Amazon WorkMail vs KerioConnect comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and GFI are both solutions in the Email Applications category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.4, while GFI is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.5. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 9.5% mindshare in EA, compared to GFI’s 4.7% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 57% of GFI users who would recommend it.

Amazon WorkMail

Read 13 Amazon WorkMail reviews

2,954 Views
2,222 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

KerioConnect

Read 10 KerioConnect reviews

1,740 Views
932 Comparison Views

57% willing to recommend

Amazon WorkMail

KerioConnect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

KerioConnect and Amazon WorkMail compete in the email and collaboration category. KerioConnect tends to have more satisfied users regarding pricing and support, while Amazon WorkMail excels with its comprehensive feature set, justifying its cost.

Features: KerioConnect's valuable features include robust security options, integrated antivirus and antispam, and flexible deployment options. Amazon WorkMail is recognized for seamless integration with AWS services, advanced mobile access features, and broader cloud capabilities.

Room for Improvement: KerioConnect could enhance its cloud integration, mobile app functionality, and scalability. Amazon WorkMail may improve by addressing its learning curve, increasing support for non-AWS integrations, and simplifying its user interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: KerioConnect offers a straightforward installation with options for on-premises or cloud deployment, supported by responsive customer service. Amazon WorkMail provides a cloud-based model leveraging AWS support, but its integration within AWS may pose a learning curve for those unfamiliar with the ecosystem.

Pricing and ROI: KerioConnect generally has fewer upfront costs with options for a perpetual license, presenting predictable ROI. Amazon WorkMail uses a subscription pricing model correlated with AWS usage, aligning with its feature set, potentially delivering higher ROI through enhanced productivity.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon WorkMail vs. KerioConnect Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon WorkMail vs. KerioConnect

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 860,168 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Amazon WorkMail

Ranking in Email Applications

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Email (2nd)

KerioConnect

Ranking in Email Applications

9th

Average Rating

6.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Email Archiving (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkMail is 9.5%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KerioConnect is 4.7%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Applications

Featured Reviews

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

Provides free messages and helps to keep customers updated

The solution is quite low-level and lacks some advanced features. For example, it doesn't provide tracking capabilities, such as knowing how many users opened an email, which is crucial for email marketing. You would need to integrate these analytics with other tools to get them. I need to know if there has been a bounce and how customers interacted with the email. I would only suggest that Amazon WorkMail relax the rules for using Amazon SES in production. When you create an account, it starts in Sandbox mode, which means you can't use it in production right away. You must go through a process, message Amazon, and request to move it to production. Since Amazon is a big company, I feel customers shouldn't need this permission to use the service in production.

Read full review

David Bloomer

Senior Technician at Computers At Work

Lightweight, simple, and robust; easy to maintain and doesn't require a lot of system resources to run

Kerio Connect does as advertised, so there are no real issues with the product itself. It's developed regularly, so there are constant updates. Possibly, the support and development have lessened since they've sold the company, but as far as the product itself is concerned, there isn't anything that I would suggest needs improvement. If I'm being picky, Kerio Connect uses a proprietary, mappy atom for Outlook, and it would be nice if they used a native mappy connection instead, but that's the only additional feature that I would like to see in its next release. If they have native Outlook map integration, that would be great, but other than that, it's got all the functions that I think a mail server should have.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Amazon WorkMail integrates with Route 53 and other AWS services, providing a seamless experience when using AWS infrastructure."

"Amazon SES can handle a high volume of emails, making it suitable for organizations with large email lists or that need to send a large number of emails on a regular basis."

"We use the tool for transactional emails and marketing."

"The most valuable thing is that emails sent through SES have a delivery rate of greater than ninety percent."

"The most valuable feature of the Amazon WorkMail for me is the SMC server. It makes my work much easier, especially since I often work with Spring Boot. There are many built-in APIs in Spring Boot that help with messaging. What I appreciate about it is that it simplifies the process. I don't need to write much code; I define the credentials in my properties or environment variables. The Java Message API, an internal API from Spring Boot, does most of the work. I set up the properties and connected them to the SMC server, and I can send emails."

"The best feature is that Amazon SES provides verified email messages."

"There is no need for me to set up security."

"It is very stable. I haven't faced any issues."

More Amazon WorkMail pros

"We have contacted technical support a handful of times and received some assistance."

"Kerio Connect is secure, flexible, and easy to control from the user interface. It has many security features able to be controlled from one place, such as anti-spam. I have found it very convenient. Additionally, you can analyze log files and share folders which is helpful."

"The most valuable features are its ease of use, excellent pricing, and it is platform agnostic."

"The most valuable features are security and privacy because you installed it on your server, within your company premises, not in the cloud."

"The solution is easy to maintain, unlike Exchange. It's easy to create multiple domains and back up and restore if needed. It also has good security features like anti-spam and antivirus."

"KerioConnect has integration with 365. We can use Outlook, which has its client and can be used with Apple devices. It integrates with the App Store and Microsoft Office. It has a smart router. The spam filtering and antivirus are good."

"What I like most about Kerio Connect is that it supports ActiveSync, and that is its most critical feature. The solution is also a nice, simple, robust, and stable mail server."

"The user interface is good."

More KerioConnect pros

Cons

"When we first set up an email on Amazon SES, they had to verify it, which was not fast enough."

"There is room for improvement in the support. It's just that customer support, though good, takes time to resolve issues."

"The product should improve technical support."

"Email service is definitely a requirement from an enterprise standpoint. Many organizations have their own on-premise email services, which take a lot of memory, backup, and other resources. If we can have a completely managed backup solution where we have a tiered backup or a tiered archival to be able to retrieve emails, it would be great. I would like to be able to retrieve emails in real-time (hot retrieval), over the 90-days period (warm retrieval), and over the one-year period (cold retrieval). It would be useful to have tiered backup and retrieval. It would help us in managing emails better and have a better backup solution. So, backup is something that we require."

"The solution is quite low-level and lacks some advanced features. For example, it doesn't provide tracking capabilities, such as knowing how many users opened an email, which is crucial for email marketing. You would need to integrate these analytics with other tools to get them. I need to know if there has been a bounce and how customers interacted with the email."

"The only issue is the price, which is far too expensive."

"There is room for improvement in the scalability."

"Amazon WorkMail's user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly."

More Amazon WorkMail cons

"Most of our clients use Outlook and Kerio Connect. Occasionally, Kerio can be a bit slow. They could make it faster to get onto the web interface without so much load time. It's just slow with Outlook, however, for some reason."

"KerioConnect continues to improve with regular updates throughout the year. They must be added to the roadmap, which requires approval."

"Having a native Outlook map integration would make Kerio Connect better."

"It could be simpler to use and install, but I still wouldn't use it because there isn't a compelling use case."

"The solution could improve the redundancy because we only have one copy of the Kerio Connect server on our hardware. The next step for us is to move to the cloud and if Kerio does not have a cloud version available they should release one"

"KerioConnect is stable as long as you use a strong password."

"We are considering switching to Microsoft Exchange. One reason is that it doesn't improve our workflow and doesn't integrate well with Microsoft 365 applications."

"You cannot integrate with other services like Google Docs, Google Assistant, Google Calendar, etc."

More KerioConnect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing as one out of ten. It is close to being cheap. Sometimes, the tool offers a generous amount of free messages, up to 40,000, which is great for startups like ours. This means that we don't accumulate any costs for some months because we stay within the free usage tier. When we exceed the free allocation, the costs are reasonable, and no hidden charges exist."

"The solution should improve its price."

"WorkMail does require a license, it is, per user."

"It's very cheap. The cheapest among all the services available."

"The solution's pricing depends on how long you plan to keep it because you pay on a per-year basis. You might have a one-time setup cost for something like Microsoft Exchange or a Linux mail server. I'd say this solution is expensive on a per-year basis, almost 2000-3000 dollars annually. It doesn't seem to pay off yet, so we're considering switching to another product."

"KerioConnect has a first-time cost and yearly subscription. It is not expensive."

"The price of Kerio Connect is better when comparing it to others solutions."

"The pricing is about $3 per mailbox per month."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Applications solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

University

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Manufacturing Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon WorkMail?

We use the tool for transactional emails and marketing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon WorkMail?

Amazon WorkMail's user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly. Integration with Gmail using both SMTP and POP3 would be beneficial.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Amazon WorkMail?

Currently, I don't have any advice about using Amazon WorkMail. Since I only use AWS and am unfamiliar with its competitors, I can't recommend it.

See all answers

What do you like most about KerioConnect?

The most valuable features are security and privacy because you installed it on your server, within your company premises, not in the cloud.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KerioConnect?

KerioConnect has a first-time cost and yearly subscription. It is not expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with KerioConnect?

KerioConnect continues to improve with regular updates throughout the year. They must be added to the roadmap, which requires approval. In larger organizations, the server's capabilities and the da...

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Workspace vs Amazon WorkMail

Compared 77% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online vs Amazon WorkMail

Compared 13% of the time

ProtonMail vs Amazon WorkMail

Compared 2% of the time

SendGrid vs Amazon WorkMail

Compared 2% of the time

Fortinet FortiMail Cloud vs Amazon WorkMail

Compared 1% of the time

More Amazon WorkMail Competitors

Microsoft Exchange vs KerioConnect

Compared 51% of the time

Zimbra Collaboration vs KerioConnect

Compared 29% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online vs KerioConnect

Compared 8% of the time

IceWarp vs KerioConnect

Compared 8% of the time

Google Workspace vs KerioConnect

Compared 4% of the time

More KerioConnect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon WorkMail

June 2025

Download Amazon WorkMail product report

Buyer's Guide

KerioConnect

June 2025

Download KerioConnect product report

Also Known As

Amazon SES

No data available

Overview

Amazon WorkMail is a secure, managed business email and calendar service with support for existing desktop and mobile email client applications. Amazon WorkMail gives users the ability to seamlessly access their email, contacts, and calendars using the client application of their choice, including Microsoft Outlook, native iOS and Android email applications, any client application supporting the IMAP protocol, or directly through a web browser. You can integrate Amazon WorkMail with your existing corporate directory, use email journaling to meet compliance requirements, and control both the keys that encrypt your data and the location in which your data is stored. You can also set up interoperability with Microsoft Exchange Server, and programmatically manage users, groups, and resources using the Amazon WorkMail SDK.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Kerio Connect, a messaging and collaboration solution, meets the needs of small and mid-sized businesses while offering a robust feature lineup. Business users enjoy support for their favorite email client and easy web-based access. Kerio Connect is highly stable—so you can focus on business rather than unexpected downtime and recovery.

GFI

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Southern Tier Brewing Company, Innotta, Baustoff + Metall, Hamifleurs, Chanson TV, Ryman Stationery

Buyer's Guide

Amazon WorkMail vs. KerioConnect

June 2025

Free Report: Amazon WorkMail vs. KerioConnect

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon WorkMail vs. KerioConnect and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Amazon WorkMail vs. KerioConnect report.

See our list of best Email Applications vendors.

We monitor all Email Applications 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.