KerioControl vs Meraki MX comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
314
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (2nd), WAN Edge (1st)
KerioControl
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (29th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (16th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (11th)
Meraki MX
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Unified Threat Management (UTM) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 169.0%, down from 215.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KerioControl is 8.2%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Meraki MX is 16.3%, down from 19.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Unified Threat Management (UTM)
Unique Categories:
Firewalls
22.6%
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
19.7%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
1.9%
No other categories found
 

Featured Reviews

Viraj Fernandopulle - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 7, 2024
Includes built-in APIs, is easy to deploy, and provides good insight into our network
FortiGate offers visibility into the types, brands, versions, and users of connected devices. This visibility is crucial for our industrial devices, as their reliable operation is essential to our business. Fortinet Security Fabric empowers us to comply with regulations, governance, and compliance requirements across regions like the US and Europe, ensuring smooth operations for our global business. FortiGate's built-in APIs enable us to integrate with the vendors of our choice. Fortinet's FortiGate is easy to deploy in our environment thanks to its well-written and easy-to-follow documentation. FortiGate is a highly benchmarked product that improves efficiency and adds value to our organization. Although we don't see a benefit overnight, we gradually see the benefits of FortiGate over the years. It has provided a lot of insight into our organization's activities. FortiGate significantly helped reduce the risk of cyberattacks that could disrupt our production. This has protected us against financial losses. Fortinet has its management suite so it helps to centralize the management of network and security operations in our company. This helps us easily manage the issues and solutions that are required. Fortinet FortiGate provides us with actionable data to inform our decisions about the most appropriate course of action. It delivers insights into resource consumption and compromised hosts, helping us identify the source of unauthorized login attempts. This comprehensive view allows us to understand what's entering our network. Fortinet Security Fabric improved security across our industrial control systems. Fortinet FortiGate helped reduce our mean time to remediate. Fortinet FortiGate helped to mature our approach to cybersecurity for protecting our industrial equipment. The level of detail we can see regarding incoming traffic and ongoing activities is quite high. This detailed visibility extends to host configuration and other such aspects, providing us with valuable insights. As a result, Fortinet can provide a clear understanding of how to manage our network and quickly mitigate any issues that may arise.
CK
Jul 2, 2020
The comprehensiveness of the security feature is exceptional but speed needs improvement
The VPN is the most valuable feature. We filter out outgoing NAT packets by port. So we locked down incoming and outgoing packets with the Kerio software. It's a lot less money than our FortiGate solutions that we installed, for instance. The value in it is money savings and flexibility. Kerio is a lot clearer to set up to do particular things, whereas when I do it on a Cisco or a FortiGate I have to go fight with it per week sometimes to do something I can do in 20 minutes on Kerio. For the money, the comprehensiveness of the security feature is exceptional. The next level of security is the sandbox and FortiGate charges me $120,000 a year for that sandbox. I don't see that as something that Kerio would ever be adding. The next step is a big, drastic step up in company size. So for medium and small businesses, I think Kerio is about as good as I can get. It gives us everything we need in one product for our small-size business. For medium to small businesses, the firewall and intrusion detection features are very well priced and just excellent. The functionality for the amount that we're paying for them is excellent. The malware and antivirus features are okay. I add stuff on top of Kerio, I have Malwarebytes. So I would give it an okay. Malwarebytes still catches quite a bit that Kerio doesn't. I used the content filtering a little bit and it works alright. I've got a hundred VPNs at the University of New Mexico. I don't put it anywhere else though, so I don't know. I don't really have any kind of input on that, I suppose. Their graphical user interface that allows me to open up particular ports to particular internal IPs with one external IP is very flexible and easy to use. It is also much clearer than when I go into my larger systems with two competitors, Cisco and FortiGate. Kerio enables me to use one external IP address to cut it into multiples server solutions based on different port numbers. It saves them money if my customers are creative enough to use those features.
PN
May 15, 2024
Completely cloud-controlled and provide an SD-WAN kind of experience for the customer with multiple WAN provider links to optimize
Meraki is very easy. It's very easy to manage the setup and all that stuff. I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, with ten being easy. Cloud Deployment: It is a solution where this can be managed through the cloud, Cisco's cloud. Meraki is the solution. You can manage it in Cisco's cloud. Generally, if you look into any router or that kind of thing, you need to put in the local IP, plug in, and do the configuration. Whereas in Cisco, you'll have a user ID and password. All your equipment will be listed in the Cisco Meraki cloud itself, where you can configure everything centrally and deploy it. Deployment time: The deployment took a few hours. Management is easy. It's centrally managed through the cloud. I don't see a challenge.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"Good load balancing feature."
"The most valuable features are the possibility of having one fabric for switching on security."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"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."
"The solution has an app manager and a portal where you can maintain all your Keri products. It is a firewall that includes antivirus and anti-malware, which adds security. The VPNs, both site-to-site and client VPNs, are pretty easy to set up."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"I want to have access to my computer from the outside and Kerio Control plays a role because it has a VPN... It is more reliable because it's a smaller group of computers to target for hackers and the like. The VPN works very well. I use it to work remotely very easily and exchange information, both to and from the location where it's deployed, and there have been no problems there."
"The most valuable features of KerioControl are ease of configuration, user-friendliness, and comfortable to use. It is an all-in-one solution, it comes with many features, such as a firewall, antivirus software, and network protection."
"Compared to other solutions, accounting and live monitoring of firewall status are very good features in KerioControl."
"The most valuable feature is to provide users with the ability to log in to the portal page, keep track of their data usage and perform bandwidth management."
"The stability of Kerio Control is good."
"​It is very easy to configure.​"
"In general, Meraki MX is easy to work with."
"The technical support people from Meraki are brilliant."
"It is easy to manage, which is one of the most important things for us. It is also flexible, stable, and scalable."
"Its ease of configuration and management is very useful for us and for other companies that don't have an onsite IT person. It is easy to configure and easy to manage. It is easy to configure the VPN with the Auto VPN feature."
"To me, the analytics feature is one of the most valuable in Meraki MX. I also find that it has good usability as it's cloud-based. Another valuable feature of Meraki MX is that it's simple to use and it's user-friendly."
"Very easy to use and navigate."
"Real Auto VPN with load balancer without needing a public IP. It is simple and functional."
 

Cons

"The scalability could be better."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"The security of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"I feel that the reporting needs to be improved."
"The support system could be improved."
"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
"FortiGate can improve its token system, as it requires a purchase before use."
"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."
"There were certain things I didn't know about it, but I've always been able to just contact our IT company. They've been able to walk me through certain things. It was quite a monumental task to set up a public site. Support really had to help me with setting up the VLANs and walk me through it. It was not possible for me to figure that out on my own, but that's what they're here for. That could have been a little bit easier laid out."
"The upgrades make the network slower."
"The overall speed needs improvement. Internet connectivity speed needs to be improved somehow."
"Support responses need improvement."
"They don't provide content filtering when it comes to search engine results. We had an incident on the network where a blocked site was showing up in search results. We are in a school environment, so we have blocked a site with some of the explicit content so that kids wouldn't see it. When one of them did a search, the results came on the search engine part. When you try to drill down to the website, it blocks, but when you search by image, it brings up all the images. That's one of the reasons why we are looking at Juniper."
"Kerio Control could improve content filtering."
"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."
"Meraki tech support staff have a lot more visibility into your network than you do, which is frustrating at times. I understand the approach is to keep the dashboard easier to understand. This will frustrate more advanced users at times.​"
"Expensive licensing and firewall stops immediately working if the license is not renewed at expiration date."
"The product doesn't support route summarization and BGP dynamic routing protocol."
"The client-side VPN is weak. The product could be improved with deployment templates."
"What I would like to see in the next version is to have more interfaces for WAN links."
"I do not have the kind of feature I need for SSL decryption in Meraki MX. It would be great to see the SSL decryption feature in Meraki MX."
"They're very complacent and I find the rule set to be a little arcane."
"When it comes to cost, that's a pain point."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
"For our organization, the licensing costs are approximately $7,000 per year."
"Each feature costs money, so it is important to study your needs."
"When you look at these end security systems and firewalls, these firewalls even five years ago were $50,000 or perhaps $25,000 to implement in some types of customer sites. Now we're talking about tools that are $1,000. In this case, it might have been $500 or something like that."
"Fortinet FortiGate is expensive."
"Here in Brazil, we're going through difficult economic times and the tax on the dollar is high. All the solutions from minor competitors are growing in the market. The prices have come more competitive."
"Fortinet FortiGate gives you most of the features in one license."
"It is quite affordable for our customers. There is a separate cost for IPS, antivirus, web filtering, and other features. They have a great choice of licenses. You can go for the license that you want, which is quite useful."
"There's a one-time fee. For KerioConnect, it's just a server. With KerioControl, you have an option. You can virtualize it on a VMware system or have the hardware. I think mid-range or desktop KerioControl hardware could cost around 2000 dollars for a 25 user client. You need annual renewal for additional features like antivirus."
"The biggest advice that I could probably give people is when you buy the solution be prepared to either buy the unlimited license or buy more licenses than you think. Each user license gives you one employee and each a user gives you five devices. In the world nowadays where everybody has a cellphone, tablet, desktop, and laptop, that's four devices. You still get one more device per person. That covers your servers and back-ends."
"KerioControl's pricing is reasonable. The license for KerioControl is annual. It's difficult to specify an exact cost since it varies depending on the number of users and additional software combined with it. For example, a basic box might cover 25 users, but licenses can be purchased starting from 10 users."
"I am living in Iran and we cannot buy the product from Kerio because of sanctions."
"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."
"The pricing is in-line with our expectations in terms of the quality that we get for it."
"It is priced low enough for entry-level, but it has the power to grow with a company without them having to replace it."
"Our clients see ROI with Kerio Control, as they are saving bandwidth costs."
"The product is a little expensive."
"The license cost depends on the box. We acquired a different product line. We are dealing with MX appliance now, that is, MX6, MX54, MX100, MX250, MX450. Every box has got an identity, and it has got its own specification. Every box has got a different license fee. We deployed Meraki MX in UAE when it was not a mature product. We took a risk, but we were successful. We saved a huge amount of money after implementing and removing all the MPLS and leased lines. We got a broadband connection because Meraki MX could work on a broadband connection. We have drastically saved a very good amount of money, which was one of the successful things apart from the successful solution."
"The product’s price is reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"We just have to pay for the product and the license. We have a license for three years, and it is renewed every three years. It costs $1,200 for three years for one endpoint. Meraki had a good promotion for remote workers or remote workforce. The discount is very good. This promotion continues till the next fiscal year of Cisco."
"capabilities" What is our primary use case? The solution is mainly based on the cloud which is highly adaptable to the needs of its users due to its large user base. By employing over fifty VPS, we strategically position these units where clients require them the most. Remarkably, the cost of this setup is notably more affordable compared to competing alternatives. The management dashboard allows users to oversee each branch within their network. This comprehensive view is unified within the dashboard, offering insights into the entire branch network. The system works mostly for financial institutions, particularly banking clients. What is most valuable? The cloud management system is really valuable. What needs improvement? Direct logging is something that can be introduced. In the absence of cloud management, the possibility of local configurations and on-premise logins becomes restricted. This limitation stands as a primary concern. When it comes to resolving issues, the inability to access login options hampers troubleshooting efforts. The stability is noteworthy; but when compared to alternative products, its stability is comparatively lower. Additionally, certain limitations are observed in terms of remote control. Price-wise, the solution stands out for its competitive and cost-effective nature compared to other alternatives. Operationally, it is user-friendly and requires minimal effort from administrators, making configuration hassle-free. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Meraki MX for the last three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is stable however there are issues and we need to reboot sometimes. I would rate it five out of ten. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Considering the needs of medium-class clients, scalability proves to be highly advantageous. I would rate it nine out of ten. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is easy via the cloud portal, primarily because managed support is needed for internet access. Without this, the direct configuration of the box becomes unattainable.The duration required is significantly shorter compared to alternatives. Occasionally, when dealing with a larger number of branches, like fifty or more, we managed to complete the implementation within 14 days. In cases involving complex processes and discussions, additional time might be necessary. However, once the system is set up and connected to the cloud, other configurations can be done within an eight-hour timeframe. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The solution has three licenses; enterprise, security, and SD WAN. This subscription-based method aligns with customer requirements. When procuring hardware, the minimum requirement is the enterprise license, granting access to cloud management and the portal. Customers can opt to acquire the security or SD-WAN licenses if needed. This adaptable pricing model offers great flexibility. All licenses are linked to the device count, proving advantageous for customers. If there's a future demand for additional devices, licenses can be expanded accordingly without any concerns. The flexibility of the licensing system is indeed valuable."
"Our customers pay for the solution on a monthly basis."
"The solution is expensive compared to other vendors but you can get good discounts if you know the account manager. The product is less expensive than a normal Cisco subscription. The tool's hardware warranty is a lifetime but you need to purchase support which comes in three, five, and seven years subscriptions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
24%
Media Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What do you like most about KerioControl?
The solution provides feasibility regarding cyber privacy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KerioControl?
KerioControl's pricing is reasonable. The license for KerioControl is annual. It's difficult to specify an exact cost...
What needs improvement with KerioControl?
I would like to see geo-IP filtering added to the filtering rules. Incorporating these rules would be very beneficial...
Fortigate 60d vs. Meraki MX67 for a small company without a dedicated IT Department
We have Meraki Mx devices now, we are looking to replace them. But that is because the Meraki MX platform lacks SSL I...
Which is better - Meraki MX or Cisco ASA Firewall?
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports netw...
What do you like most about Meraki MX?
I am happy with the technical support for the solution. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
No data available
MX64, MX64W, MX84, MX100, MX400, MX600
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Amazon Web Services 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Cisco 5. Dell 6. HP 7. Oracle 8. Verizon 9. AT&T 10. T-Mobile 11. Sprint 12. Vodafone 13. Orange 14. BT Group 15. Telstra 16. Deutsche Telekom 17. Comcast 18. Time Warner Cable 19. CenturyLink 20. NTT Communications 21. Tata Communications 22. SoftBank 23. China Mobile 24. Singtel 25. Telus 26. Rogers Communications 27. Bell Canada 28. Telkom Indonesia 29. Telkom South Africa 30. Telmex 31. Telia Company 32. Telkom Kenya
Triton Technical, McDonald's
Hyatt, ONS
Find out what your peers are saying about KerioControl vs. Meraki MX and other solutions. Updated: June 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.