Google Workspace vs KerioConnect comparison

Google and GFI are both solutions in the Email Applications category. Google is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.1, while GFI is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.3. Google holds a 22.9% mindshare in EA, compared to GFI’s 4.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 57% of GFI users who would recommend it.

Google Workspace

Read 101 Google Workspace reviews

6,268 Views
5,616 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

KerioConnect

Read 10 KerioConnect reviews

1,882 Views
1,007 Comparison Views

57% willing to recommend

Google Workspace

KerioConnect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

Google Workspace and KerioConnect both compete in the collaborative tools and email services category. Google Workspace has the upper hand in scalability and collaboration, while KerioConnect offers greater control and cost-effectiveness for smaller organizations.

Features: Google Workspace offers scalability and affordability with tools like Gmail, Calendar, and Meet. Its strong emphasis on collaboration and integration with various devices provides ease of use. 24/7 support and secure infrastructure enhance its appeal. KerioConnect provides on-premises installation, offering privacy control and integration with Outlook and Microsoft applications while requiring minimal system resources.

Room for Improvement: Google Workspace faces criticism for outages affecting productivity, challenges with traditional email client integration, and high pricing. It also has a steep learning curve and lacks seamless Office compatibility. KerioConnect struggles with documentation and CRM integration and relies on a proprietary connection for Outlook. Users desire better cloud integration and more user-friendly enhancements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google Workspace is deployed on the public cloud, making it suitable for fast scaling and remote access. Support is often reliant on online documentation. KerioConnect offers on-premises deployment for more infrastructure control but may lead to complex setups. Its technical assistance is praised for efficiency and a direct approach.

Pricing and ROI: Google Workspace is seen as affordable yet complex in pricing structure, offering various plans and licenses contributing to higher costs but promising significant ROI in productivity. KerioConnect is often more cost-effective annually, appealing to small organizations with tighter budgets, though it may lack some advanced functionalities provided by Google.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Workspace vs. KerioConnect Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. KerioConnect

March 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Google Workspace

Ranking in Email Applications

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

Wireless Email (2nd), Cloud Storage (6th), Content Collaboration Platforms (2nd)

KerioConnect

Ranking in Email Applications

8th

Average Rating

6.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Email Archiving (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 22.9%, down from 23.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KerioConnect is 4.8%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Applications

Featured Reviews

Sunil-Nair

IT Manager at Universal Carpets & Rugs

Email collaboration and accessibility have improved team productivity

The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive. People are given email access to Google Drive. The team can share manual files and work accordingly. They can access different teams from anywhere, collectively putting files, sharing them, and managing them. Additionally, the manufacturing product does not require any downgrades. It works fine and continuously for the last three or four years. Users can access their emails from anywhere in their browser without a laptop or can directly access from Gmail. This is helpful for salespeople.

Read full review

David Bloomer

Senior Technician at Computers At Work

Lightweight, simple, and robust; easy to maintain and doesn't require a lot of system resources to run

Kerio Connect does as advertised, so there are no real issues with the product itself. It's developed regularly, so there are constant updates. Possibly, the support and development have lessened since they've sold the company, but as far as the product itself is concerned, there isn't anything that I would suggest needs improvement. If I'm being picky, Kerio Connect uses a proprietary, mappy atom for Outlook, and it would be nice if they used a native mappy connection instead, but that's the only additional feature that I would like to see in its next release. If they have native Outlook map integration, that would be great, but other than that, it's got all the functions that I think a mail server should have.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The valuable feature of Google Workspace is its integrated environment where everything is pre-integrated, like chat and document sharing in Gmail."

"The email is excellent."

"If I'm addressing certain emails from banks — automatic emails, like OTP, etc. — I can create rules and forward that OTP to the specific email IDs. You can create rules and deliver mail to different groups using the forwarding feature. It's handy."

"personally prefer to use G Suite applications, such as Gmail, Slides, and Sheets, because they give you the freedom to share the document you're editing and co-work with other colleagues simultaneously."

"The valuable features of this solution are ease of use, performance is great, and collaboration. It is very easy to share and joins documents."

"Google integrates well with our system. G Suite has an open API, so you can connect any open system with Google capable of working with API. This is the main reason we use it."

"I think it is a great subscription for me. I think it is important, especially when making an internal email subscription. For example, I can easily create my colleague's email address, and we can use it. I benefited from G Suite. I am using the G Suite Drive, which provides 30GB of storage, and it is helping for me. I think it's better for me."

"The initial setup is very easy."

More Google Workspace pros

"The most valuable features are its ease of use, excellent pricing, and it is platform agnostic."

"The most valuable features are security and privacy because you installed it on your server, within your company premises, not in the cloud."

"Kerio Connect is secure, flexible, and easy to control from the user interface. It has many security features able to be controlled from one place, such as anti-spam. I have found it very convenient. Additionally, you can analyze log files and share folders which is helpful."

"The solution is easy to maintain, unlike Exchange. It's easy to create multiple domains and back up and restore if needed. It also has good security features like anti-spam and antivirus."

"What I like most about Kerio Connect is that it supports ActiveSync, and that is its most critical feature. The solution is also a nice, simple, robust, and stable mail server."

"We use the solution as a mail server. It connects with Outlook and is used for calendaring and similar tasks."

"We have contacted technical support a handful of times and received some assistance."

"KerioConnect has integration with 365. We can use Outlook, which has its client and can be used with Apple devices. It integrates with the App Store and Microsoft Office. It has a smart router. The spam filtering and antivirus are good."

More KerioConnect pros

Cons

"The downloading options need improvement, particularly in converting and viewing data formats like PST and inbox formats easily."

"In some cases, we are using the Google Meet functions but only when we have external clients. Internally, we are using Slack. Google Meet virtual meeting function is not as advanced as the one in Slack and should improve."

"I'm not sure if Google Drive has a customizing feature, however, if it did, then it would be better."

"Some concerns over security, but there are moves to address this and provide admin tools to secure content and adhere to data protection regulations."

"I find the price high for the full suite features. Compared to Exchange Online, the price might not be too high, but you cannot choose only one functionality. When you buy Google Workspace, you have to get everything, including file storage and communication tools, which I don't use."

"We would like to use something within Google Workspace for project management, but we didn't find it there."

"The price could be reduced."

"We use Zoom most of the time for official meetings, and we use Google Meet only for internal meetings. I would like to get an improvised Google Meet. It would be good if they can make Google Meet more clear in communication and more scalable like Zoom."

More Google Workspace cons

"The search and archiving documentation capabilities need to be stronger."

"Most of our clients use Outlook and Kerio Connect. Occasionally, Kerio can be a bit slow. They could make it faster to get onto the web interface without so much load time. It's just slow with Outlook, however, for some reason."

"It could be simpler to use and install, but I still wouldn't use it because there isn't a compelling use case."

"We are considering switching to Microsoft Exchange. One reason is that it doesn't improve our workflow and doesn't integrate well with Microsoft 365 applications."

"The solution could improve the redundancy because we only have one copy of the Kerio Connect server on our hardware. The next step for us is to move to the cloud and if Kerio does not have a cloud version available they should release one"

"You cannot integrate with other services like Google Docs, Google Assistant, Google Calendar, etc."

"Having a native Outlook map integration would make Kerio Connect better."

"I would like to see better support from their support team."

More KerioConnect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of Google Workspace, so far, has been reasonable."

"The price per client within the business is too high."

"We have purchased an annual subscription."

"It's cheaper to run a couple of users in a Google platform than what it would be with Microsoft Exchange."

"There are benefits that can provide a competitive advantage, e.g., improved productivity (with appropriate training), increased collaboration (with correct use of tools), flexible working - work from home or remote locations, easy to scale - fast onboarding of new employees, and ability to add and remove licenses, as required."

"I give the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most affordable."

"Traffic management tools may be required for larger setups and should be included in any pricing calculations."

"The pricing is reasonable."

More Google Workspace pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is about $3 per mailbox per month."

"The solution's pricing depends on how long you plan to keep it because you pay on a per-year basis. You might have a one-time setup cost for something like Microsoft Exchange or a Linux mail server. I'd say this solution is expensive on a per-year basis, almost 2000-3000 dollars annually. It doesn't seem to pay off yet, so we're considering switching to another product."

"KerioConnect has a first-time cost and yearly subscription. It is not expensive."

"The price of Kerio Connect is better when comparing it to others solutions."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Government

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Workspace?

Easy-to-build forms are allowing me to get feedback and information from my internal teams as well as from the customers very efficiently with the result data in structured manner.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Workspace?

I'm not satisfied with the cost because I feel these services should be free as they use our data.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Workspace?

As far as Google Workspace is concerned, it is working fine for us. Our needs are fulfilled, so that's fine. However, integration with Microsoft Outlook could be improved. The new integration was i...

See all answers

What do you like most about KerioConnect?

The most valuable features are security and privacy because you installed it on your server, within your company premises, not in the cloud.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KerioConnect?

KerioConnect has a first-time cost and yearly subscription. It is not expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with KerioConnect?

KerioConnect continues to improve with regular updates throughout the year. They must be added to the roadmap, which requires approval. In larger organizations, the server's capabilities and the da...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Exchange Online vs Google Workspace

Compared 29% of the time

Amazon WorkMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 29% of the time

ProtonMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon WorkDocs vs Google Workspace

Compared 4% of the time

IceWarp vs Google Workspace

Compared 3% of the time

More Google Workspace Competitors

Microsoft Exchange vs KerioConnect

Compared 52% of the time

Zimbra Collaboration vs KerioConnect

Compared 29% of the time

IceWarp vs KerioConnect

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online vs KerioConnect

Compared 7% of the time

More KerioConnect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace

March 2025

Download Google Workspace product report

Buyer's Guide

KerioConnect

March 2025

Download KerioConnect product report

Also Known As

G-Suite Enterprise, G-Suite, Google Apps for Business, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G-Suite Basic, G-Suite Business, Google Vault

No data available

Overview

Similar to G Suite, all Google Workspace plans provide a custom email for your business and include collaboration tools like Gmail, Calendar, Meet, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, and more.

As we’ve evolved G Suite into a more integrated experience across our communication and collaboration tools, we’ve rebranded to Google Workspace to more accurately represent the product vision.

Google

Kerio Connect, a messaging and collaboration solution, meets the needs of small and mid-sized businesses while offering a robust feature lineup. Business users enjoy support for their favorite email client and easy web-based access. Kerio Connect is highly stable—so you can focus on business rather than unexpected downtime and recovery.

GFI

Sample Customers

There are over five million businesses that use Google Apps for Business worldwide. Some key customers include The Roche Group, National Geographic, American Red Cross, City of Los Angeles, Flight Centre, and Konica Minolta.

Southern Tier Brewing Company, Innotta, Baustoff + Metall, Hamifleurs, Chanson TV, Ryman Stationery

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. KerioConnect

March 2025

Free Report: Google Workspace vs. KerioConnect

Find out what your peers are saying about Google Workspace vs. KerioConnect and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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