KerioControl vs Palo Alto Networks K2-Series comparison

GFI and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Firewalls category. GFI is ranked #33 with an average rating of 7.5, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #31 with an average rating of 8.7. GFI holds a 1.3% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of GFI users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

KerioControl and Palo Alto Networks K2-Series both offer robust network security solutions. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is seen as superior due to its advanced features and higher perceived value.

Features: KerioControl users value its ease of use, VPN capabilities, and comprehensive reporting features. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series stands out with its advanced threat protection, high throughput, and superior integration with other security tools.

Room for Improvement: Users of KerioControl suggest improvements in scalability, enhanced cybersecurity features, and better high-performance capabilities. Users of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series seek better cost-efficiency, reduction in maintenance complexity, and a more intuitive interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: KerioControl is often highlighted for its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series, though more complex to deploy, offers extensive support and detailed documentation.

Pricing and ROI: KerioControl is favored for its lower setup costs and perceived good ROI by users. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series, despite higher initial costs, delivers higher security value, leading many users to consider it a worthy investment.

To learn more, read our detailed KerioControl vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

KerioControl vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

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

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.8%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KerioControl is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

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Constantnos Achilleos

Product manger at Asbis Mediteranean

Leveraging geo-tagging and web filtering for enhanced network security

The solution is used for site-to-site VPN connections and it is valued for its cost efficiency and easy connectivity. It is especially beneficial for multi-site VPNs and is used in about fifteen different components KerioControl has provided a financial benefit as it allows purchasing one license…

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Krishnakumar M

enterprise architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

One of the best tools for the prevention of evasive threats

There is a feature called granular application controls, which I liked. Instead of relying on ports and IP addresses, they use AMP ID. This kind of solution is very good. Another valuable feature is the prevention of evasive threats, which is one of the best tools I've encountered. SSL decryption and app ID-based SSL decryption are also impressive, along with the integration with user ID. Identity-based policies ensuring only authorized users can access specific resources are excellent features. Normally, there is something called SIM or SCIM in IDA IDM, but this feature is provided on the box, which is exemplary.

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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 is the policy routing and application control."

"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."

"The best feature of Fortinet FortiGate is value for money. It is very easy to deploy and scale. It saves us costs and increases bandwidth throughput."

"It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation."

"I'm looking forward to FortiGate's dashboard features, insights, application oversight, and monitoring, which could help us significantly."

"It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything."

"With Fortinet FortiGate, we improved security significantly."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The product is easy to use."

"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 and the content filtering options are valuable."

"It helps us better control internal and external communications."

"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 installation is straightforward."

"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."

"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."

More KerioControl pros

"I have found the threat profile feature valuable."

"This firewall is very good for our customers because they don't have to write their own rules for adding an application."

"Palo Alto has an approach that makes the configuration easier not only for the customers but also for the IT help for the customers."

"Prevention of evasive threats is one of the best tools I've encountered."

"The company is inventive and always adds a lot of great features."

"The scalability of the product is quite high."

"I like the tool's WildFire feature."

"Overall, this is a very simple and very effective firewall, and I am satisfied with it."

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series pros

Cons

"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."

"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."

"Fortinet FortiGate could be improved in terms of user friendliness at the policy level and assigning URL based and keyword based features."

"The search tool needs improvement. It's very difficult to search for policies right now."

"Its pricing can be better."

"I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE."

"The support we receive when we need to upgrade is not satisfactory and has room for improvement."

"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The Kerio hardware devices look cheap and could be improved. Some of our clients are switching to Sophos because their hardware has a more sleek design."

"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 can be improved to create the capability for larger bandwidths that support our business needs."

"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."

"KerioControl has met some of the network infrastructure needs yet could improve in terms of scalability, which I rate four out of ten."

"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."

"Kerio Control has just improved on their biggest problem, which was to introduce better support for high-availability requirements in production."

"The logs could be improved for better clarity."

More KerioControl cons

"The URL Filtering module needs to have more categories added to it."

"In the past, we've had trouble with Palo Alto's application filtering not getting it right. I would not be recommending layer 7 application filtering yet."

"The technical support, and how they provide it to the client, needs to be improved."

"The ease of management and configuration should be improved."

"The password function of the solution could be improved. Additionally, some of the processes take too long to complete."

"The reporting functionality in GlobalProtect needs to be improved."

"The licensing cost is a typical complaint with many clients. The solution is expensive."

"They could improve by providing more features in the solution."

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The support subscription for the solution is annual. You are paying for support and there are two levels of support, professional and advanced."

"We have the full license that included all of the features and support."

"It is more expensive than Sophos. Fortinet is overall more expensive than Sophos. The small range of Fortinet, such as 60F and 80F, is more expensive than the small range of Sophos. Sophos is cheaper. In addition, if you jump from 80F Series to 100F Series, the price doubles."

"The solution requires a license annually, it is not a user license, you can have as many users as your want. I must renew the license regularly per device."

"Fortinet FortiGate as a less expensive solution than Palo Alto."

"The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."

"It is very cost-effective. You get features similar to other firewalls, such as Palo Alto, but at a lower price."

"It's not the cheapest, but it's value for money. Given everything we've got out of it: the DMZ port, the VPN, and the high availability, it's a pretty reasonable price."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The price is inexpensive."

"Its licensing is yearly. You renew every year. Its price is all-inclusive."

"The price of the solution is reasonable. For additional costs, you can add on more features such as 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."

"Its price is fair. There are no additional costs."

"It gives us a lot. It does prove to be a very robust product for the cost."

"My advice is to use your own hardware, and do not use theirs."

"GFI has made a stupid decision regarding small office licensing. For offices where there are only three to five employees and had five years towards a five user product, they now force these customers to a 10-year user license. I really don't understand it. It's a stupid decision for the small offices who want a good solution for security because they'll probably decide to go to another product. Why should they buy something that they don't use?"

More KerioControl pricing and cost advice

"Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is an expensive solution, the price could be reduced. They are more expensive than some of their competitors."

"Palo Alto firewalls are very expensive."

"This product is designed for large companies. The price would not be suitable for a small or medium size company."

"The price of this solution is too high."

"We are on an annual license to use Palo Alto Networks K2-Series."

"If you compare K2-Series' quality with its price, I think it is reasonable."

"It is an expensive solution."

"Pricing is a sensitive issue because the cost is high in this market."

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

21%

Comms Service Provider

Media Company

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

23%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

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...

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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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about KerioControl?

The solution provides feasibility regarding cyber privacy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KerioControl?

KerioControl offers good pricing as one license covers all features needed without extra payment. The price for the p...

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What needs improvement with KerioControl?

The logs could be improved for better clarity. It is difficult to understand when there is a threat attack, and handl...

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Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls

In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?

The pricing for the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series solution is affordable and there are no complaints about the licensing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?

The graphical user interface is a little complex and difficult to manage. L1 engineers cannot work on the Palo Alto N...

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

Cisco Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Netgate pfSense vs KerioControl

Compared 26% of the time

OPNsense vs KerioControl

Compared 15% of the time

Sophos XG vs KerioControl

Compared 8% of the time

Sophos UTM vs KerioControl

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs KerioControl

Compared 5% of the time

More KerioControl Competitors

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

Compared 61% of the time

Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

Compared 39% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

August 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

KerioControl

August 2025

Download KerioControl product report

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

August 2025

Download Palo Alto Networks K2-Series product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Kerio Control is a popular security product for small and medium-sized businesses. It is a next-generation firewall that provides unified threat management without complexity. Kerio Control provides advanced anti-virus protection and industry-leading web and content application filtering, and has a secure VPN.

With Kerio Control you can:

Preserve the integrity of your network.
Manage bandwidth to streamline traffic flows.
Improve productivity with filtering capabilities.

Kerio Control Features

Some of Kerio Control’s most valuable features include:

High availability, deployment flexibility, deep packet inspection, advanced routing, usage reporting, quick administering, intrusion detection and prevention (IPS), gateway anti-virus, VPN, web and content application filtering, and centralized administration with MyKerio.

Kerio Control Benefits

Eliminate downtime risks: Because Kerio Control offers high availability and failover protection, you can eliminate the risk and cost of connectivity or threat protection downtime.
Detailed reports: Kerio Control makes it easy to view individual users’ internet activity through detailed reports.
Traffic monitoring: Traffic monitoring allows you to manage bandwidth and makes it possible for you to control access to streaming video and peer-to-peer networks.
Server protection: Using Kerio Control’s advanced networking routing and deep packet inspection, you can protect servers.
Easily create policies: With Kerio Control, you can create both inbound and outbound traffic policies, and can also restrict communication by specific URLs, applications, traffic type, content category, or even time of day.
Snort-based analysis: Kerio Control gives you the ability to add a transparent layer of intrusion prevention with snort-based analysis along with a database of rule and blacklisted IP addresses that is regularly refreshed.
Optionally integrated anti-virus: WIth this feature, you can prevent viruses, Trojans, or spyware from entering your networks.

Reviews from Real Users

Here is some feedback from some of our users who are currently using the solution:

PeerSpot user Brian C., Senior Technology Specialist, VP at Unified Technology Solutions, writes "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 on 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."

Andy D., IT Manager at Flare Technologies, praises how easy it is to use and says, "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."

GFI

Designed to handle growing throughput needs due to increasing amounts of application-, user-, and device-generated data, the K2-Series offers amazing performance and threat prevention capabilities to stop advanced cyberattacks and secure mobile network infrastructure, subscribers, and services.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Triton Technical, McDonald's

State of North Dakota, SEGA, Alameda County Office of Education, Temple University, VERGE, CAME

Buyer's Guide

KerioControl vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

July 2025

Free Report: KerioControl vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

Find out what your peers are saying about KerioControl vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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