We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate and Meraki MX based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Fortinet FortiGate and Meraki MX have a similar user rating regarding ease of deployment, pricing, service and support, and ROI. In terms of features, users of Fortinet FortiGate had mixed reviews on the interface, and felt the reporting feature needed updating. On the other hand, users of Meraki MX felt there was a need for better and more monitoring capabilities.
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"One of the best features is the ease of use. It's also easy to teach new engineers to use the ASA CLI."
"The most valuable features of this solution are advanced malware protection, IPS, and IDS."
"Another benefit has been user integration. We try to integrate our policies so that we can create policies based on active users. We can create policies based on who is accessing a resource instead of just IP addresses and ports."
"It is a very user-friendly product."
"Cybersecurity resilience has been paramount. Because there is a threat of losing everything if ransomware or another sort of attack were to happen, the cybersecurity resilience has been top-notch."
"The most valuable feature is the anti-malware protection. It protects the endpoints on my network."
"It is extremely stable I would say — at least after you deploy it."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Quota."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"The most valuable features are the policies, filtering, and configuration."
"It is easy to manage, and it doesn't need much knowledge from the team. It is a stable device, and there are many features that are included out of the box."
"The most valuable feature of Meraki MX is I can manage the solution from anywhere remotely, I can throttle bandwidth, and create all rules. Additionally, it is secure for our customers."
"I love the simplicity of Meraki MX — specifically, the simplicity of the dashboard."
"Point-to-point VPNs can dynamically follow IP changes with no need for static IPs."
"Dual WAN connections are greatly simplified and point-to-point VPNs automatically connect regardless of what WAN connection is active."
"To me, the analytics feature is one of the most valuable in Meraki MX. I also find that it has good usability as it's cloud-based. Another valuable feature of Meraki MX is that it's simple to use and it's user-friendly."
"The technical support people from Meraki are brilliant."
"They have very good technical support and I have relied heavily on them."
"I think cloud management is key. The cloud management and support are the two things that make the product great."
"One issue with Firepower Management Center is deployment time. It takes seven to 10 minutes and that's a long time for deployment. In that amount of time, management or someone else can ask me to change something or to provide permissions, but during that time, doing so is not possible. It's a drawback with Cisco. Other vendors, like Palo Alto or Fortinet do not have this deployment time issue."
"Maybe the dashboard could be a bit better."
"Web filtering needs improvement because sometimes the URL is miscategorized."
"It is hard to collaborate with our filtered environment."
"I would like it if there was a centralized way to manage policies, then sticking with the network functions on the actual devices. That is probably the thing that frustrates me the most. I want a way that you can manage multiple policies at several different locations, all at one site. You then don't have to worry about the connectivity piece, in case you are troubleshooting because connectivity is down."
"Implementations require the use of a console. It would help if the console was embedded."
"A major area of improvement would be to have more functionality in public clouds, especially in terms of simplifying it. The high availability doesn't work right now because of the limitations in the cloud."
"One of the challenges we've had with the Cisco ASA is the lack of a strong controller or central management console that is dependable and reliable all the time."
"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."
"I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. However, my issue is the performance only. When I use all the profiles, this affects the performance. From the beginning, I should have had a better sizing of the box."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"Meraki tech support staff have a lot more visibility into your network than you do, which is frustrating at times. I understand the approach is to keep the dashboard easier to understand. This will frustrate more advanced users at times."
"The whole Cisco Meraki range requires easier access for cameras. For a security center, it would be helpful to have easier access to cameras through the portal. Its licensing cost could also be better."
"You cannot use switching behaviors as you see on the Meraki switch."
"When we do API integrations with Meraki, they have always been hard as well as tedious to build. The data that we want out of the API integrations has been only recently available. Six months ago, it was hard to get someone to build something correctly or useful with Meraki APIs. Recently, they have made more data available on the API, but it is just a start. They need to do more."
"Meraki MX firewalls are great for small to medium-sized businesses, but other solutions are better for enterprise-sized companies."
"They need to improve the link between Meraki and Active Directory."
"We had minor issues with Meraki MX. We had a couple of RMAs, so that could be an area for improvement, but in terms of how the RMAs went, the turnaround time and getting those back into redeployment were quick. Another area for improvement in Meraki MX is that when you're scaling for multiple locations, you need to use the same model, but the model you'd need is only available for a short time. The specific model you require could be out of stock, or Meraki isn't making that model anymore, so Meraki should improve that."
"They're very complacent and I find the rule set to be a little arcane."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 149 reviews while Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 11 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Meraki MX is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "Stable, easy to set up, and offers good ROI". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Meraki MX writes "Makes it easy to stay on top of everything for security". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with pfSense, Sophos XG, Check Point NGFW, WatchGuard Firebox and SonicWall TZ, whereas Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, SonicWall NSa, pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Meraki MX report.
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definitely the FortiGate , I can assist you with configuration and support if needed .
I recommend that using a Sonicwall as the peripheral firewall as you can easily configure the firewall rules to block certain countries. Its ease of use and SSL inspection and many other features and reporting features are more than sufficient for a small company.
You don't need a dedicated IT department, Sonicwall provide cloud-based support services that can assist you 24hrs/ 7 days.
To enhance the firewall protection further, we also deploy ZoneAlarm and webroot security firewalls at the desktops level. We also have several firewalls routers to safeguard very important servers, giving an onion-like "layers defense" structure.
We have Meraki Mx devices now, we are looking to replace them. But that is because the Meraki MX platform lacks SSL Inspection, Granular Firewall rules (Block only, no allow setting), client vpn relies on windows vpn setup (we would prefer a software solution).
But when we bought Meraki's we were switching from something with little to no visibility into the network. The visibility we got with the meraki and the content filtering and ability to block countries was quick and easy to setup. If we weren't looking to lock things down further, we would renew our Meraki's rather than replace them.
We are also looking at the fortigate series, but we would be using the latest generation - I think the 60f would be the newest of the 60 size.