KerioControl vs SonicWall NSSP comparison

GFI and SonicWall are both solutions in the Firewalls category. GFI is ranked #34 with an average rating of 7.5, while SonicWall is ranked #39 with an average rating of 7.3. GFI holds a 1.5% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to SonicWall’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of GFI users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of SonicWall users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

KerioControl and SonicWall NSSP both provide comprehensive network security solutions. KerioControl is favored for its ease of use and cost-effectiveness, while SonicWall NSSP excels in advanced features and scalability. Users appreciate KerioControl's value for money but consider SonicWall NSSP superior for robust security functionality.

Features: KerioControl users highlight its straightforward configuration, effective basic security functions, and user-friendliness. In contrast, SonicWall NSSP users value its advanced threat protection, extensive scalability capabilities, and superior security functionality.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest KerioControl could improve its reporting tools, integration options, and focus on advanced features. For SonicWall NSSP, enhancements are needed in its learning curve, performance optimization, and usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: KerioControl is praised for its simple deployment process and responsive customer support. SonicWall NSSP, while more complex to deploy, offers substantial customer support but requires more technical expertise.

Pricing and ROI: KerioControl is viewed as cost-effective with good ROI for smaller to mid-sized businesses. SonicWall NSSP, although more expensive, delivers higher ROI for larger enterprises needing advanced security.

To learn more, read our detailed KerioControl vs. SonicWall NSSP Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

KerioControl vs. SonicWall NSSP

April 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 May 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KerioControl is 1.5%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall NSSP is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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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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Lenin Christopher

Director at Techfruits

Enhanced security with advanced threat protection and superior support

We serve as an integrator for SonicWall, deploying this solution for customers in the media and entertainment, banking, and finance sectors. We use SonicWall to protect their environments against digital attacks SonicWall has helped us deliver security solutions effectively, particularly in…

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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

"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."

"It is easy to use and performs very well."

"Fortinet FortiGate brings numerous benefits to my company."

"The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."

"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."

"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."

"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."

"Layer-3 firewall and routing are the most valuable features."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Its support is very good, and it is stable product."

"The tool shows what has been blocked externally. It's very good because once installed and correctly set up, it allows you to work from home as if you are in the office, without any errors or issues. It's very simple to use, click to connect or disconnect."

"Kerio Control can be scaled easily."

"The most valuable feature is the reliability of VPN capabilities. The VPN has been very reliable and secure. The security has been very good and the VPN connections are reliable in that they stay up. We don't have a lot of problems with downtime and that type of thing."

"The solution is user-friendly."

"I have found the most valuable features of Kerio Control to be the IPS and firewall."

"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."

"The most valuable features include geo-tagging, which blocks all other IPs except for the specified accounts, and web filtering."

More KerioControl pros

"The product's most valuable features are simplicity and comprehensive protection capabilities, including load balancing, IPS, antivirus, and web filtering."

"I like the filtering feature, which provides easy access. The SSL certification feature is also nice. The solution enhanced our security posture."

"It has been delivering results efficiently. Its configurations and updates have been easy. It is also user-friendly."

"The solution's pricing is good."

"SonicWall NSSP is stable and scalable too."

"The VPN functionality is really good. Overall, the whole device is very easy to manage. The software that comes with it is also good."

"SonicWall has helped us deliver security solutions effectively, particularly in threat prevention and content filtering."

Cons

"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."

"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."

"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."

"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."

"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."

"I prefer Palo Alto over Fortinet FortiGate. Its IPS engine is not better than the Palo Alto version. The monitoring tool needs improvement, and the syslog configuration needs enhancement."

"Backup can be improved."

"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."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"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."

"Filtering of pages and greater personalization in services 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."

"I would like to see a little improvement in their technical support when you have a problem. I may be a little jaded because I came from Kerio when we could call and get a person on the phone who worked on the product. Every tech had their own demo setup. They had instant messaging capability with the developers. If we found a problem, then we could get a result for it quickly. Now, the product seems to be 24 hours. They have also gone to the model that if you need quicker support, then they now charge you additional for the exact same level of support that they used to give. I am assuming it's the exact same level of support that they say it is. I'm not paying extra for it. That's the biggest flaw with the product."

"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."

"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."

"One area that confused me a bit when I was building my current network. I use VLANs to have separate functionality on the network, and the appliance I got was the WiFi model, but I discovered that you can't assign WiFi channels to the VLAN. So, you can have WiFi, but its own subnet. You can't run that over the VLAN. Effectively, I can't use the WiFi facility in the appliance and had to purchase a separate web that supports VLANs. In the end, I had to go to GFI support. They confirmed this is just a limited functionality of that device, as it is a low-end device. I don't know if any of their high-end models have a better facility or not."

More KerioControl cons

"The platform could benefit from an improved marketing strategy."

"No security product is foolproof against hackers, intruders, and other such things. As a security product, they have to keep pace in terms of protection from new hackers and intruders."

"Its reporting functions can be improved. It has decent reporting, but you got to pay a lot more money for it. That's where it begins to fall apart. It comes with minimal zero reporting unless you buy some extra modules. With those extra modules, you can get all the data, but it takes a while to put together what you need for your customer. It is for technical people, but there is no executive summary of the reporting."

"The EDR and XDR capabilities of SonicWall need to be improved."

"The user interface, the GUI, could be improved."

"The product needs improvement for phishing emails."

"The solution's stability and scalability also need improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale of one being cheap and ten being expensive, I rate the tool's price as an eight."

"Fortigate's pricing is competitive."

"If the price of the license in Fortinet FortiGate was less expensive it would be better."

"Compared to other firewall products, it's a little cheaper in terms of pricing."

"There is a license to use Fortinet FortiGate."

"The product pricing is reasonable."

"Fortinet's pricing is more straightforward than other solutions. If Fortinet doesn't stick out when you're searching for a solution, you are a glutton for punishment. You only need to know two things when purchasing a Fortinet solution: your total bandwidth and bandwidth at the site. You need to estimate the future bandwidth with other solutions if your customer plans to upgrade."

"I find it quite reasonable."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is good, but the licensing took a lot of time."

"The fixed model of users and devices is a bit of a problem for us. We want to be able to expand it fast and not have to contact our supplier first to get a license... If they had a larger fixed price with unlimited users or devices, that would help. Now, it's five users each time. A pack of 100 or 200 users for a certain price would make it more dynamic and user-scalable."

"KerioControl's pricing is good."

"We have to pay approximately EUR 175 for the product."

"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."

"The price of Kerio Control could be better, it is a bit overpriced compared to other solutions."

"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 price is fine."

More KerioControl pricing and cost advice

"You got to buy some VPN licenses, and there might be a $40 to $50 one-time license fee per current user. There are different layers. They have several different levels of event security software and depending on the model, it seems to come out to be $1 to $2 a day. So, if you bought a three-year license, it is going to be anywhere from $900 to $1800 depending on the bundle and model that you buy."

"The pricing is cheap, and that's where, you know, the some of the organization goes for the SonicWall."

"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."

"The setup costs and licensing are reasonable, and the solution provides good value for its features."

"For SonicWall NSSP high availability, active/passive, you need to buy one license, and so you get much more value for money."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

23%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Media Company

No data available

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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What do you like most about SonicWall NSSP?

The solution's pricing is good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall NSSP?

SonicWall is a rather expensive solution with a rating of eight out of ten regarding its pricing. Despite being expen...

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What needs improvement with SonicWall NSSP?

The EDR and XDR capabilities of SonicWall need to be improved. When compared to a brand like SentinelOne, SonicWall s...

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Netgate pfSense vs KerioControl

Compared 32% of the time

OPNsense vs KerioControl

Compared 14% of the time

Sophos XG vs KerioControl

Compared 8% of the time

Sophos UTM vs KerioControl

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs KerioControl

Compared 5% of the time

More KerioControl Competitors

SonicWall NSa vs SonicWall NSSP

Compared 49% of the time

More SonicWall NSSP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

KerioControl

April 2025

Download KerioControl product report

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

April 2025

Download SonicWall NSSP product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

SonicWall Network Security Services Platform

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

The SonicWall Network Security services platform (NSsp) 12000 series takes a modern approach to threat detection and prevention by combining cloud intelligence with appliance-based protection in a scalable, high-speed platform.

SonicWall

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

Comlogic, Depaul, Hutt City Council

Buyer's Guide

KerioControl vs. SonicWall NSSP

April 2025

Free Report: KerioControl vs. SonicWall NSSP

Find out what your peers are saying about KerioControl vs. SonicWall NSSP and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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