KerioControl Reviews

We use it as the primary UTM for the whole company.

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.

The statistics feature is the most valuable feature. The active host feature, "Live," enables you to monitor every host and every connection. The statistics show you a full brief of every user, every type of connection used, and the total bandwidth used. It is a very powerful feature.

I would like for them to add more security features. 

It's very stable, and updates are frequent.

In terms of scalability, it's actually more for a small to medium-sized business. It's not very scalable. 

We currently have over 50 users. The users are in different departments. It's a whole network; we have the admin department, accounting department, finance, technical department, and support department. Everyone is using it. It's the main UTM of the network.

It's the main UTM of the network so it's the internet firewall. We use it every day, every minute. 

We've never had to use their technical support. 

The initial setup was straightforward. It's the most user-friendly UTM out there. The deployment was very fast, less than half a day.

We did the implementation ourselves. It required just one person. 

We see ROI on the internet bandwidth optimization levels.

It's very affordable.

Every year we evaluate other options like Sophos and Kaspersky.

My advice to somebody researching this solution is to check all the features. Some of the most important features of this program don't exist anywhere else. Especially the statistics.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

We are using the latest version. 

We have many customer sites and the solution gives us control over bandwidth internet.

I consider all of the features to be valuable. 

The solution should offer more dashboards. 

I have been using Kerio Control for ten or fifteen years. 

The stability is fine. 

The scalability is fine. 

The technical support is good.

The installation is straightforward. We have done this many times. 

We have three IT support engineers.

The price is fine. Our customers pay for their licenses annually. 

I would certainly recommend the solution to others. 

We have between 200 and 750 customers. 

I rate Kerio Control as a nine out of ten. 

We do quite a special deployment. I work on superyachts. My clients, basically have various ways to forward their internet connection, either by satellite, or, if they're within the range of the shore, they use 4G and a multitude of other connections. Kerio provides for an easy way to manage the various connections. Also, because of the limited bandwidth of the vessels using VSAT, they have control of internet traffic.

With Kerio Control, one very useful feature is the policy routing. This enables us to, if we have the yacht's network split up into VLANs, give the option of basically pushing different VLANs through different internet connections. This is very flexible. Then the PFM and the Netgate firewalls are also very flexible. 

The user interface and the ease of use are pretty good. Everything fits together so nicely.

The one thing that did put me off of the solution was that, after they were taken over by GFI, the licensing and a few other items have gotten very complicated. 

I am just a little bit wary as to the future of the Kerio Control. I do like open source. I think open source is the future. I don't think there is any place for proprietaries and if I can use something as open source, I would prefer to use open source.

I never found I missed anything in terms of features. From a user point of view, because I install these things and put them on a yacht, then the people on board, they're the ones that have to manage it once the installation is done. That means I have to train them, and, as long as they understand what they need to do and how to use I'm they'll be fine. That said, it can be a bit complicated for a novice user. A simpler user interface is necessary.

I've been using the solution for years.

I've never tried to scale the solution. In my case, it doesn't make sense to try. My installations are very finite. The yacht doesn't grow, so it's very self-contained.

I haven't contacted technical support in the past, to be honest. I'm the kind of person that I would rather look things up online. The beauty of working in IT is that a lot of problems you come across have already been witnessed. Someone else has come across them and has already posted solutions online for you to find. I'm not one of these people that tends to call help desks. I used to work on help desks quite a lot myself, so I am well versed in troubleshooting.

We have experience with pfSense. 

With Kerio, everything is just a bit more cohesive. Everything fits together. With pfSense, you need to install add-ons to get the features you need. You can have the same features as Kerio, but it may require installing an add-on. With Kerio, of course, everything is already there.

Another very nice feature I like with the pfSense firewall is the ability to actually run a packet capture on the router, on the gateway itself. Thatis something very useful that I miss having access to, as it's not available on Kerio.

The initial installation's level of difficulty all depends on the requirements of the customer. Some customers just want it there so that they can actually monitor and see the traffic usage, and, if necessary, they can go and speak to people and ask them to stop using up so much data. Some clients use it more as a deterrent and just as a way of monitoring what's going on. Other clients like even more control, which can make it a bit more complicated. They want to put in quotas for users and block certain sites, which is possible, and just a bit more work. It will all depend on clients.

Deployment typically can be done within one day. However, a lot of time users may be upgrading the whole network with wifi switches. Everything gets built together. For us, we're trading our gateway and our networks on board. It shouldn't take more than a few days for a full network installation.

I am self-employed, so I work with other companies that usually do the installation of the hardware and I come in at the end to just make sure everything's all configured correctly and set up properly for Kerio configuration.

I'd recommend the solution. 

It is a good solution. I would like to use it more as an open source software these days. The way everything is going in the world, I feel that there's definitely a place for open source. In terms of the proprietary side of it, I'm not too keen on it, and I'm a bit dubious about this takeover by GFI. I don't know if it's a product that will carry on as it is or if things will just keep getting a bit more complicated with it.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. It's done everything I've ever needed it to do. That said, if I can find a solution that does the same, I'll switch. I find that there are actually more options. If you know what you're doing and you find the add-on that you need, then I think it's more flexible.

I find this solution to be rich in features and does all that I require. For example, it is easily manageable and has comprehensive virus detection. 

I have used the solution for approximately ten years. 

I have not had any problems with the stability of the solution, It is very stable. My clients are mainly small size companies. 

I find the solution scalable. 

My experience with the solutions technical support is fine but they could be faster in responding.

I have tried a Zyxel Firewall product. 

I found the initial setup to be easy. 

The price of the solution is reasonable. For additional costs, you can add on more features such as antivirus.

For those who want a good firewall solution, this is the one.

I rate Kerio Control a nine out of ten.

Our primary uses for this solution are to control internet use, filter sites, and manage bandwidth.

It prevents people from visiting undesirable sites and ensures that they use the internet for their designated jobs.

The most valuable feature is the web filter.

Improvements are needed to the Next Generation Firewall Protection, specifically with user-level protection.

I use Kerio Control for user statistics, intrusion detection and prevention (IPS), web filtering, etc. 

It has helped our organization with testing.                                

They should improve the remote connectivity feature for users.

We use Kerio Control as our firewall.

The Kerio Product has come in handy in the area of Firewall management. Having visibility into the entire Organization through a dashboard. 

The firewall appliance itself is the most valuable feature.

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. 

The GFI features that come with Kerio are stated below. When paying for the licenses we pay for license for everything yet we only use 5 products.

We only use 5 products out of the 10 we’ve paid for. We should have the option for paying for what we use not a blanket cost for everything

Internet aggregation and SDWAN Technology: The firewall should  allow growth in terms of allowing connectivity to SDWAN technology available in other firewall appliances.Link aggregation and SD-WAN (Software-defined Wide Area Network) are great features for businesses who need multiple links to the internet. They’re also useful where you are using multiple links and would like to connect to other sites, such as branch offices or cloud services.

Its local support and scalability is  also not good. I am looking forward to a more scalable product that will be able to grow with time and technology.

Cloud Support: The Firewall should have cloud support especially hybrid cloud support.

It should allow device identification without just stating that the devices are unrecognized-"unrecognized devices"

Sandboxing is one of those important firewall features that end users don’t even know is there. It takes a file or executable as you’re downloading it and opens it in a completely isolated and separate “test” environment.This is missing.

We have been using this solution for around one year. We are working with Kerio Control and other GFI products that come with it.

It has been a stable product. We haven't had any issues apart from yesterday when it somehow froze. It was the first time we experienced such an issue. 

Scalability is a bit of a challenge because you need to buy a new product if you want to upgrade to new technology. 

In other firewall products, you have options for scalability, but for this particular product, such an option is not available. For example, FortiGate firewall provides added technology capabilities that allow it to grow a bit. In Kerio Control, if I want to bring new technology like SD WAN, I need to buy a new product, or maybe do away with Kerio Control and use a new technology altogether.

At the moment, there is no proper local support for Kerio Control here in Kenya. It is hard to get service or assistance for anything. This is the challenge that I faced in using a Kerio product or a GFI product.

I used to work with Cisco products. We switched to Kerio because they promised a lot of products, and the initial cost was less as compared to other products.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. I learned this product on the job, and I never got any hands-on training. I just went to YouTube and oriented myself with it, and then I set it up quickly.

Its initial cost is less as compared to other products. It becomes a bit costly when you pay for the products that you don't use. We paid for almost all the products through subscription, but we are using only a few products. We use EndPointSecurity, Kerio Connect, WebMonitor, and LanGuard. We don't use the rest of the products.

I would rate Kerio Control a six out of ten. Its local support, scalability, and pricing model need to be improved.

It is for local use in our company of about one hundred users. It is also deployed to different clients, which are from twenty to two hundred users.

It provides security to the internal network and implements solutions through VPN to access specific internal services, without the need to open the network completely. The usage capacity of Kerio Control is enormous.

The ease of use and the ability to deliver customized solutions is incredible. When updating from version 9.2.4 to version 9.2.5, support services was able to remove 5 patches from version 9.2.5 in a very short amount of time to normalize the system.

Support responses. The response time was very good, but not excellent, because they were worried about their system normalization solution. They slightly delayed in answering direct queries.

I am evaluating version 9.2.6. I would like for there to be a difference between international and national links, something I can find in other firewalls.

Yes, in version 9.2.5, but we solved it quickly.

None

In general, I have not used it, except in version 9.2.5. The response was very good.

None

Simple initial setup.

An internal team implemented the solution.

In 2 years 80% of the investment was returned.

Initial implementation costs are comparable to a similar product due to the ease of performing basic operations.

The cost of the product has optional additions with very good prices. The product update is 25% of its value which is very good.

Yes, FortiGate.

Setting up a small laboratory is simple and fast, so you can see a small portion of the solution's benefits and what it will do to improve a business's security.