We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and Palo Alto Networks based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products received high marks from users. Meraki MX has a slight edge in this comparison. According to its reviewers, it is easier to deploy and more reasonably priced than Palo Alto Networks.
"FortiGate's web and URL filtering are unlike any other firewall I've used. The functionality of URL filtering in those solutions is problematic because everything is encrypted, and firewalls can't break that encryption protocol. Fortinet has an SSL proxy, so the encryption is done before the packet ever leaves the FortiGate. The URL filter is definitely one of the most helpful features."
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"It's very easy to configure."
"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"The SD-WAN is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"WAN optimization is the best feature of the solution."
"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."
"You can use your web browser to do the configuration which is easier than Cisco CLI transcripts."
"Ease of management is the best thing about the solution."
"It has a helpful feature for database troubleshooting issues."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"Point-to-point VPNs can dynamically follow IP changes with no need for static IPs."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls enabled us to have better visibility overall."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities."
"The most valuable features are application inspection and sandboxing. Application inspection decides where traffic is transmitted. If I have a perimeter report for a particular service, then other services or malicious services cannot use an open port. In this way, application inspection is doing a fantastic job. We also have a very good sandbox with almost no rate limit. It will inspect any file that comes in and goes out in a dedicated patch to identify malware. Therefore, these two things help me to protect our organization from any bad actors."
"It helps the organization function better by virtue of cleaner and more predictive Internet access and usage being conducted by the employees and constituents of the company. It helps ensure that they have a stronger security posture. It is preventive medicine If you have DNS Security in place. You will be happy you had it. If you don't have it, you may never need it. However, if you did need it, and didn't have it, you will wish that you did. It is one of those things, like insurance."
"The most important feature is the firewall. We can make rules to filter the application layer of traffic. It's a very helpful feature."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have a Single Pass Parallel Processing (SP3) Architecture, which has a different kind of code doing the work. It increases the packet processing rate. Whereas, without the SP3 Architecture, you are waiting for each job to complete, even if you have 100 jobs assigned."
"I typically get involved with it when it comes to audit and compliance and having to gather evidence of those firewalls, routers, and rule sets. The evidence that I typically need is there."
"The user ID, Wildfire, UI, and management configuration are all great features."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"In some cases, its initial setup could be hard for customers."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"Lacks training for new features."
"The product could incorporate tools like ThousandEyes into the system so we can see things directly."
"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."
"MX can only be managed via a web interface, but I'm accustomed to using a CLI or a graphical interface. I would also like to see more reporting features. It doesn't provide enough information for me to know precisely about some clients."
"Meraki MX firewalls are great for small to medium-sized businesses, but other solutions are better for enterprise-sized companies."
"The product is quite complex to set up."
"We can’t access GUI management and CLI opening features when the Internet is unavailable."
"Meraki has some hidden features and information that is only privy to their engineers. If that information became available to us, then it would improve our ease of management, and we would be able to make certain adjustments instead of having to go to them."
"They're very complacent and I find the rule set to be a little arcane."
"Most other VPN clients include mobile VPNs but Palo Alto does not."
"I would like them to improve their GUI interface, making it more user-friendly."
"It's too expensive."
"If you enable SSL you will face a problem. The throughput of the firewall will be degraded. SSL is a big issue on all firewalls. All products suffer from issues with SSL, but Palo Alto firewalls suffer more from it."
"I am in GCC in the Middle East. The support that we are getting from Palo Alto is disastrous. The problem is that the support ticket is opened through the distributor channel. Before opening a ticket, we already do a lot of troubleshooting, and when we open a ticket, it goes to a distributor channel. They end up wasting our time again doing what we have already done. They execute the same things and waste time. The distributor channel's engineer tries to troubleshoot, and after spending hours, they forward the ticket to Palo Alto. It is a very time-consuming process. The distributor channels also do not operate 24/7, and they are very lazy in responding to the calls."
"The analytics could be improved."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls need better training modules. You have to do a lot of reading prior to watching the training videos, and it's good for people who are really into it. However, often you want to use a video for a TID. You want to see how to do something rather than spend 30 minutes reading and then another 30 minutes watching the class. As a result, I take third-party training classes rather than Palo Alto's training because they are a lot better."
"The only area I can see for improvement is that Palo Alto should do more marketing."
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
Meraki MX is ranked 3rd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 20 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 76 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 7.8, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Meraki MX writes "Great solution that can manage multiple devices (security, switches, APs, Cameras) with a single pane of glass". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "Provides zero trust implementation, more visibility, and eliminated security holes". Meraki MX is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, SonicWall NSa and SonicWall TZ, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Azure Firewall, Check Point NGFW, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Meraki MX vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.