KerioControl Reviews

Our primary use cases are for internet connectivity, security, and VPNs.

The VPN connections have improved my organization. It also means that I can manage security more easily.

The most valuable feature is the VPN. It enables us to do remote work. 

I use the geo IP filtering a lot. 

We also like the security. We can control what sites users can go to and we can make sure that where they're going is appropriate and that it's work-related.

Quality of service and bandwidth management need improvement. It just doesn't seem granular in that.

The denial of service could also be improved. There recently was a big issue with denial of service attacks and it was a bit laborious.

I have been using Kerio Control since 2016. 

It's stable and we rarely have any reliability issues.

It is scalable up to a point that then you might have to use a user faster, bigger one, but on the whole, it is scalable. It's because based most installations I have are over 300. Whereas if they start to get really big, you'll need to increase the model to the next model up.

In my company, it's me that manages and installs them all. We install, manage, and offer basic management and support.

The environments we've installed for can go from three to 50 users.

We've never had any problems with it not being able to manage the traffic.

The GFI technical support is average. The speed of response sometimes is not very fast. Sometimes they take a while to resolve an issue. For example, I've got an issue that's not been resolved for three months now, meaning that the box, the unit isn't performing as it should do.

My clients generally replace solutions like SonicWall and Fortinet with Kerio but sometimes they don't have a firewall at all, so we set them up with their first firewall.

It's easier when all our customers are using the same firewall. It makes it easier for us to manage them across the board. We use Kerio across the board.

We used to use a lot of Fortinet but now we've replaced that with Kerio because of the support and price, although now the support is not so good. The price is fair and the features are all pretty much the same.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's a bit tricky because I do it a lot, but it's pretty straightforward. It has a Wizard if you need it, but I don't need it anymore. I know what I'm doing. I find it quite easy to set up.

A basic deployment takes an hour. Just the box standards are set out for everybody, and then if they need something specific, we'll add it in afterward. But a straightforward, standard, basic setup takes about an hour.

We have a unified implementation strategy that we start with and then we tweak it if need be. We don't use MyKerio to put a standard implementation across all of them.

Our standard implementation strategy is to implement dual internet connections, standards, and standard traffic rules with VPN access.

At the end of the day, our customers are being managed, looked after, and they're secure, so they're happy.

The licensing is a bit of an issue. People don't like to have to buy user licenses. They think they should be able to buy the box and be able to use it. Licensing is a bit old fashioned in terms of the fact that if they don't renew the license that box becomes useless. People really don't like that. Then they can't use it anymore.

My advice would be to make sure you've got an internet connection. The first thing you have to do is register the user on the internet and then if you get to a new installation where you're setting them up from scratch, you're going to struggle because with the new Kerio unit, the first thing it needs to do is connect to the internet and it can't do that if you haven't set it up. It's best to get it set up before you install it on site.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using the solution is not to assume everything is running okay because it might not be. The main reason is because of the denial of service not being up to scratch. You have to make sure that their connections aren't being kept of denial of service effects. That's the problem right now. I would say denial of service is probably one of the weakest areas.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

We resell Kerio Control to other businesses. We use the virtual appliance model. The device is used for direct management.

Kerio Control protects our email servers. The product provides a pre-filter to scan the email messages before they get to the email servers.

All of the features of Kerio Control are equally good. The most valuable to us are the firewall rules, the intrusion detection system, and IP address features.

Kerio Control has just improved on their biggest problem, which was to introduce better support for high-availability requirements in production.

Kerio Control is very stable.

The scalability of Kerio Control is limited, but they also market it as such. It's not an enterprise-class product, but they don't claim that it is. 

Kerio Control is for small enterprise businesses with various clients. It can support an organization of up to 300 general users, remote developers, and trained workers.

For deployment and maintenance, Kerio Control requires just one person. I tend to increase my usage of the product as time goes by, as well as the number of support clients.

I have never had to use Kerio's customer support services.

I did use other solutions previously. I switched because they suddenly made the Kerio Control license end-of-life.

The setup of Kerio Control is very straightforward. The initial implementation is about three hours, with various points of review. We are a managed service provider, so there are ongoing reviews and adjustments for the clients.

ROI is difficult when you've got a "not for resale" version of Kerio Control. It's a total cost of ownership and further investment. The product is brilliant. I don't know how much value you can add on to it, but the cost point of the Kerio is much lower than the bigger vendors.

The version of Kerio Control that I use is a "not for resale" unit. I get the product for free. There is an additional cost for the annual software licensing which depends on which model you have and the number of users.

The Kerio Control license has a varying cost, but generally, it's around £300 a year.

I would rate Kerio Control a ten out of ten points overall.

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. 

Primarily, I use Kerio Control as a firewall and for web-filtering user controls.

The filtering on the unlicensed version of Kerio Control is inefficient - you have to add each website manually, which isn't feasible. It also has no anti-spamming feature for emails.

I've been working with Kerio Control for four years.

Kerio Control's stability isn't good.

Kerio Control can be scaled easily.

The initial setup was very simple and took one or two days - it's on a Linux-based machine, so we just got the setup files and installed it. 

We used an in-house team.

I would give Kerio Control a rating of six 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.