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Cisco Secure Firewall vs KerioControl comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
317
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
406
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
KerioControl
Ranking in Firewalls
25th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (15th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.5%, up from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 5.8%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KerioControl is 1.5%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

DineshKumar28 - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective threat prevention with responsive customer support
We are using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall Fortinet FortiGate has been invaluable. It has helped save costs due to its various features, reliable performance, very good UI, low latency, and stability. The Threat Intel engine in Fortinet FortiGate is highly rated for its effectiveness in…
Daniel Going - PeerSpot reviewer
Is intuitive in terms of troubleshooting, easy to consume, and stable
Licensing is complex, and I'd like it to be simplified. This is an area for improvement. If we could create a Firepower solution that became like an SD-WAN or a SASE solution in a box, then perhaps we could exploit that on remote sites. We've already kind of got that with Meraki, but if we could pull out some of the features from ASA Firepower and make those available in SD-WAN in SASE, then it would be pretty cool.
Constantnos Achilleos - PeerSpot reviewer
Leveraging geo-tagging and web filtering for enhanced network security
The solution is used for site-to-site VPN connections and it is valued for its cost efficiency and easy connectivity. It is especially beneficial for multi-site VPNs and is used in about fifteen different components KerioControl has provided a financial benefit as it allows purchasing one license…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"It has improved our organization with control data."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the simple configuration."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"This is an easy solution to deploy."
"The Inline Mode configuration works really well, and ASA works very impressively."
"It's a flexible solution and is well-known in the community."
"The security features are the most valuable. My customers find the security products very useful because nowadays there are many threats from the internet and other malicious users. The security products really help."
"The best solutions for our company are those we have yet to implement so it will be even better in the future for us than it already is."
"Stability is perfect. I haven't had any problems."
"If configured, Firepower provides us with application visibility and control."
"The most beneficial aspect of the Cisco Secure Firewall is the AnyConnect component within the firewall package, which we selected specifically for VPN usage due to its exceptional integration with various third-party devices and applications."
"The stability of Cisco ASA is excellent compared to other products on the market. Because of our customer experience as an integrator company, our clients never report any performance problems. We have a good performance reputation with Cisco ASA."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I did not face any issues with stability while using the tool's trial version."
"I like intrusion detection and prevention and bandwidth management. The routing part is also awesome. It is a good firewall. We never had a major breach from outside. We've never been impacted by ransomware, and our systems have never been infiltrated."
"The product is affordable."
"Its support is very good, and it is stable product.​"
"The traffic insight page or the administrative portal is really helpful because you can see all the internet usage down to the point where you can see if it's big files or streams. It gives us a good view of what the internet usage is of users who are coupled to an IP address. That way, if there are problems with, for example, a lot of data usage or problems with the connection, we can narrow it down to a single user or server and address the problem. It's really helpful for diagnostic data."
 

Cons

"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."
"In terms of what could be improved, the SD-WAN is quite difficult, because if you install the new box, 15 is okay, but if you change from an old configuration, if there is already configuration and a policy when you change to SD-WAN, you must change the whole policy that you see in the interface."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."
"I think they need to improve more in order to be a competitor with the leaders of the field."
"Technical support for this solution can be improved."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"It does not have key authentication for admin access."
"On firewall features, Fortinet is better. Cisco needs to become more competitive and add more features or meet Fortinet's offering."
"HTTPs inspection and higher throughput/spec would be good."
"The performance should be improved."
"The user interface for the Firepower management console is a little bit different from traditional Cisco management tools. If you look at products we already use, like Cisco Prime or other products that are cloud-based, they have a more modern user interface for managing the products. For Firepower, the user interface is not very user-friendly. It's a little bit confusing sometimes."
"The product needs real-time logs to be able to monitor our services, so we can know if any our services have been blocked via the firewall or on the application side."
"The initial setup can be a bit complex for those unfamiliar with the solution."
"It could also use a reporting dashboard."
"Cisco missed the mark with all the configuration steps. They are a pain and, when doing them, it looks as if we're using a very old technology — yet the technology itself is not old, it's very good. But the front-end configuration is very tough."
"They don't provide content filtering when it comes to search engine results. We had an incident on the network where a blocked site was showing up in search results. We are in a school environment, so we have blocked a site with some of the explicit content so that kids wouldn't see it. When one of them did a search, the results came on the search engine part. When you try to drill down to the website, it blocks, but when you search by image, it brings up all the images. That's one of the reasons why we are looking at Juniper."
"One area that confused me a bit when I was building my current network. I use VLANs to have separate functionality on the network, and the appliance I got was the WiFi model, but I discovered that you can't assign WiFi channels to the VLAN. So, you can have WiFi, but its own subnet. You can't run that over the VLAN. Effectively, I can't use the WiFi facility in the appliance and had to purchase a separate web that supports VLANs. In the end, I had to go to GFI support. They confirmed this is just a limited functionality of that device, as it is a low-end device. I don't know if any of their high-end models have a better facility or not."
"They should add wireless features."
"I would like for there to be a difference between international and national links."
"The comprehensiveness of the security features could be improved upon. However, for the most part, it is pretty good. They could add more logs. I would like to see more detailed reporting, custom reporting from the logs, and more of a streamlined interface for certain aspects."
"If I would suggest anything, it would be to expand on its multifactor authentication to be a little bit more user-friendly. They should do multifactor authentications for the client itself perhaps, rather than served on a webpage, in a page hijack, that might be more user-friendly, but I don't have a lot of complaints about it. It's doing its job. You have to have a certain amount of skills to configure these things anyway, the ones that we use on-site doing point-to-point, and we've been tricked up a few times with their interfaces."
"It has a VPN back to our data center but I don't think it has increased the number of VPN clients extended to those outside our environment"
"We'd like to have more integrations Kerio Operator."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cost-effective, and provides a good value for your money. The pricing, and license renewal, is very reasonable for us."
"Fortinet FortiGate allows you to purchase licenses for hardware and software."
"The price, in comparison to other products is very cheap."
"Fortinet FortiGate has different licensing models, depending on what you're going to do. Services included would depend on the license model. Licenses can be renewed annually."
"The initial setup is super straight forward and as far as the licensing goes for the small product that we have, the pricing was pretty competitive. It wasn't as simple and as cheap as a SonicWall but for the service we would get it was a good price."
"The license is yearly. We pay for the top end. It's called 360."
"The price is fair for what we get with FortiGate."
"Setup cost may be not so low, as you expect, because it depends on different factors, but TCO for 5 years may pleasantly surprise you."
"There are licensing costs."
"The pricing is fair."
"Licensing is expensive compared to other solutions."
"It's more expensive than Fortinet and Juniper. The price is high compared to other vendors. In general, for the license, it's not that expensive."
"Cisco smart licensing is a hassle for a disconnected environment."
"The price for Firepower is more expensive than FortiGate. The licensing is very complex. We usually ask for help from Solutel because of its complexity. I have a Cisco account where I can download the VPN client, then connect. Instead, I create an issue with Solutel, then Solutel solves the case."
"The enterprise agreement that we have has helped with the pricing because it allows us to consume licensing in more of a consumption model versus a per-user type model. That has helped us a lot."
"The solution’s pricing is competitive."
"It's too expensive. The license, in the last year or so, has gone up by over a £100. We're almost being out-priced by the annual license at the minute."
"GFI has made a stupid decision regarding small office licensing. For offices where there are only three to five employees and had five years towards a five user product, they now force these customers to a 10-year user license. I really don't understand it. It's a stupid decision for the small offices who want a good solution for security because they'll probably decide to go to another product. Why should they buy something that they don't use?"
"Our clients see ROI with Kerio Control, as they are saving bandwidth costs."
"The price is fine."
"It gets expensive pretty quickly if you need to purchase license packs."
"It's very affordable."
"Its price is fair. There are no additional costs."
"I am living in Iran and we cannot buy the product from Kerio because of sanctions."
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Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
35%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Media Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
Which is better - Fortinet FortiGate or Cisco ASA Firewall?
One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. Fortinet Fort...
How does Cisco's ASA firewall compare with the Firepower NGFW?
It is easy to integrate Cisco ASA with other Cisco products and also other NAC solutions. When you understand the Cis...
Which is better - Meraki MX or Cisco ASA Firewall?
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports netw...
What do you like most about KerioControl?
The solution provides feasibility regarding cyber privacy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KerioControl?
KerioControl offers good pricing as one license covers all features needed without extra payment. The price for the p...
What needs improvement with KerioControl?
The logs could be improved for better clarity. It is difficult to understand when there is a threat attack, and handl...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Cisco ASA Firewall, Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Cisco ASA, Adaptive Security Appliance, ASA, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
There are more than one million Adaptive Security Appliances deployed globally. Top customers include First American Financial Corp., Genzyme, Frankfurt Airport, Hansgrohe SE, Rio Olympics, The French Laundry, Rackspace, and City of Tomorrow.
Triton Technical, McDonald's
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall vs. KerioControl and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.