Cisco Firepower 1000 Series vs. GFI KerioControl

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
The Cisco Firepower® 1000 Series for small to medium-size businesses and branch offices is a family of four threat-focused Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) security platforms designed to deliver business resiliency through superior threat defense. The vendor provides that they offers exceptional sustained performance when advanced threat functions are enabled. The 1000 Series’ throughput range addresses use cases from the small office, home office, remote branch office to the Internet edge. The…N/A
GFI KerioControl
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Kerio Control is a next-gen firewall for SMBs, from Aurea SMB Solutions (formerly GFI Software).N/A
Pricing
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesGFI KerioControl
Editions & Modules
Firepower 1000
1,000-5,000
per appliance
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesGFI KerioControl
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesGFI KerioControl
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesGFI KerioControl
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
8.3
33 Ratings
2% below category average
GFI KerioControl
8.6
1 Ratings
1% above category average
Identification Technologies8.031 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Visualization Tools7.230 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Content Inspection8.230 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.633 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.629 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.132 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Reporting and Logging8.133 Ratings7.01 Ratings
VPN9.228 Ratings9.01 Ratings
High Availability9.332 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.928 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesGFI KerioControl
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.4 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.4 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesGFI KerioControl
Likelihood to Recommend
7.5
(34 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(5 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
8.3
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.3
(29 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(34 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.3
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesGFI KerioControl
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
I think it is well suited for smaller companies or (as in our case) extension to a central system with higher performance. My personal guess is, that it can be quite annoying with those delays in bigger environments, when 20 or more devices needed to be managed. From the point of security, support and updates it works quite good and seem to have no downsides.
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GFI Software
IT works very well in the non-profit and small business space when there is a need for remote access or connecting several sites in a point to point VPN, user management and rule creation are very easy. The use of the MyKerio website for remote management also makes it easy to troubleshoot problems and make changes if technical staff are not onsite.
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Pros
Cisco
  • My organization is all Cisco and wants to stay in the Cisco life cycle, Firepower 1000 series is great for small to medium-size office.
  • Very robust enterprise-grade security solution with updated threat features to handle any current and upcoming threats. The solution is backed by Cisco to ensure constant security updates. Integrated AnyConnect remote client VPN is a big plus to allow for secure remote workers access. Easier to set up a site to site VPN due to the large user base and case studies published on integrating to other manufacturer solutions.
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GFI Software
  • VPN for Remote Employees
  • Point to point VPNs
  • Scanning of traffic
  • Ease of management
  • Website filtering by both sites and key words
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Cons
Cisco
  • ACLS in gui are PIA cant see object details
  • Objects in ACLs dont show IP addresses
  • Have to renames every object to name+ip to make acl GUI useable
  • Speed to data can use improvement.
  • Health warnings should allow you to resolve you have to dig n search in some cases.
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GFI Software
  • Support can take longer to respond that it should
  • Could work better with resellers
  • Spend more effort on adding new features
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
It is quite good, robust and reliable but not always so easy to manage and configure. The tools could be improved and the price is not low for an entry level firewall
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GFI Software
No answers on this topic
Usability
Cisco
Firepowers are secure, reliable, central management and configuration is easy and they fit in well with our existing Cisco infrastructure. Good feature set and support. Good management and control with chassis manager and central control with additional Firepower Management Centre.
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GFI Software
Very easy to use and manage, user training takes less then 10 minutes. Technicians can perform basic tasks with less then an hour of training and can master it in under a year.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
Has not let me down yet.
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GFI Software
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cisco
Great performance even on the lower end model of the series. You can push a lot of traffic through these devices without much performance impact. If you decide you want to inspect encrypted traffic however, you may take a big hit on the cpu and memory of the box, but they still manage to keep up even with all the bells and whistles turned on.
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GFI Software
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
I have had troubles with Firepower Management Center and the FTD's in the past. Sticking to a Gold Star image and upgrading when the "bugs" are fixed is great. That still doesn't mean you are left vulnerable though. The extra features are just not enabled yet. Great product and calling support is readily available for any issue.
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GFI Software
Support is very slow to respond and it takes a long time to convince level 1 techs that you need to be moved up to someone more senior. I believe support is outsourced and they are graded on how few tickets they need to escalate to higher tiers so they will try to figure out a solution even if it is detrimental to the overall support experience.
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
Utilize the new FMC cloud which is available in Cisco Defense Orchestrator.
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GFI Software
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco Meraki MX is much more simple to configure it if you compare to Cisco Firepower 1000, but it is more limited to pur some complex configurations. The Cisco Firepower 1000 Series is typically deployed as a physical appliance, while the Meraki MX can be deployed as a physical or virtual appliance.The Firepower 1000 Series has a more complex user interface, with a steeper learning curve, but offers more customization and configuration options. The Meraki MX has a simpler, more intuitive interface,
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GFI Software
We found Kerio Control to provide the most features and easiest management of all the solutions we looked at, while cost was not the lowest the value was by far the best when you considered all the factors, costs, and manhours involved in deployment and management.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • We have seen improved throughput on our internet.
  • It took several attempts with Cisco engineers to configure the device; it requires a deep set of knowledge to set up in a more complicated environment.
  • This will allow us to move forward with a more stable and configurable environment with security available we didn't have before.
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GFI Software
  • Easy to use makes it easy to train, reducing employee time and IT staff costs.
  • Statefull inspection and web filtering greatly reduce malware incursions.
  • Fact it can run on standard PC hardware greatly reduces cost to implement and makes scaling much less expensive.
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ScreenShots