We performed a comparison between Kerio Control and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: pfSense has the winning edge in this comparison because it received higher marks in the features, pricing, and service and support categories.
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"The Fortinet FortiGate local partners were good. I did not have direct contact with Fortinet support."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."
"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls."
"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."
"Instead of using a cloud-based product for accessing information, and putting my data at risk in the cloud and in someone else's hands, it has allowed me to use a VPN and access my data directly from a laptop when I am out in the field. That has made my life a lot easier, where I'm able to access any information I need to be able access, basically on demand, with an Internet connection. That alone has been great."
"The top features are ones that we're not using yet but we soon will be because we've just had broadband upgraded in Australia. We've got something called the National Broadband Network, which is forced onto you, so you have to take it when it arrives. We'll be trying the high availability out soon. We tried that with some load balancing, it didn't quite work as we expected, but I think that was more of a configuration thing rather than a product thing."
"Setup is simple. The Kerio interface is very intuitive."
"Kerio Control is easy to use and provides the ability to deliver customized solutions."
"It prevents people from visiting undesirable sites and ensures that they use the internet for their designated jobs."
"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 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."
"The firewall appliance itself is the most valuable feature."
"The concurrent users are perfect for us."
"For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"We like the fact that the product is open-source. It's free to use. There are no costs associated with it."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"The UI could be improved."
"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"It has a VPN back to our data center but I don't think it has increased the number of VPN clients extended to those outside our environment"
"The solution should offer more dashboards."
"I would like to be able to automatically send email from Kerio Control and have it tell me what my external IPs are, because on one of my lines I have a fixed IP address and on the other it is variable. If there were a permanent way for me to figure out, "Okay, my current external VPN and my firm IP is this," it would help. I need to know the IP address to connect with the VPN and, at the moment, one of the lines sometimes changes its IP address without me knowing it. It's a hassle to figure out what it is."
"The solution can be improved to create the capability for larger bandwidths that support our business needs."
"My experience with the solutions technical support is fine but they could be faster in responding."
"The upgrades make the network slower."
"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."
"Their support is getting better but still needs improvement."
"Network monitoring and device inventory could use some improvements. I'm using SpiceWorks for this because it never really worked in pfSense."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"The solution could improve by having centralized management and API support online."
"I would like to see SD1 integration into the software. That would be fantastic."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually."
"I tried pfSense, and it has a big issue with file system consistency, and this is what drove me to OPNsense. The file system stability is quite a big issue for us. We have a lot of outages related to power issues, and OPNsense is much more stable on this side."
KerioControl is ranked 29th in Firewalls with 54 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. KerioControl is rated 8.0, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of KerioControl writes "With VPN, any of our guys can log in to the system and effectively be on board; helps with our customers all over the world". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". KerioControl is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos UTM, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox. See our KerioControl vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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