Meraki MX and KerioControl are security and network management solutions competing in the cloud and on-premises network category. Meraki MX seems to have the upper hand with its centralized cloud management and automation features, making it ideal for larger scale deployments.
Features: Meraki MX excels in cloud management with remote configuration and management capabilities, robust SD-WAN features, and simplified content filtering. It also offers traffic shaping and intrusion detection with automation. KerioControl provides detailed security with features such as VPN, intrusion prevention, and easy content filtering. It is designed for small to midsize businesses and supports efficient resource management.
Room for Improvement: Meraki MX users express the need for improved flexibility in setup, particularly for client VPN and load balancing, as well as more reporting and logging options. KerioControl can enhance its VPN features and improve the integration of advanced security options. Refining content filtering and reporting may further benefit its users.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Meraki MX supports both cloud and on-premises deployment, focusing on cloud management and garnering praise for quick and knowledgeable customer service. KerioControl, mainly supporting on-premises deployments, suits environments without extensive cloud integrations. Both offer high standards in customer support, but Meraki's flexible technical service is noted for global reach.
Pricing and ROI: Meraki MX is considered expensive, justified by its cloud-managed features and support, facilitating savings in IT man-hours with a significant return on investment. KerioControl is more affordable, with predictable licensing and offers robust security features appealing to small to midsize businesses. Meraki's higher costs contrast with KerioControl's budget-friendly model, targeting different market segments.
They have good integration if you have multiple firewalls and it allows you to be able to push out policies to all of them at the same time.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
If we used a similar solution that required a 'per seat' license per VPN, we would have literally spent over 100x what the solution cost us.
The response time for a critical priority one issue was over four hours and they only responded because we threatened legal action for them violating our support contract.
They say they will respond in 24 hours, but I have received responses in a maximum of one hour, which is impressive.
The technical support from Fortinet FortiGate is 24 hours a day seven days a week, and 365 days a year.
I have never needed to contact customer support as the product is easy to use.
The devices will usually fail way before reaching the capacity advertised in the data sheets, especially when you activate several of the features the device can handle.
The solution is working and it is still stable even across all of these devices and servers.
We have over 10,000 users behind it.
KerioControl has met some of the network infrastructure needs yet could improve in terms of scalability.
All of these issues were resolved in v5.2.
Stability has dramatically improved over the previous main version branch of FortiOS; 5.2.x and 5.4.x are stable enough for critical environments.
Overall, the devices have been very stable.
FortiWAN supports OSPF but does not support the BGP protocol.
Fortinet VPN and DDoS capabilities are great, yet we need to provide a solution that enables CASB and integration to the cloud.
The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate.
The cost of the original deployment fell below £5,000, and licenses are priced at around £3,000.
Every time you upgrade your license, you also get insurance for the equipment.
Overall, FortiGate is affordable.
The price for the product is rated as ten out of ten.
The two most valuable features are VPN and firewalling.
WiFi network for visitors isolated from our corporate WiFi network using only one unit
Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it 'readable'
The most valuable features include geo-tagging, which blocks all other IPs except for the specified accounts, and web filtering.
Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.
Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.
What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?
What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?
Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.
Kerio Control is a popular security product for small and medium-sized businesses. It is a next-generation firewall that provides unified threat management without complexity. Kerio Control provides advanced anti-virus protection and industry-leading web and content application filtering, and has a secure VPN.
With Kerio Control you can:
Kerio Control Features
Some of Kerio Control’s most valuable features include:
High availability, deployment flexibility, deep packet inspection, advanced routing, usage reporting, quick administering, intrusion detection and prevention (IPS), gateway anti-virus, VPN, web and content application filtering, and centralized administration with MyKerio.
Kerio Control Benefits
Reviews from Real Users
Here is some feedback from some of our users who are currently using the solution:
PeerSpot user Brian C., Senior Technology Specialist, VP at Unified Technology Solutions, writes "It is very comprehensive and simple. It has all the active protections. It's updated. We love that you can set how often it is updated so you can work on what is right for you. A large company with a lot of bandwidth can update the virus definitions and security definitions hourly, if they want. A smaller site that's remote, where maybe updating the definitions will eat into the bandwidth, we can schedule those more to go later at night. It's very flexible and works for us in all types of situations. This is great because then we don't have to learn seven different products to be able to work with seven different scenarios."
Andy D., IT Manager at Flare Technologies, praises how easy it is to use and says, "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."
Cisco Meraki MX appliances are next-generation firewalls with all the advanced security services needed for today’s IT security. The appliances are ideal for organizations considering a unified threat management (UTM) solution for branch offices, data centers, distributed sites, or campuses. Since Meraki MX is 100% cloud-managed, installation and remote management are simple and zero-touch.
Meraki MX’s hardware and virtual appliances are configurable in Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform, and private cloud support is offered through Cisco NFVIS and Alibaba Cloud.
Organizations of all sizes and across all industries rely on Meraki MX to deliver secure connectivity to hub locations or multi-cloud environments, as well as application quality of experience (QoE) through advanced analytics with machine learning.
Cisco Meraki’s advanced QoE analytics offers:
Cisco Meraki’s SD-WAN offers:
The Meraki MX’s SD-WAN is unique in that it can be easily extended to deliver optimized access to resources in public and private cloud environments with virtual MX appliances. Its SD-WAN lowers operational costs and improves the performance of remotely-accessed resources. Users can ensure the availability of the apps and services their employees use most through dynamic path selection, policy-based routing, support for application-layer profiles, and VPN.
Meraki MX offers industry-leading cloud management that has template-based settings which can scale easily from small deployments to tens of thousands of devices. It features an intuitive web-based dashboard for managing mobile devices, united firewalls, switching, and wireless LAN. Users can also benefit from role-based administration, configurable email alerts for a variety of important events, and easily auditable change logs. Meraki MX is capable of producing summary reports with device, user, and application details archived in the cloud.
Meraki MX Key Features
MX has a robust suite of network services in an all-in-one device, which saves you money by eliminating the need for multiple appliances. These services include:
Reviews from Real Users
Meraki MX stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its easy management and its ability to be accessed remotely. Below is some feedback from PeerSpot users who are currently using Meraki MX as their firewall security solution.
Craig B., a central services engineer at Liberty Technology, writes, “The web console for managing everything keeps everything on Meraki and keeps us from going somewhere else. It is why I think a lot of people like Meraki. Comparing it to SonicWall or even a different Cisco firewall, like traditional ASAs, managing Meraki is a thousand times easier because of fluidity. You don't have to rebuild a table just to change one rule. It's much more readable for a human.”
Edgardo C., an IT director, notes,”By using the VPN, we can connect remotely. We have two offices, and we could connect them through the VPN. We could establish a network between two sites, and that has improved and increased communication and productivity. Our remote site is able to access the server remotely.”
We monitor all Unified Threat Management (UTM) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
