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.
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."
"The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"It has improved our organization with control data."
"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"I have found the most valuable features of Kerio Control to be the IPS and firewall."
"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."
"The flexibility of the system, the capacity to provide the right level of security, and the ability to be integrated into different kinds of infrastructures are the most valuable features."
"It has helped our organization with testing."
"It helps us better control internal and external communications."
"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."
"I did not face any issues with stability while using the tool's trial version."
"All of the features of Kerio Control are equally good. Most valuable to us are the firewall rules, the intrusion detection system, and IP address features."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"My technicians find the pfSense's web interface very useful. It is very easy to use. pfSense is very reliable and stable. We like the OpenVPN clients that can be deployed using pfSense very much."
"For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution."
"The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"The concurrent users are perfect for us."
"The redundancy and scalability ARE very nice."
"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."
"There are problems with the custom reporting of the unique traffic. The data is there, but it is too difficult for us to extract."
"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."
"The solution needs to improve its integration with cybersecurity."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"Fortinet could improve the windows opener or the virtual IP solutions for opening windows. The virtual IP settings need improvement as firewalls are trending in new development directions."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"Support responses need improvement."
"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 filtering on the unlicensed version of Kerio Control is inefficient - you have to add each website manually, which isn't feasible."
"The comprehensiveness of the security features could be improved upon. However, for the most part, it is pretty good. They could add more logs. I would like to see more detailed reporting, custom reporting from the logs, and more of a streamlined interface for certain aspects."
"The reporting needs to be improved. It is hard to get a domain."
"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."
"Filtering of pages and greater personalization in services need improvement."
"Kerio Control has just improved on their biggest problem, which was to introduce better support for high-availability requirements in production."
"It could use a little bit of improvement in the reporting."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
"The solution could always work at being more secure. It's a good idea to continue to work on security features and capabilities in order to ensure they can keep clients safe."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"It needs to be more secure."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"The solution’s interface must be improved."
"Network monitoring and device inventory could use some improvements. I'm using SpiceWorks for this because it never really worked in pfSense."
KerioControl is ranked 28th in Firewalls with 9 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 15 reviews. KerioControl is rated 8.0, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of KerioControl writes "Has good accounting and live monitoring features". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "Feature-rich, well documented, and there is good support available online". KerioControl is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, Cisco Secure Firewall and Untangle NG Firewall. See our KerioControl vs. Netgate pfSense report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
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.