Google Workspace vs KerioConnect comparison

Google and GFI are both solutions in the Email Applications category. Google is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2, while GFI is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.5. Google holds a 21.0% mindshare in EA, compared to GFI’s 4.5% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 57% of GFI users who would recommend it.

Google Workspace

Read 104 Google Workspace reviews

6,971 Views
5,507 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

KerioConnect

Read 10 KerioConnect reviews

1,754 Views
1,701 Comparison Views

57% willing to recommend

Google Workspace

KerioConnect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Google Workspace and KerioConnect are competitors in the business productivity tools market. Google Workspace has the advantage due to its comprehensive suite of tools that integrate communication and productivity.

Features: Google Workspace offers Gmail, Drive, and Calendar, which are essential tools for communication and productivity. It also provides collaboration features like video chat and APIs for integration. KerioConnect focuses on secure and flexible on-premises email hosting, integrating well with Outlook and mobile devices and requiring low resources.

Room for Improvement: Google Workspace faces challenges such as frequent server outages, Outlook integration issues, and a basic chat feature. It also struggles with feature parity between Sheets and Excel and needs to improve its migration and synchronization processes. KerioConnect requires enhancements in search and archiving, better CRM integration, and the addition of cloud options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google Workspace is mostly deployed on public cloud, offering ease of use but limited direct customer service, often leading users to rely on online resources. KerioConnect provides on-premises deployment, giving better privacy control but faces challenges in documentation and technical support despite fast email responses.

Pricing and ROI: Google Workspace, while slightly pricey, provides a strong ROI through integrated features, with flexible licensing for diverse needs but demands clearer cost structures. KerioConnect is an affordable solution, offering competitive pricing with annual models, making it appealing for budget-conscious smaller businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Workspace vs. KerioConnect Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. KerioConnect

July 2025

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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

Google Workspace

Ranking in Email Applications

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

104

Ranking in other categories

Wireless Email (1st), Cloud Storage (8th), Content Collaboration Platforms (5th)

KerioConnect

Ranking in Email Applications

10th

Average Rating

6.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Email Archiving (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 21.0%, down from 24.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KerioConnect is 4.5%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Applications Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Google Workspace	21.0%
KerioConnect	4.5%
Other	74.5%

Email Applications

Featured Reviews

Sunil-Nair

IT Manager at Universal Carpets & Rugs

Email collaboration and accessibility have improved team productivity

The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive. People are given email access to Google Drive. The team can share manual files and work accordingly. They can access different teams from anywhere, collectively putting files, sharing them, and managing them. Additionally, the manufacturing product does not require any downgrades. It works fine and continuously for the last three or four years. Users can access their emails from anywhere in their browser without a laptop or can directly access from Gmail. This is helpful for salespeople.

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

"The most valuable feature of Google Workspace is its ease of use and stability."

"It's stable. There isn't really any downtime."

"Overall, I rate Google Workspace a ten out of ten."

"Google Workspace is an excellent tool for communicating with people, which allows users to collaborate and edit files simultaneously."

"The solution offers a workflow where we can collaborate and share documents. Its most valuable features are Gmail and Google Drive. Google Drive is great for file collaboration. It improves productivity. The product is on the cloud; we don't have to connect to the office through a VPN."

"Ability to co-edit and collaborate on content."

"We use Google Sheets extensively for things like sharing plans, data, test reports, and more."

"The product is user-friendly and knows how to appeal to a user. Google Docs accepts some of our requirements. Its most valuable feature is performance. The product's integrations are good."

More Google Workspace pros

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

"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."

"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."

"We use the solution as a mail server. It connects with Outlook and is used for calendaring and similar tasks."

"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."

"The user interface is good."

More KerioConnect pros

Cons

"The cost could be improved. It can sometimes be a bit confusing figuring out how we are actually being charged."

"Sometimes, I would like to be able to use the solution offline, and I can't do so. It would be ideal if there was some sort of offline mode available."

"I believe that Sheets could have a more functional and user-friendly interface. Google Sheets currently lacks macros and cross file links which can be found in Excel."

"If you use a name with a special character like a slash in the folder, it will crash the migration, with no warning. There is no pre-warning or anything to tell you that if you use characters in a file name that it will crash the migration."

"I don't recommend Google Workspace to others. It's expensive. Also, Google doesn't have enough oversight on their partners, so you will face some difficulties dealing with them instead of directly with Google."

"The product could improve the number of participants allowed in a meeting and the strength of the meetings."

"The UI could be simplified and made more user friendly."

"Google Workspace does a pretty good job, so it doesn't have that much room for improvement, but what would make it even better is if its apps, for example, Gmail, could integrate with more apps, such as Evernote and specific cloud-based platforms."

More Google Workspace cons

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

"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."

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

"I would like to see better support from their support team."

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

"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."

"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"

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

More KerioConnect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We receive value for the price that we pay."

"It's about $8.30 up a user per month."

"We normally purchase the license on a yearly basis."

"The solution is expensive."

"Pricing is something concerning. We find the solution very expensive."

"I can't recall the exact pricing per user for Google Workspace, but I know it's not that expensive. I'm in a mid-sized company that's able to maintain and afford Google Workspace, so it has competitive pricing, and I would rate its price as four out of five."

"The pricing is comparable, it's pretty decent."

"The main challenge regarding startups with identity services is you could be on a platform that works well but the services are expensive. For example, Microsoft Azure costs approximately $30 per user which is expensive. You end up choosing a different platform, such as G Suite Enterprise because it is priced reasonably and is less expensive than other solutions."

More Google Workspace pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

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

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	63
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	27

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	2

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Workspace?

Easy-to-build forms are allowing me to get feedback and information from my internal teams as well as from the customers very efficiently with the result data in structured manner.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Workspace?

The pricing for Google Workspace is moderate. I would rate it a five out of ten, indicating it is neither cheap nor expensive. The current cost is approximately seven to ten euros per user per mont...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Workspace?

I don't see many areas of Google Workspace that could be improved or enhanced because everything I have been using has been effective. Regarding the user interface, when calling a member in the org...

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

Amazon WorkMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 25% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online vs Google Workspace

Compared 21% of the time

Office 365 vs Google Workspace

Compared 11% of the time

ProtonMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Exchange vs Google Workspace

Compared 3% of the time

More Google Workspace Competitors

Microsoft Exchange vs KerioConnect

Compared 49% of the time

Zimbra Collaboration vs KerioConnect

Compared 28% of the time

IceWarp vs KerioConnect

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online vs KerioConnect

Compared 8% of the time

More KerioConnect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace

August 2025

Download Google Workspace product report

Buyer's Guide

KerioConnect

August 2025

Download KerioConnect product report

Also Known As

G-Suite Enterprise, G-Suite, Google Apps for Business, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G-Suite Basic, G-Suite Business, Google Vault

No data available

Overview

Similar to G Suite, all Google Workspace plans provide a custom email for your business and include collaboration tools like Gmail, Calendar, Meet, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, and more.

As we’ve evolved G Suite into a more integrated experience across our communication and collaboration tools, we’ve rebranded to Google Workspace to more accurately represent the product vision.

Google

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

There are over five million businesses that use Google Apps for Business worldwide. Some key customers include The Roche Group, National Geographic, American Red Cross, City of Los Angeles, Flight Centre, and Konica Minolta.

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

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. KerioConnect

July 2025

Free Report: Google Workspace vs. KerioConnect

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