The solution is user-friendly, has a very easy menu, and is a complete firewall for small or mid-range networks.
Cisco Network Engineer at golrang
A user-friendly solution with an easy menu, but the logging and reporting systems could be improved
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is user-friendly."
- "The solution can be improved to create the capability for larger bandwidths that support our business needs."
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
We have 100 internet bandwidths, and we want to use these bandwidths, and our Carrier supports 900 bandwidth. However, in the future, we will have problems as we will require a larger bandwidth capacity of a firewall to handle the internet connection. We have 2000 devices in our network that use the internet. We handle users in and outside our network and see the logs of clients, internet connections, HTPs connections and VPN connections. Hence the solution can be improved to create the capability for larger bandwidths that support our business needs. Additionally, logging and reporting could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used this solution for three years.
How are customer service and support?
We do not have experience with customer service and support as we can't access them in Iran, so we search for our questions on the internet and found answers. Online communities are a good resource for answers. Still, there are only a few websites or communities about the Carrier on YouTube and other websites. We find varying answers, so it is time-consuming since there are multiple sources of information.
Buyer's Guide
KerioControl
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about KerioControl. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
How was the initial setup?
The solution is easy to implement and can be installed in less than ten minutes.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is reasonable for the performance of the solution.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the solution a seven out of ten. The solution is good, but the logging and reporting systems can be improved.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Head of IT at Glorious Way Church
Keeps our public and private networks separated and protected from any intrusions from the outside
Pros and Cons
- "In terms of the comprehensiveness of the security features, it does a great job of laying out what it does. It's fairly easy to edit and research. Some of the features were turned on by our IT company and I was able to easily find other features on my own by searching for videos on the internet. I've been able to block certain websites, and content filter, as well as manage some of our bandwidth because we live stream on Sunday. I'm able to dedicate bandwidth for the encoder that goes to the internet. It always has enough bandwidth, no matter how many people are on the network. That's really helpful."
- "There were certain things I didn't know about it, but I've always been able to just contact our IT company. They've been able to walk me through certain things. It was quite a monumental task to set up a public site. Support really had to help me with setting up the VLANs and walk me through it. It was not possible for me to figure that out on my own, but that's what they're here for. That could have been a little bit easier laid out."
What is our primary use case?
It's the firewall and the router for our network. That includes both the public side and our private side as well.
How has it helped my organization?
We were having issues with feeling more secure. Keio Control has made me feel like our network is more secure. Also, the VPN feature was easier to manage and assign to different users. There's no more downtime with our VPN. It just works.
Kerio Control has saved time for the members of our team who manage security.
We've increased the amount of clients that use VPN. It's very easy to manage and very easy to setup. All we have to do is set them up with an account and then download the software to their computer. It just works. There has been a 50% increase.
What is most valuable?
The intrusion prevention is good. I like the fact that it's always up, it's always secure, and it never lets us down, never locks up. It just works.
As a firewall, it keeps our public and our private networks separated and also from any intrusions from the outside.
In terms of the comprehensiveness of the security features, it does a great job of laying out what it does. It's fairly easy to edit and research. Some of the features were turned on by our IT company and I was able to easily find other features on my own by searching for videos on the internet. I've been able to block certain websites, content filter, as well as manage some of our bandwidth because we live stream on Sunday. I'm able to dedicate bandwidth for the encoder that goes to the internet. It always has enough bandwidth, no matter how many people are on the network. That's really helpful.
It provides us with everything we need in one product.
Because of the reputation of Kerio as well as all of the great things my IT company recommended, it's easy to trust a company like this for our intrusion prevention and for our security. It's really easily laid out and it just works.
The malware and antivirus features keep themselves updated once it's turned on. You don't really have to worry about anything. It scans all the incoming email and it scans for web traffic. It just works in the background. You don't even know it's there until it finds something.
The VPN feature works great and it's secure as well. I'm impressed with the speed at which it works and how easy it is to access over the VPN.
What needs improvement?
There were certain things I didn't know about it, but I've always been able to just contact our IT company. They've been able to walk me through certain things. It was quite a monumental task to set up a public site. Support really had to help me with setting up the VLANs and walk me through it. It was not possible for me to figure that out on my own, but that's what they're here for. That could have been a little bit easier laid out.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Kerio Control for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's extremely stable and the uptime is incredible in terms of how it stays connected, and we have had no issues in over two years of using it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It can scale and grow as we grow. It has very impressive features. It is a little bit of overkill for what we use it for. But I think it's worth it. I really do. I don't mean for it to sound like a negative. I chose it on purpose, even though I knew it was a little bit more than we needed. Because of the security features and because of the reputation that it had coming from our IT company, I really saw no other option.
Only I manage the device and I'm head of our IT department.
We have roughly 10 VPN users and 20 or so computers. Then we have at least 75 to 100 devices that connect to it at one time on a Sunday. That connects to the internet and it's able to handle the traffic and the bandwidth management perfectly.
It's more than adequate for our size of business. I know it's made for larger companies than ours, with more employees. But it works very well for us and it's easy to manage. It's robust and very consistent.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've only had to use technical support once and it was on a VPN. They updated the VPN protocol and I had a question about it. They immediately got back with me. It was easy to deal with them. They immediately had the solution that I needed.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Our previous solution was off-brand. We upgraded because it did not have enough bandwidth to support our faster internet speeds. That's the real reason why we upgraded. It was not able to have a VLAN and a second LAN for our public site. That was another reason why we upgraded. We didn't feel it was as secure as Kerio.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward, with the exception of the VLANs, and setting up a second LAN. Other than that, it was straightforward.
The deployment took two hours.
The IT company went through and showed me all of the settings and gave me a tutorial on which features I needed to use and how to turn them on and what they meant. As far as the rest of our office staff is concerned, they just needed the VPN protocol setup. I was able to do that on my own because that was really straightforward and easy.
They set it up for me. They plugged it in for me and then explained all of the features to me and helped me set up some of the features. I was then able to easily find videos online and some instructions to set up other features that I wanted, like content filtering.
Having seen the process, I could easily do it again without their help. I just needed a little bit of a push from them.
What was our ROI?
We have seen ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would encourage other people that when considering pricing, you really have to think about how important your network security is and how you're going to save time in the long run on managing your network. It's worth buying a product that's top-notch and the best quality. Your network is worth it and your employee's security is worth it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We also looked into Ubiquiti UniFi system and decided to go with Kerio.
Kerio ended up being a much better solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Kerio Control a ten out of ten.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Buyer's Guide
KerioControl
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about KerioControl. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Chief Executive Officer at Quby
Reliable, easy to extend, and has a nice graphical interface
Pros and Cons
- "The product is affordable."
- "We'd like to have more integrations Kerio Operator."
What is our primary use case?
I currently use the solution for on-network management.
We are using the product in our factory and in our main office. We use the channel to connect the network, and also, we are using it for user access control, as a router, actually. That's it.
What is most valuable?
All of the features are great. I can't point out one of them. It's very easy to use
There is not a special technical feature. However, the graphical interface and the UI (the user interface) are great. We've had a good user experience when compared to others.
The product is affordable.
It's stable.
The setup is easy.
What needs improvement?
I don't have any idea how to make the solution better at this point.
We'd like to have more integrations Kerio Operator.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for six or seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches.
However, we changed something, and we've had some problems with performance. We are in the process of debugging the issue. For the most part, it is reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution has been scalable and easy to extend.
How are customer service and support?
I've never contacted technical support in the past.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very easy.
We deployed it six or seven years ago, so I cannot recall the exact steps or how long it took, however, the deployment wasn't hard.
We changed office recently, and we will need to set it up again.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing of the solution is reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
We are a customer. I don't recall the exact version number I am using.
We decided to use this solution based on the features which we needed at the time.
I highly recommend the solution to others. We've had a good experience. It's very easy to use.
I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
General Manager at Gays Hops-n-Schnapps
Using the VPN it's like I'm sitting in our store; provides seamless connectivity
Pros and Cons
- "I love the VPN that we set up. A few of us have it on our computers so that if we leave, we can still access the stores. And we can work from home if needed. When I sign into that Kerio VPN, it links me like I'm sitting in the store. It puts me in our secure network so that I can sign on to each individual store and I can run numbers... If I have to work from home, it's so much faster than the way we used to do it."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
We mainly use Kerio Control for the phone systems. We use it like a VPN network so that I and a couple other guys can take our computers home and work from home. That's a great feature. We love that because you can sign in at home and be like you're in the store.
What is most valuable?
We have five locations and, for the person who controls it we have it set up in our main office. The ease of access, of being able to change a voice message, it links to that. The person who controls it can approve it and then she just plays it. That's great for when we have to do a holiday message or special events are happening. We love that feature.
I love the VPN that we set up. A few of us have it on our computers so that if we leave, we can still access the stores. And we can work from home if needed. When I sign into that Kerio VPN, it links me like I'm sitting in the store. It puts me in our secure network so that I can sign on to each individual store and I can run numbers. We work through ICS Vision for our stores. We have a corporate plus five stores and it lets me link to all that. If I have to work from home, it's so much faster than the way we used to do it. It saves me a couple hours of each time I use it from home. It also saves me from having to drive in.
It's the overall ease of everything. It seems to have pretty seamless connectivity for linking our stores.
Also, the firewall and intrusion detection features seem to keep people out of our servers. I know it's a little bit of a process to try to link something new into it because the firewall is very secure, but we haven't had any issues with malware attacks on our end so it must be stopping them.
What needs improvement?
We haven't really had any major issues. But 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.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Kerio Control for about six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability has been fine. We have no concerns or complaints.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of increasing usage, that's going to end up being discussed in a meeting with our IT guy to see what capabilities it has, how we could expand it, how we could grow with it, and how it could help out day-to-day business.
How was the initial setup?
I've been with the company a little over three years now, but when I came in as general manager it was already in use. The upgrade is the closest that I've been to a deployment.
From start to finish, when doing the upgrade, we were back up in an hour, including the issue we had. Our IT guy let us know what was going on and that there was a series of events he had to do and he did them and we were good to go.
What was our ROI?
From the old way we used to do things, it's night and day. Before the company brought this on, it was pretty old-school in how it did its phone systems and messaging. The efficiency has doubled, but the company also used to use answering machines way back when.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I've never seen any additional costs incurred or involved, other than the initial.
What other advice do I have?
The biggest lesson from using Kerio Control is the untapped potential there is to link to everything and streamline our business. That's really what it's about for us. Obviously, there's more out there for us to do with it.
As an SMB, Kerio Control is a good fit for our environment. It serves what we need done. I would recommend it for a smaller business because the ease of use and the access it allows us are great.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
IT and Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 1-10 employees
Scalable with an easy initial setup but technical support is terrible
Pros and Cons
- "The initial setup is a breeze."
- "When it comes to dealing with updates, there are often bugs on the solution. They should do a lot more testing before they release new versions."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution on the VPN for protection purposes. We utilize its antivirus capabilities as well.
What is most valuable?
I really like their general IT.
I like how it's possible for me to block other countries immediately if I see the need to do so.
The initial setup is a breeze.
What needs improvement?
The support the solution offers needs a lot of improvement. GFI took over the product and since the takeover, the support, the backups, the after-sales support, etc., has basically dropped off quite a bit.
When it comes to dealing with updates, there are often bugs on the solution. They should do a lot more testing before they release new versions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for about five years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. Organizations won't have to worry about the solution crashing. I consider it to be very reliable. We have only had one firewall go down in the five years we've been using it, and I can't recall any other problems.
That said, when it comes to major updates, they need to do a lot more testing before they release things. Last year there had been a lot of bugs in major releases. It may have been because of the takeover. GFI has since taken over the brand.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is pretty scalable. I updated it about two years ago and I didn't have trouble scaling. A company shouldn't have any problems expanding it.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is not the best. As an example, this past weekend I had an issue. It took me four days to get a hold of their support team. I'm a premium client. I tried everybody: America, Germany, UK, Africa. Everybody. That's unacceptable. There is no reason that their response should be that slow. In the past, I had managed to resolve issues quickly. That's not the case anymore. We're very dissatisfied with the level of service they are providing their clients.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've previously come across Barracuda. I've spoken to the team there. In terms of meeting our needs, I've found that, with a lot of other products, it's very modular. Kerio tends to keep everything in-house. Due to that, there are certain functionalities that I prefer to have with Kerio as opposed to other solutions.
How was the initial setup?
The fact that the setup is so easy is one of the solution's great selling points. It's straightforward. It's not complex at all.
It only takes one person to deploy and maintain the solution. The deployment itself only takes about an hour or two. Looking at the branches, it may just be 10-15 minutes of work for them. It's pretty quick. Of course, it depends on how many walls. A super basic setup is 10-15 minutes, however, if you have to put in a lot of rules, it will take longer because that process takes time.
What about the implementation team?
I handled the implementation myself.
What other advice do I have?
We're using the latest version of the solution.
I would recommend the solution. It doesn't take too many people to set it up or maintain it, like, for example, Cisco, which is a bit more complex and difficult.
I would rate the solution seven out of ten, and that's mostly due to the fact that their support is so awful right now. If their support was better and more reliable, I would rate them much higher.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Sales Technician at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
You can see what all your users are doing
Pros and Cons
- "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 would like the customer statistics to be more user-friendly. It should explain more what users have been doing throughout the day. Sometimes, it'll just say they downloaded a big file. Meanwhile, they were connected through a VPN."
What is our primary use case?
It is mainly for user control, e.g., who is downloading the most.
We are using the latest version.
How has it helped my organization?
It helped a lot with the bandwidth because a lot of our clients complained that the Internet was really slow, then we found it's a Windows update or some guy inside the company using YouTube. With Kerio Control, we found out what was going on, blocked it, or pushed it down.
It helps the IT manager monitor their staff. As for the servers, it gives protection from the outside. Their intrusion protection works extremely well, so you can see if there are issues from outside in the log files. The whole system is just easy to read.
Right before the lockdown, we got requests for home connections like crazy from customers. We put all of them onto Kerio VPN, which is much easier for them. They log onto Kerio VPN and can see their local drives and servers, then they can work.
What is most valuable?
The VPN is a useful feature.
When you go under status to, "active host", you see what all your users are doing. We found that this is the most useful feature.
The security features are quite easy to use. It gives us everything we need in one product.
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.
The antivirus is good. Since they changed over to a new provider (GFI), we haven't had issues with it.
What needs improvement?
A little bit more info when we search on the client under active hosts. We would like to see a column to say what is going on: Is it encrypted? Is it HTTP or HTTPS? Is it connected to a gaming services?
I would like the customer statistics to be more user-friendly. It should explain more what users have been doing throughout the day. Sometimes, it'll just say they downloaded a big file. Meanwhile, they were connected through a VPN.
For how long have I used the solution?
Since 2006.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good.
The VPN features are awesome. The only issue that we had is when they changed versions. They removed a security feature and blocked out all the old VPN connections. As a service provider, we had to do an update for a lot of clients' VPNs after their update came out, which created more work for us.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is awesome.
For our big corporate clients, the solution gets used a lot. We have one client with about 200 users and about 10 to 12 servers.
We have five to six support technicians who work with Kerio Control.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have never used their technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. It is easy to install. You just put in a memory stick and boot it up. Or, you just start up the device and follow the on-screen prompts. The deployment takes five minutes.
What about the implementation team?
We do use the online services Kerio provides for our implementation strategy.
What was our ROI?
Our clients see ROI with Kerio Control, as they are saving bandwidth costs.
Kerio Control has saved time for the members of our team who manage security. It can save us two hours to a day, because if we use Mikrotik or something else, we have to sniff through the logs. With Kerio Control, we just log on and can see immediately what is wrong.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We tried FortiGate and Mikrotik, but they don't do what we want. Licensing is easier with Kerio Control. Also, troubleshooting and implementation on a network is much easier. You don't need to call support all the time. With FortiGate, we realized the licensing is really hectic, because if you skip one year, you have to back pay that year. If you skip two years, you have to back pay two years. With Kerio Control, if a license expires, one year later you can just reactivate and go on.
It tells you what your users are doing or what is happening on your network. It goes into detail and you don't find that on FortiGate.
What other advice do I have?
The way that we sell Kerio is we show our customers what they can do with it. They don't really care much about licensing after they see that you can view each person one by one to see what they're doing.
I would give the product a 10 out of 10. I have been using this solution for an extremely long time. It is very helpful. With clients that don't have Kerio and have issues with their network, then we'll install a demo version of Kerio, fix the errors and problems, showing them what Kerio does. After, we'll take it out and put them back onto their normal router. It will take about a week or two weeks later, then they will phone us and say, "Please send us a quote for Kerio."
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.
Account Manager (Technical) at Redfortress Ltd
Provides good content filtering and failover, but licensing is becoming too expensive
Pros and Cons
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
We use the Kerio Control as the firewall, and we manage all the load balancing for it, as well as DHCP, bandwidth control, failover, and basic reports.
How has it helped my organization?
It has saved time for the members of our team who manage security, because everything can be done from the Kerio. If a problem arises or something needs changing, we can just put it into the same rule that we already have or make a new rule, a duplicated rule, which is quite easy to do.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are the
- firewall
- load balancing
- bandwidth control
- routing.
We need these functions. We need to do what we do and then the Kerio is quite intuitive in terms of getting everything set up and managing it after. It has quite a nice UI which is fairly straightforward.
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.
In addition, content filtering is good. We use that a lot. In terms of the content filtering we use all the basic ones that it already comes with, like phishing sites and peer-to-peer. We only use the VPN a little bit, for admin purposes, to go in and administer the other equipment onsite, like the switches.
The comprehensiveness of the security features Kerio Control provides seems good. And it seems to just work. I don't really get down into the detail of it too much, but I'm happy with what it picks up. We haven't really had any problems.
It is easy to use. We've never really used the wizards that are provided. We had a guy come in and set it all up for us in the first instance and then we built upon it by just using what he already did as a template, to do other things. But it's pretty straightforward.
We also use the failover. We have two internet lines going into it, and it works. We have a loss of connection at the minute because of a problem with BT, our ISP, so it has gone over to another line. It keeps our security going, which is good.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been implementing solutions with Kerio Control for our clients since about 2016.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good. I don't think it's ever failed.
We had one time where there was an update, a couple of years ago, and it changed a setting for the failover and load balancing. As a result, we almost needed to roll back to a different version. We ended up finding the right setting. But that was the only thing that's happened really. Apart from that, they update fine.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
For the sorts of things we do, we'd only ever really need one Kerio in any one location. Scalability is beyond the Kerio, for what we do.
We have about 150 users of the solution.
We don't have plans to increase usage. It's been the same for about four years now and I think it will stay the same for at least another one or two. In the place where it's installed it's being used very extensively. It's the endpoint for the whole network so everything in the company ends up going through it.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've never used their technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not have a previous solution.
How was the initial setup?
We hired a guy to do the initial set up for us. I think he was a Kerio reseller and we used him for consultancy before it started and then he actually did the work on the Kerio as well, and the network in general.
Our experience with him was excellent. We've used him a couple of times since. He's brilliant. His knowledge of everything is incredible. We tried to do it all ourselves at first, but he came in and knew exactly what the problems were. Something that had taken us about four days, he did in five minutes. He's just incredibly knowledgeable about everything to do with networks: Cisco, Kerio, everything.
I've set up another one since, for the same company. I just copied the configuration file of the one and put it straight onto the other. They're in separate buildings, but they wanted them exactly the same so it was really easy.
That deployment took an hour, but it was because we already had one set up.
As for deployment and maintenance of these solutions we generally need just one person: me.
What was our ROI?
The return on investment is the fact that the network keeps going. In that respect the ROI is good. But the licensing fee seems to be getting too expensive. I wouldn't say it's a waste of money, because it's required, but it would make us look at the possibility of using another solution in the future, if it keeps going up at the rate it is.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's too expensive. The license, in the last year or so, has gone up by over £100. We're almost being out-priced by the annual license at the minute. If we do need to change, it will be because of the annual license fee, and we will have to get a different solution.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Ubiquiti is cloud-hosted. We use a lot of those as well. If that was around at the time, in the same way it is now, we probably would have used that to start with.
What other advice do I have?
A solution like Kerio Control is a nice-to-have for a medium size business. It just works. It does what it is meant to do. The hardware itself isn't too expensive, it's just the licensing fee that has gone up and up every year.
I would recommend it. My advice would be to get a professional for the implementation.
Overall, I would rate the solution at seven out of 10, because of the licensing, and there are other things on the market now that are probably as good.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
System Administrator Team Lead | Developer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Makes it easy to manage and add settings to the firewall, and gives us a single point to manage global rule sets
Pros and Cons
- "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."
- "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.'"
What is our primary use case?
We mostly use Kerio Control as a virtual firewall solution, and the user accounts let people have access to the internet through the firewall. We also have a few cases where we use the VPN. But it's mostly a firewall solution with multiple VLANs and the network behind it.
It's deployed on-premises, both virtual and hardware solutions. The NG100 is the smallest solution for smaller businesses, but we mostly use the virtual appliance.
Most of our customers are small to medium companies, where there are between five and 40 work spaces. Everyone has a PC and they have a VoIP phone and their own phones, and they have tablets. Most of the time, it's one to four devices per user. The biggest client we have is around 30 users.
How has it helped my organization?
It has made it easier for us and our employees to manage and add settings to the firewall, as opposed to another brand where you have to use command-line or really complicated layouts. The ease of use is a big plus.
The solution has also saved us a lot of time in managing security. We have to adjust the content rules and now we have one place where we can enter them. We have a customer with about 20 Kerio Controls and we don't have to set all the rules on each firewall. When we have to add some rules to each of the firewalls, it can be done within one minute. Normally, it would take 20 to 30 minutes, depending on if they're all online — and we would have to check them manually. Now, we just have to enter them and, when they come online, they sync with the global rule sets.
What is most valuable?
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.
The content filtering is pretty good for our needs, especially with the global rules you can define. We can define global rules and use them on multiple Kerio Control installations. So we have one place to set all the rules for different customers. That's very good. The rules that it auto-updates and that are automatically available — for example, spam or indecent websites, or whatever else is in the firewall by default — are good.
The VPN works pretty well, especially with the Kerio Control VPN software. Some products don't have their own VPN software and, with Windows, sometimes it's just better to have a piece of software. That's especially true for some of our customers because they only have to open the software and press "Connect." Windows can be a little bit weird when it comes to that, and it breaks connections. You really don't see when Windows loses a connection or if you have to reconnect. The Kerio Control VPN client is pretty good at that.
What needs improvement?
The antivirus is either on or off, but we can't really see or measure how well it is doing. Sometimes we get the feeling that some files get past it and then they get caught on the antivirus of the client PC. We would like to have more control with the antivirus.
Also, we have multiple employees working on firewalls and if one employee changes a rule and traffic that shouldn't be there suddenly comes through the firewall, it's hard to pinpoint which rule is affecting that traffic because there is some overlap. It's not clear if it's getting past it because it's not decrypted. It needs more logging or more in-depth diagnostics about which traffic is hitting which rule on the firewall. Sometimes we have 20 or 30 rules and it becomes a whole job to figure that out.
When it comes to QOS, the quality of service, you have to set a fixed bandwidth. But sometimes, when we have multiple connections in front of it, it's a fallback line. For example, when we use Kerio aboard a ship, there is the satellite connection but there is also a 3G or 4G connection. We always have to set a fixed limit for the connection. If we set the fixed limit to 4G and it switches to navigation, one user can use up all the bandwidth for the entire ship. It would be better if there were something more dynamic, where it could sense the total and we could use percentages. For example, we could say a user has always 5 percent of the connection. But now we have 5 percent of a fixed connection number. The fixed limit on a line for QOS is a problem because we don't always know which connection is in front of it.
Also, 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."
We've also had some problems with how to set the rules, but that's when more than one rule is overlapping and cancels out all the other rules. However, that's more our fault.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Kerio Control for around six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's pretty stable. We had some problems with Kerio Control virtual appliances. If it was running more than 20 days, it would become really slow and sometimes it would just stop working. When we rebooted the solution it would come back up. But that was something that was happening a year-and-a-half ago. Since then, we haven't had any more problems with it.
We had a few solutions that just went corrupt. We're not sure if that was the disk or Kerio itself. We always have an installation of the virtual appliance on the server, so we can set up a new one, load the backup back in, and be up and running again in 15 minutes.
How are customer service and technical support?
It's been a while since we contacted support, but back when we did it was pretty hard to get a hold of someone. We didn't get a lot of feedback. Most of the time, it was, "Look at the documentation." It was hard to get someone to look over our shoulder and help us with the problem. I think that was before GFI took over.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not have a previous solution.
How was the initial setup?
As I said, if there were best practices or a template, the setup would be a lot easier because you start and then you change the setup according to what you think is right. But later on, when you encounter problems and look in the documentation, you see that another way is better. That was a bit of a problem when setting up. It all works, but in managing or adding rules, for example, or we just didn't do it properly. It was a bit of trial and error and that was a problem. It's too much trial and error when you start.
Deployment time, for some customers, is fairly quick. A basic setup can be up and running in 15 or 30 minutes. With other customers that have a lot of rules we do testing so it could take three or four hours.
For our implementation strategy, we just look at what the client wants. For some clients, we have a basic template now, where we always use a backup from an existing Kerio. If it's a new customer, we check if we have an existing Kerio that's pretty much the same, or we just do it from scratch if there aren't too many rules or networking behind it.
What was our ROI?
We see ROI because the ease of use is a lot better, so we spend less time on maintenance, administrating, changing rules, and checking usage.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
If you have a lot of users, the licensing can be a bit of a problem because we have a lot of customers who don't use the user feature, but we have five devices per user, and we have to extend the license every time. The fixed model of users and devices is a bit of a problem for us. We want to be able to expand it fast and not have to contact our supplier first to get a license. That takes another one or two days and the customer is waiting.
It might be better if they offered a fixed monthly or yearly price instead of the user-based price. That's really keeping us from deploying with some of our smaller customers or customers that have a more dynamic user base. If they had a larger fixed price with unlimited users or devices, that would help. Now, it's five users each time. A pack of 100 or 200 users for a certain price would make it more dynamic and user-scalable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at pfSense and some paid firewall solutions, but in terms of how user-friendly it is for our employees and my colleagues, and how well we could manage it from a remote portal, Kerio Control was better, in our opinion.
What other advice do I have?
Kerio Control is a nice-to-have for a small business like ours.
My advice would be to look at best practices or get someone to show you how to properly set it up before you try anything and it gets too messy. The biggest lesson I have learned from using this solution is to look out when it comes to firewall rules. Don't use too many firewall rules or content rules because it can get really messy, really quickly, if you don't have a decent strategy for that.
We always try to use auto-update, so most of the time we're on the most recent version. We have some examples where we use Kerio Control aboard ships where the bandwidth is really limited. In those cases we use our own timeframe to update Kerio Control, but it's normally done within a month or two, so most of them are up to date.
We haven't seen anything yet in the antivirus and we haven't had any problems with malware with our systems. I don't know if malware is being detected that well, because sometimes the clients still have some malware. I don't know if it's because it's an HTTPS site or something else.
In our company, most of the work with Kerio is done by about 10 people. Everyone does the same tasks: administrating, changing rules, and installing new Kerios. I work on it in my role as a system admin team lead and developer. As of late, I've been more of a developer than administrator. The others are system administrators, business consultants, and there are two other developers.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Updated: January 2025
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