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.
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."
"Security, SD-WAN, and Streetscape are valuable features."
"FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all of these features on one device because it can cause performance issues."
"I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"I only deal with it from a security analyst's point of view. I don't really get into the features of the actual FortiGate. From the security point of view, it works, and it does its job."
"I like intrusion detection and prevention and bandwidth management. The routing part is also awesome. It is a good firewall. We never had a major breach from outside. We've never been impacted by ransomware, and our systems have never been infiltrated."
"The interface control manager where we can allocate LAN connections to certain VLANs is the most valuable feature. The other feature that's important for us is because obviously everything is remote with MyKerio, as long as the boat has an internet connection, we can log onto the Kerio and get statistics, as well as provide support."
"The firewall and the content filtering options are valuable."
"The firewall and intrusion detection features are very useful these days because hackers have a lot of tricks that they use to get into a system. With Kerio Control you can see something that's happening. Otherwise, you have to use other tools to see what's happening on the firewalls. Having IPS in it is quite useful for us."
"I did not face any issues with stability while using the tool's trial version."
"Kerio has improved my organization's security."
"One thing we use quite a lot, as well, is the DHCP Server, because we do a lot of work where all our devices need to have static IP addresses. Rather than going around and configuring every box, we do it all through DHCP reservations. It's easier. We've got a record of it. We can manipulate it if we need to change something or change some hardware. It's all easy. Even guys who are not used to using it can pick it up quite quickly."
"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."
"I'm the expert when it comes to Linux systems, however, with the pfSense, due to the web interface, the rest of the staff can actually make changes to it as required without me worrying about whether they've opened up ports incorrectly or not. The ease of use for non-expert staff is very good."
"The scalability is very good, where you can do an HA configuration and then bring in another box, if necessary."
"Its reliability and cost-effectiveness stand out."
"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."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"The intrusion detection feature is the most valuable. It is an open-source firewall, so there is a lot of material on it. I also find the open VPN capability very nice. It is pretty customizable. The clustering and the high availability are the two biggest things to be able to get out of a firewall."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic."
"The logging details need to be improved."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."
"Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports."
"There can be more security in hybrid implementations. When a customer has a hybrid environment where some parts are in the cloud, we need a consistent security solution for such scenarios."
"If I would suggest anything, it would be to expand on its multifactor authentication to be a little bit more user-friendly. They should do multifactor authentications for the client itself perhaps, rather than served on a webpage, in a page hijack, that might be more user-friendly, but I don't have a lot of complaints about it. It's doing its job. You have to have a certain amount of skills to configure these things anyway, the ones that we use on-site doing point-to-point, and we've been tricked up a few times with their interfaces."
"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 would like the customer statistics to be more user-friendly. It should explain more what users have been doing throughout the day. Sometimes, it'll just say they downloaded a big file. Meanwhile, they were connected through a VPN."
"They should improve the remote connectivity feature for users."
"I would like it if the interface section had multiple failovers. Although I do have three connections, just in case our physical cables get disconnected, I can only set up one failover as a backup. So, if for some reason our fiber and our AFM went down together, I would have to have it search for our 4G modem. I'd love to have extra backups running."
"We'd like to have more integrations Kerio Operator."
"Filtering of pages and greater personalization in services need improvement."
"The VPN features are the ones that we really like, but we are using a VPN client to be able to use them. We would like to have an SSL implementation for this same feature so we don't need to install anything on the client side. That's a feature I really miss and that should really be embedded in the product. We really would love to use it via a web browser."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"The solution’s interface must be improved."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"User interface is a little clumsy."
"As an open-source solution, there are so many loopholes happening within the product. By design, no one is taking ownership of it, and that is worrisome to me."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"They can improve the dynamic of the input of IPs from outside."
KerioControl is ranked 28th 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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We monitor all Firewalls 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.
