KerioControl Reviews

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.

Providing Firewall functionality, VPN connectivity and content filtering.

1. It decreased malware attacks in our network.

2. It improved employee productivity and data security.

1. The built-in anti-virus and perimeter security. 

2. The VPN feature.

1. The anti-virus and perimeter security functionality minimizes vulnerabilities in our network and better secures our data. This also decreases downtime of devices due to viruses and malware attacks. 

2. The VPN functionality has allowed staff to have stable remote connectivity on a secure and encrypted connection. This has improved the ability to get work done smarter and efficiently whilst working remotely (or from home).

1. More detailed reporting. 

 2. Sometimes you get a few challenges joining to a domain. 

3. Improved and simplified User Interface.

I have been using Kerio Control for over four years. 

It is a stable solution and we have not had any major stability issues in our four years of using it. 

It is very scalable. If you are using a Virtual Appliance make sure your hardware specifications are good then you can easily add licenses as your users increase. On hardware Appliances you might have to upgrade to a bigger appliance as your users increase.

The support is fine. The response time can improve. 

Yes, we switched due to the favourable pricing, many features and robust performance of Kerio Control.

The initial setup was straightforward. We deployed Hyper-V Appliances and everything worked as it should. Connecting the Appliances to MyKerio was pretty simple and hassle free.

In-house.

Our ROI is very good. The savings we have made after deploying were good. We have saved on downtime of devices due to attacks and man hours of the IT staff attending to these issues. This enabled us to invest time and resources into profitable projects rather than to support.

The setup cost is fair especially of the Virtual Appliances. The annual licensing is easy and priced fairly.

Yes we looked at Cyberoam and Sophos.

Kerio Control is a good solution which is reliable and easy to use.

We use Kerio Control as our firewall.

The Kerio Product has come in handy in the area of Firewall management. Having visibility into the entire Organization through a dashboard. 

The firewall appliance itself is the most valuable feature.

I find it a bit costly to pay for the products that I am not using. They need to change their model in such a way that you don't have to pay for the products that you are not using. 

The GFI features that come with Kerio are stated below. When paying for the licenses we pay for license for everything yet we only use 5 products.

We only use 5 products out of the 10 we’ve paid for. We should have the option for paying for what we use not a blanket cost for everything

Internet aggregation and SDWAN Technology: The firewall should  allow growth in terms of allowing connectivity to SDWAN technology available in other firewall appliances.Link aggregation and SD-WAN (Software-defined Wide Area Network) are great features for businesses who need multiple links to the internet. They’re also useful where you are using multiple links and would like to connect to other sites, such as branch offices or cloud services.

Its local support and scalability is  also not good. I am looking forward to a more scalable product that will be able to grow with time and technology.

Cloud Support: The Firewall should have cloud support especially hybrid cloud support.

It should allow device identification without just stating that the devices are unrecognized-"unrecognized devices"

Sandboxing is one of those important firewall features that end users don’t even know is there. It takes a file or executable as you’re downloading it and opens it in a completely isolated and separate “test” environment.This is missing.

We have been using this solution for around one year. We are working with Kerio Control and other GFI products that come with it.

It has been a stable product. We haven't had any issues apart from yesterday when it somehow froze. It was the first time we experienced such an issue. 

Scalability is a bit of a challenge because you need to buy a new product if you want to upgrade to new technology. 

In other firewall products, you have options for scalability, but for this particular product, such an option is not available. For example, FortiGate firewall provides added technology capabilities that allow it to grow a bit. In Kerio Control, if I want to bring new technology like SD WAN, I need to buy a new product, or maybe do away with Kerio Control and use a new technology altogether.

At the moment, there is no proper local support for Kerio Control here in Kenya. It is hard to get service or assistance for anything. This is the challenge that I faced in using a Kerio product or a GFI product.

I used to work with Cisco products. We switched to Kerio because they promised a lot of products, and the initial cost was less as compared to other products.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. I learned this product on the job, and I never got any hands-on training. I just went to YouTube and oriented myself with it, and then I set it up quickly.

Its initial cost is less as compared to other products. It becomes a bit costly when you pay for the products that you don't use. We paid for almost all the products through subscription, but we are using only a few products. We use EndPointSecurity, Kerio Connect, WebMonitor, and LanGuard. We don't use the rest of the products.

I would rate Kerio Control a six out of ten. Its local support, scalability, and pricing model need to be improved.

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 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.

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.

Our primary use case for this solution is a UTM (Unified Threat Management) router.

This solution gives me confidence in the ability to quickly recover from hardware failures.

What I like the most about Kerio is that I can use the software appliance as a solution, so if the hardware fails for any reason then I can quickly replace it with hardware that I have in stock. Typically, I use a Dell OptiPlex i5 desktop or small form factor.

Their support is getting better but still needs improvement. I had been using Kerio products for quite a few years before GFI purchased them.  What liked about the support was that the people you contacted were actually using the product in their homes, they played with the product and broke it and fixed so understood it well. GFI support folks at the first level are script readers and point you to documents you can find on the support website. For me, I have gone down that path already when I opened a ticket. 

I see they have phone support now, but I have not used it.

I cannot think of any features that are needed at this time.

This solution works. The only issues are hardware failures.

With respect to the scalability, I have it running in five-person offices and in fifty-person offices.

The technical support was very good originally but fell short when GFI took over. It is now getting better.

I switched from SonicWall because, at the time, they did not accurately report the throughput of the router when all of the UTM features were enabled. Also, setting up the traffic rules was not as easy as Kerio Control.

The initial setup for this solution is very easy.

The implementation and deployment is something that I do myself.

I do not worry about the ROI. I just need something that works and protects.

My advice is to use your own hardware and do not use theirs.

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.