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Cisco Meraki vMX vs Fortinet FortiGate comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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

Cisco Meraki vMX
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (19th)
Fortinet FortiGate
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
595
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (2nd), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (2nd), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category, the mindshare of Cisco Meraki vMX is 1.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 8.2%, down from 16.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate8.2%
Cisco Meraki vMX1.3%
Other90.5%
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Liao - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Manager at DYXnet Group
Cloud connectivity has improved secure orchestration and simplified multi-site management
The most valuable features in Cisco Meraki vMX are easy deployment, an easy-to-read dashboard for information, and automatic load balancing for two circuits in the MX. These are the most important key features for our small business customers. I believe you can integrate Cisco Meraki vMX analytics for network performance when deploying it on any public cloud platform. Encryption is important, and Cisco Meraki vMX supports what most customers want, such as AES 256 or 128. The product supports modern encryption functions and features, making the connection more secure, easy to deploy, and monitor. I think the orchestration feature is beneficial. The automated failover capabilities are very important to our customers because the IT department does not need to configure any parameters; they can switch over themselves. If such an event occurs, the system will send the customers an email to notify them when it goes down or when any device is out of order. This is very easy for the IT department.
VR
Practice Head at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Unified security has protected diverse environments and supports consistent policies everywhere
I would say 8 out of 10 regarding the stability of Fortinet FortiGate. It requires a lot of bug fixing and what I understand, Fortinet is fast enough to provide bug fixes and patches, but usually I suggest Fortinet should do thorough testing of their releases and software releases and once probably they can reduce the frequency of new releases but make it stable. That's what my recommendation is. As far as the core objective of Fortinet FortiGate is concerned, I think they are meeting the targets but I guess for rolling out new features and new updates, they are doing a bit of hurry just to cope with the market dynamics. But possibly, I understand that they are compromising on the quality of the software and stability. So over there they have to improve. Rest of the aspects, I guess they are doing pretty good. We are happy. Regarding my experience with Fortinet FortiGate in comparison to maybe some other vendors such as CyberArk, Fortinet is in the top three and they give a lot of competition to their nearest peers in the market. But I guess Fortinet is really struggling in software-defined LAN, Wi-Fi, and FortiSwitches space. So they have to make their products more affordable in Forti-switching and Forti-WiFi space. They are not able to compete effectively with the nearest competitor HP Enterprise and HP Aruba.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Meraki dashboard helps manage our network effectively because it is quite easy; we manage ourselves very well."
"Cisco Meraki vMX offers sufficient features for most customers; it is very easy to handle and proves very efficient, with the main advantages being the visibility it provides and the ease of administration."
"<p>The most valuable features in Cisco Meraki vMX are easy deployment, an easy-to-read dashboard for information, and automatic load balancing for two circuits in the MX, which are the most important key features for our small business customers.</p>"
"The main reason we chose Fortinet FortiGate was that the price was better than the competition."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is inspection."
"Fortinet FortiGate is among the best firewall solutions, having a significant market share in Egypt."
"We find it's good for managing the network and offers good defense against attacks."
"The solution is used in my company since its management is very comfortable"
"The best feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the IPS or IDS implementation."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"Previously, we were using a different solution, and as compared to that solution, it is very easy to handle."
 

Cons

"In comparison with Aruba, I find Aruba to be far better in terms of deployment, ClearPass, and everything, which is all very easy."
"<p>Cisco Meraki vMX needs to improve its ability to configure complex policy-based routing.</p>"
"In comparison with Aruba, I find Aruba to be far better in terms of deployment, ClearPass, and everything, which is all very easy."
"It is not the strongest security solution, so if you want to have next-generation firewall features, you always need an additional component."
"For Fortinet FortiGate, their code development would definitely be something they need to improve on to reduce vulnerabilities that need to be patched."
"The solution lacks multi-language support."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"It would be helpful to have a better tool for migrating all policy rules using an automatic script."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"IPs are not handled well and the process is unnecessarily complicated."
"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"There is a subscription-based model to use Fortinet FortiGate. We pay annually for the solution along with the support. If you want to have all the updates, and security patches you will need to renew your support."
"The pricing for the product is alright."
"We find the most valuable aspect of this solution is the price. It is affordable, and cheaper than other firewalls."
"The product is not very expensive."
"The price for the device and software is high. However, the solution is of good quality and has a lot of features."
"Fortinet FortiGate is cheaper than Palo Alto. It is about 20% cheaper."
"The beauty is the price performance ratio is great with FortiGate. It provides all the features we needed and the price is comparable with others' firewalls. The price is quite competitive with the firewalls with similar features."
"Pricing for Fortinet FortiGate SWG is more suitable for enterprise or large-sized organizations because they are the ones who can afford it versus small and medium-sized organizations."
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant with 51-200 employees
Jan 3, 2016
Sophos UTM vs. Fortinet FortiGate
I have used both Sophos and Fortinet products in production and I have found the Sophos UTM appliances (hardware and virtual) to be a better fit most of the time -- with a few caveats which I will touch on below. In both instances, the transition from TMG will be mostly straightforward. The main…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business373
Midsize Enterprise139
Large Enterprise195
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Meraki vMX?
Cisco Meraki vMX needs to improve its ability to configure complex policy-based routing. The product can only be set up via the GUI interface and cannot perform complex tasks like a Cisco router wh...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Meraki vMX?
I am an architect planning for our customers to plan their enterprise connectivity via Cisco Meraki vMX and SASE. This is for internet access for mobile users, and I am a reseller, not using the pr...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Meraki vMX?
I have no idea about additional features that I would like to see in the next release to make it better. My customers will buy it from the AWS Marketplace and Azure. In my opinion, Cisco Meraki vMX...
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 at large. In my opinion, Fortinet would be the best option and l use Fortinet too...
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 the firewalls change every 5 to 7 years as stated but you really do need to upg...
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 good. The most valuable features for me are their web and email filtering. I wou...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Meraki vMX vs. Fortinet FortiGate and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.