Meraki MX vs SonicWall TZ comparison

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2022

We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and SonicWall TZ based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

Ease of Deployment: Both solutions are easy and straightforward to deploy.

Features: Meraki MX offers next generation filtration options, plus it can behave like a router and a firewall simultaneously. The point-to-point VPNs can intuitively follow IP changes with no need for static IPs. Users say dual WAN connections are seamless and point-to-point VPNs automatically connect regardless of what WAN connection is active. Some users feel security is missing some basic features common with other solutions.

Users say SonicWall TZ offers good security with application control, URL filtering, Gateway Anti-Virus, and IPS protection. They also say the unified threat management provides a robust VPN and security intelligence for both site-to-site and remote access. However, they feel that reporting can be somewhat vague and ambiguous and should be improved.

Pricing: Users of both solutions feel the pricing is a bit expensive.

Service and Support: Users of both solutions feel their service and support is very good.

Comparison Results: Users consider Meraki MX devices to be part of a comprehensive next-generation firewall solution with all the advanced security services required for today’s IT marketplace. They say it is also a robust dynamic Unified Threat Management (UTM) tool. Meraki MX offers zero-touch installation, is cloud-based, and can seamlessly integrate with most of today’s popular platforms. Many users feel SonicWall TZ can be bulky and slow and is lacking some key features.

To learn more, read our detailed Meraki MX vs. SonicWall TZ Report (Updated: July 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Meraki MX vs. SonicWall TZ

July 2024

Download the complete report

Helped 793,295 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 22.6%, up from 18.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Meraki MX is 3.7%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall TZ is 3.5%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Unique Categories:

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

19.7%

WAN Edge

21.4%

Unified Threat Management (UTM)

16.3%

No other categories found

Featured Reviews

Jim Morrill

Network admin at Penobscot Valley Hospital

Feb 3, 2022

An easy-to-use product that does a lot for you and allows you to be independent

It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything. The GUI is good. I'm really happy with the ease of use of the firewall. Fortinet's support is also great.

Read full review

supervis809292

Supervisor of IT Infrastructure & Cybersecurity at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Oct 24, 2023

Great solution that can manage multiple devices (security, switches, APs, Cameras) with a single pane of glass

Some advanced enterprise features are missing, so Meraki MX is not for demanding enterprise networks as it lacks high-level features (including SSL inspection). As for SSL inspection, I think this is better performed on the Client PC where the inspection can be performed before or after the SSL encryption is done. Look at a solution like SentinalOne for this. This type of solution is going to be less prone to problems with SSL inspection. Additionally, the native client VPN uses native OS VPN connectivity in Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. While this is nice from the perspective of no license fees to have a client VPN, there are sometimes issues when drivers or OS updates are released that impact client VPN connectivity. DrayTek makes VPN client software that works with the MX but it is not officially supported by Meraki. I'm not a fan of any security appliance's VPN as they typically allow access to everything on the corporate network. Specific VPN solutions like Absolute allow you to create granular access control to resources inside your firewall. I think having that level of control is a huge security plus. More recently, Meraki implemented the Cisco AnyConnect VPN client with the MX and that is a more reliable solution than using the VPN built into Windows. I highly recommend using that or a 3rd party ZTNA solution. There are so many options available when you are looking to create your security stack. In my experience, I've found that putting all your requirements on one solution will usually result in some level of disappointment. On the Meraki dashboard is a “Make a Wish” button to request new features. I have made multiple wishes and they were all granted.

Read full review

VINEETHBABU P

Senior Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

Nov 3, 2021

Great throughput, no packet loss, but has feature limitations

Our primary use cases are a site-to-site VPN connection, content filtering and in addition SSL VPN connectivity for remote desktops It provides our organization with very low throughput. The site-to-site VPN connections, content filtering, and in our current remote working situation, SSL VPN…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."

"Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."

"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."

"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."

"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."

"We can use our devices to check all of the perimeters. It secures email websites."

"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."

"The most valuable features are the possibility of having one fabric for switching on security."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"It's flexible, easy to configure, and easy to manage."

"Ease of management is the best thing about the solution."

"You can use your web browser to do the configuration which is easier than Cisco CLI transcripts."

"Dual WAN connections are greatly simplified and point-to-point VPNs automatically connect regardless of what WAN connection is active."

"I use Meraki in my POCs and with my customers as well."

"It is a robust SD-WAN solution."

"The features we have found most valuable are the firewall and the monitoring tools."

"The product is quite secure, easy to manage, and well-connected with other devices."

More Meraki MX pros

"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly navigation."

"We like their interface very much. It's pretty easy to use."

"The solution is priced fairly and competitively."

"From our point of view, the most valuable feature was the ease of deployment."

"The product’s filtering and URL-blocking features are valuable."

"Its user interface and simplicity are the most favorite parts for our clients. They find it stable and easy to use. Its performance is also good."

"The best thing about the product is the very good threat prevention output."

"We like the central interface and we like the security features. Additionally, we use SonicWall with VPN connectivity and we have had no problems with SonicWall all these years."

More SonicWall TZ pros

Cons

"The captive portal could be improved."

"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."

"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."

"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."

"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."

"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."

"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."

"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"We can’t access GUI management and CLI opening features when the Internet is unavailable."

"The product is quite complex to set up."

"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."

"I need more UTM protection security features."

"The client-side VPN is weak. The product could be improved with deployment templates."

"The current lead time is longer for Meraki MX, and it needs to be improved."

"The configuration options for firewall and IPS have limitations."

"The IPS, the Intrusion Prevention System, can be improved."

More Meraki MX cons

"The interface and technical support are probably the two most important things that I would like SonicWall to improve."

"The market seems to be going to a cloud-supported, new generation of firewall products. I think that's probably going to be important to us, the next time around."

"The lack of support is having me look into other solutions to replace SonicWALL."

"Pricing could be lowered slightly."

"From a support perspective, if we're talking tech support I think Silver Partners, Gold Partners, Platinum, whatever level, should have a different number to call. End users can call tech support over at SonicWall if they've paid for support as part of their AGSS or whatever services they bought. The end-user can call, or we can call, however, I don't want to be calling the same line that an end user's calling. I don't want the same response time. I need a different level of expertise."

"It could be made more user friendly."

"It could probably be more user-friendly, and it could be more scalable with releases and subscriptions."

"I'd like to have cloud management at no additional cost. Unfortunately, leveraging SonicWall's cloud management capabilities is cost-prohibitive, so we don't use it. They should have a reasonable subscription or offer it to us at no cost as an MSP."

More SonicWall TZ cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."

"The price depends on the size of the company. From the beginning, you just want to know the internet bandwidths, speed, and the number of users to be able to offer the right product and model. They have a lot of products in FortiGate according to the size of the company, like 200D and 300D."

"Its pricing is competitive with other solutions."

"If the customer is looking for SD-WAN, it comes free with FortiGate."

"The pricing depends on the FortiGate model we are using, ranging from $3,000 to $20,000 US dollars."

"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."

"The pricing for the product is alright."

"Its licenses cost the same for different subscription plans."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The pricing could always be improved — especially with the shape the economy is in at the moment."

"I rate the tool's price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is very expensive."

"The solution is expensive compared to other vendors but you can get good discounts if you know the account manager. The product is less expensive than a normal Cisco subscription. The tool's hardware warranty is a lifetime but you need to purchase support which comes in three, five, and seven years subscriptions."

"It is more expensive than other solutions, but it is a cloud-managed network solution and support is given at the moment you call. That give a very big plus."

"The larger MX products are on the expensive side."

"Other content filtering solutions that I have used had more bells and whistles, but given the cost, complexity, and management overhead, I am very pleased with Meraki’s solution."

"Our customers pay for the solution on a monthly basis."

"The product is a little expensive."

More Meraki MX pricing and cost advice

"It has a yearly subscription."

"Getting licenses in our country, Ghana, is not easy. Though, once we have them, adding them is quick (about a day)."

"We have to pay yearly. Its licensing can be improved, and they should provide more features, such as AV, email filtering, and so on with the basic subscription."

"There are a few features that are licensed and there should be more that are licensed. The price of the solution is midrange compared to others, I have not had anyone complain."

"The price is fair for the solution for the quality you receive."

"The solution is moderately priced, where it's neither cheap nor expensive."

"Licensing fees are on a monthly basis."

"The price could be better for us in Bolivia."

More SonicWall TZ pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

23%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Fortigate 60d vs. Meraki MX67 for a small company without a dedicated IT Department

We have Meraki Mx devices now, we are looking to replace them. But that is because the Meraki MX platform lacks SSL I...

See all answers

Which is better - Meraki MX or Cisco ASA Firewall?

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports netw...

See all answers

What do you like most about Meraki MX?

I am happy with the technical support for the solution. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

See all answers

Would you choose Fortinet Fortigate or Sonicwall TZ?

I’ll say it depends on your needs. Fortinet FortiGate and SonicWall TZ are both next-gen firewalls (NGFW) with simila...

See all answers

What do you like most about SonicWall TZ?

The most valuable feature of SonicWall TZ is the double authentication, where it asks for one password and again asks...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall TZ?

The firewall with the servers costs about 80 pounds a month. We get the device, and it is replaced every two or three...

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Meraki MX

Compared 10% of the time

Sophos XG vs Meraki MX

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Meraki MX

Compared 8% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Meraki MX

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs Meraki MX

Compared 5% of the time

More Meraki MX Competitors

Sophos XG vs SonicWall TZ

Compared 14% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs SonicWall TZ

Compared 11% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs SonicWall TZ

Compared 8% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs SonicWall TZ

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs SonicWall TZ

Compared 5% of the time

More SonicWall TZ Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

July 2024

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Meraki MX

July 2024

Download Meraki MX product report

Buyer's Guide

SonicWall TZ

June 2024

Download SonicWall TZ product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate

MX64, MX64W, MX84, MX100, MX400, MX600

Dell SonicWALL TZ

Learn More

Fortinet

Video not available

Cisco

SonicWall

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

Cisco Meraki MX appliances are next-generation firewalls with all the advanced security services needed for today’s IT security. The appliances are ideal for organizations considering a unified threat management (UTM) solution for branch offices, data centers, distributed sites, or campuses. Since Meraki MX is 100% cloud-managed, installation and remote management are simple and zero-touch.

Meraki MX’s hardware and virtual appliances are configurable in Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform, and private cloud support is offered through Cisco NFVIS and Alibaba Cloud.

Organizations of all sizes and across all industries rely on Meraki MX to deliver secure connectivity to hub locations or multi-cloud environments, as well as application quality of experience (QoE) through advanced analytics with machine learning.

Cisco Meraki’s advanced QoE analytics offers:

End-to-end health of web applications at a glance across the LAN, WAN, and application server.

Autonomous machine-learned smart application thresholds applied to identify true anomalies that are based on past behavioral patterns.

Ability to monitor the health of all MX WAN links across an entire organization.

Ability to detail hop-by-hop VoIP performance analysis across all uplinks.

Cisco Meraki’s SD-WAN offers:

The Meraki MX’s SD-WAN is unique in that it can be easily extended to deliver optimized access to resources in public and private cloud environments with virtual MX appliances. Its SD-WAN lowers operational costs and improves the performance of remotely-accessed resources. Users can ensure the availability of the apps and services their employees use most through dynamic path selection, policy-based routing, support for application-layer profiles, and VPN.

Meraki MX offers industry-leading cloud management that has template-based settings which can scale easily from small deployments to tens of thousands of devices. It features an intuitive web-based dashboard for managing mobile devices, united firewalls, switching, and wireless LAN. Users can also benefit from role-based administration, configurable email alerts for a variety of important events, and easily auditable change logs. Meraki MX is capable of producing summary reports with device, user, and application details archived in the cloud.

Meraki MX Key Features

MX has a robust suite of network services in an all-in-one device, which saves you money by eliminating the need for multiple appliances. These services include:

SD-WAN capabilities
SNORT®-based intrusion detection and prevention
Layer 7 fingerprinting
Web caching
Application-based firewalling
Anti-malware
Geo-based firewalling
Content filtering
Site-to-site auto VPN and client VPN
Web search filtering
Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP)
4G cellular failover
Dynamic path selection
Web application health and VoIP health

Reviews from Real Users

Meraki MX stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its easy management and its ability to be accessed remotely. Below is some feedback from PeerSpot users who are currently using Meraki MX as their firewall security solution.

Craig B., a central services engineer at Liberty Technology, writes, “The web console for managing everything keeps everything on Meraki and keeps us from going somewhere else. It is why I think a lot of people like Meraki. Comparing it to SonicWall or even a different Cisco firewall, like traditional ASAs, managing Meraki is a thousand times easier because of fluidity. You don't have to rebuild a table just to change one rule. It's much more readable for a human.”

Edgardo C., an IT director, notes,”By using the VPN, we can connect remotely. We have two offices, and we could connect them through the VPN. We could establish a network between two sites, and that has improved and increased communication and productivity. Our remote site is able to access the server remotely.”

The secure, sophisticated SonicWALL TZ is widely deployed at small businesses, retail, government, remote sites and branch offices. It combines high-performance intrusion prevention, malware blocking, content/URL filtering and application control.

Sample Customers

1. Amazon Web Services 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Cisco 5. Dell 6. HP 7. Oracle 8. Verizon 9. AT&T 10. T-Mobile 11. Sprint 12. Vodafone 13. Orange 14. BT Group 15. Telstra 16. Deutsche Telekom 17. Comcast 18. Time Warner Cable 19. CenturyLink 20. NTT Communications 21. Tata Communications 22. SoftBank 23. China Mobile 24. Singtel 25. Telus 26. Rogers Communications 27. Bell Canada 28. Telkom Indonesia 29. Telkom South Africa 30. Telmex 31. Telia Company 32. Telkom Kenya

Hyatt, ONS

AeroM_xico Delta TechOps, Unimat

Buyer's Guide

Meraki MX vs. SonicWall TZ

July 2024

Free Report: Meraki MX vs. SonicWall TZ

Find out what your peers are saying about Meraki MX vs. SonicWall TZ and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.

DOWNLOAD NOW

793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Meraki MX vs. SonicWall TZ 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.