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Hillstone CloudEdge vs KerioControl comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
589
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Hillstone CloudEdge
Ranking in Firewalls
52nd
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
KerioControl
Ranking in Firewalls
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (15th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 17.2%, down from 21.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone CloudEdge is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KerioControl is 1.1%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate17.2%
KerioControl1.1%
Hillstone CloudEdge0.2%
Other81.5%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd
Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches
Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.
Albert-Wang - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at SiS Technologies
Comprehensive cloud security with robust threat protection and VPN capabilities
Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud. This solution has a unified OS system for security products, ensuring that the virtual firewall has similar features to the on-premise solutions. Important features include a VPN, VTech VPN, SSL VPN, QoS, antivirus, threat protection, and sandbox capabilities.
Constantnos Achilleos - PeerSpot reviewer
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My primary use is for border protection for connectivity out onto the Internet, and this product has performed exceptionally well."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable and affordable product."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is a good solution because it has a range of options and a clear ecosystem."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall's design is good...I am very impressed with the product's stability."
"Most of the customers look at Cisco, Cisco Meraki, Palo Alto, and Fortinet, and they go with Fortinet because of the best performance per dollar spent and ease of licensing and management."
"I think FortiGate is more reliable, consistent, and easy to learn."
"It is stable and easy to use. There are a lot of good resources available on the web."
"Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud."
"I'd rate the solution nine out of ten."
"The solution is very easy to download and configure. The initial setup was very easy. The technical support is very good."
"I would recommend this product to any business that wants to protect its cloud environment, cloud server, or on-premises virtual servers."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"Kerio Control gives us everything in one solution."
"The user interface and the ease of use are pretty good. Everything fits together so nicely."
"It works well as it is, and I don't have a problem with how it works."
"The firewall and intrusion detection features are good. It has blocked certain things. We have a lot of blocked sites that the staff or anyone using it, the public, etc., can't go on. It works for that. I get quite a few messages every now and again, saying that a virus has been detected and I can go in and block the user who's causing the problem."
 

Cons

"Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting."
"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"In the scenarios coming from Sophos, it has not."
"It needs more available central management."
"Fortinet already improved FortiGate, but in the current market, many brands of security devices have improved together. Fortinet still needs to catch up with market standards. Fortinet is lacking in features in comparison to competitors."
"Some time ago we upgraded to the Fortinet solution of our previous partner and there was a memory leak which created problems."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"The comprehensiveness of the security features could be improved upon. However, for the most part, it is pretty good."
"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."
"When we did our last update, we had some trouble with the initial syncing process to get our messaging to go through."
"The improvement that we are looking for is for when decide to move some part of our application to the cloud."
"One of the problems we do have causes problems with the VPN. The software slows the throughput down too much. You could have a one-gigabit connection from the internet, and it slows it down to the area of upload and download is extremely slow. There's too much content filtering at that point."
"There were certain things I didn't know about it, but I've always been able to just contact our IT company."
"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."
"The upgrades make the network slower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For the performance that we get, the price is reasonable. There are cheaper options, but they may not deliver the same kind of performance that we want. For the performance they provide, the price is acceptable."
"The support subscription for the solution is annual. You are paying for support and there are two levels of support, professional and advanced."
"There is no challenge in Fortinet FortiGate pricing."
"Each feature costs money, so it is important to study your needs."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"Its licenses cost the same for different subscription plans."
"Fortinet FortiGate IPS' licensing is quite simple to understand."
"The price of FortiGate support is too expensive."
Information not available
"The price of the solution is reasonable. For additional costs, you can add on more features such as antivirus."
"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."
"My advice is to use your own hardware, and do not use theirs."
"The price is inexpensive."
"It's pretty expensive in licensing costs, especially if you use the product longer than one or two years. The licensing costs are still high, which I don't think is reasonable for a product like this."
"The price of Kerio Control could be better, it is a bit overpriced compared to other solutions."
"Our clients see ROI with Kerio Control, as they are saving bandwidth costs."
"Licensing is easier with Kerio Control. With FortiGate, we realized the licensing is really hectic, because if you skip one year, you have to back pay that year. If you skip two years, you have to back pay two years. With Kerio Control, if a license expires, one year later you can just reactivate and go on."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business365
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise191
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise3
 

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 needs improvement with Hillstone CloudEdge?
There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance. M...
What is your primary use case for Hillstone CloudEdge?
Our primary use case is to provide cloud-based security solutions for customers using public cloud platforms. We dist...
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...
What needs improvement with KerioControl?
Regarding KerioControl's application awareness and control feature, I have not used it much.
What is your primary use case for KerioControl?
With KerioControl, we usually use them for site-to-site VPNs for most of our clients. With multiple offices, we use K...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
LinkTime
Triton Technical, McDonald's
Find out what your peers are saying about Hillstone CloudEdge vs. KerioControl and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.