, etc., can't go on. It works for that. I get quite a few messages every now and again, saying that a virus has been detected and I can go in and block the user who's causing the problem."
"The product is affordable."
"The statistic feature enables us to better use bandwidth management. We monitored the use by mobile, type of application, department, and by users. The bandwidth was solid. Our internet speed is optimized for our research."
"One very good thing about the Kerio device is its authentication. I don't have a Windows domain for authentication. Instead, I use the Kerio product because it can separate users by Mac addresses and give them IP addresses based on their usernames, automatically logging them in. This makes for a very simple authentication system."
"The reporting needs to be improved. It is hard to get a domain."
"Its support is very good, and it is stable product."
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting."
"Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports."
"We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"It could also use a reporting dashboard."
"Cisco Secure Firewall's integration with cloud providers has room for improvement. We could do more in terms of integration, for example, if we had a tag on an instance."
"One of the few things that are brought up is that for the overall management, it would be great to have a cloud instance of that. And not only just a cloud instance, but one of the areas that we've looked at is using an HA type of cloud. To have the ability to have a device file within a cloud. If we had an issue with one, the other one would pick up automatically."
"VPNs are weak as this product still does not support route-based VPNs."
"The product crashes. We have a cluster of firewalls and we regularly get failovers."
"It needs to provide the next-generation firewall features that other vendors provide, like data analytics, telemetry, and deep packet inspection."
"One of the challenges we've had with the Cisco ASA is the lack of a strong controller or central management console that is dependable and reliable all the time."
"You have to know the ASA command line very well because not all operations are available in the graphical interface"
"They should improve the remote connectivity feature for users."
"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.'"
"One of the problems we do have causes problems with the VPN. The software slows the throughput down too much. You could have a one-gigabit connection from the internet, and it slows it down to the area of upload and download is extremely slow. There's too much content filtering at that point."
"They should add wireless features."
"There's also room for improvement in the Traffic Rules. We define networks to use a specific outgoing interface, say VSAT, shore, or marine WiFi, which is okay. But then all we have is a checkbox that says "Use other internet interfaces if this one is unavailable." What we would prefer would be to have a priority list. So if VSAT is unavailable, try to use 4G, etc. We haven't really found a reliable way of doing that in the current release."
"When we did our last update, we had some trouble with the initial syncing process to get our messaging to go through. But we were also moving a store and a lot was changing during that process. I don't think it was on Kerio's end. It just coincided with the update. Once we got our third-party IT guy involved it was resolved very quickly."
"The security part of the software, like virus scanning, website, traffic monitoring, things like that, can take a beating on the appliance. And when there's a lot of things going on, the system can get bogged down. The actual security functionality of it needs a little bit more work, which I believe they are remedying or attempting to remedy at this time, but that's the downfall at this time."
"I would like for them to add more security features."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while KerioControl is ranked 29th in Firewalls with 54 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while KerioControl is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". 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 Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas KerioControl is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos UTM, Sophos XG and Fortinet FortiGate-VM. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. KerioControl report.
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